Monday, January 14, 2008

Pregnancy Tests and Car Dealerships...

So Haai!!

I know.  It's been nearly 4 months since my last post

*clair hangs her head in shame*

SO, back to the subjects at hand....

1.  test

 

I am pregnant!  Hurrah!  Un-planned by us, but obviously planned by God (who, as Caleb informed us earlier this evening, made, me, him, daddy, dan-dan and mommy's phone!)  So far I have done 7 pregnancy tests, all positive, so i think it's fairly safe to say that i am indeed pregnant.  I am going for my first scan on 30 Jan, can't wait!!  So that means we now need not one, not two but THREE car seats, which means that we need a bigger car, which brings me to the second part of the subject of this post.... (how smooth was that transition???)

We own a storm blue, Feb 2005 model, 1.6 16v Scenic II Authentic.  It is in very very good condition and has done just over 100 000kms.  We decided we should look into either a Kia Carens, Mazda 5 or Grand Scenic. 

Mazda 5  

 

mazda5jpg

This is a very lovely car with lovely sliding doors and 3 rows of seats.  It costs about R209 000 which is acceptable.  We go to the Mazda dealership and get helped by the friendliest most knowledgeable sales man i have met in a long time.  He showed us how the car works, how the seats fold, let the kids jump around the car and even chatted to Caleb like he was important!  He promised to phone me first thing Monday morning (today) and sure as eggs he did!  SO, off i went for the test drive today, the car is really excellent, the only complaint is that the window buttons are chrome and look a bit crappy.  He then set off to do the valuation of my scenic (Sally)  they were gone for ages, and the caucus emerged 45 minutes later and offered me a measly R60 000!!!!  The book value is R112 000!!  Apparently that is what Renault offered them for the vehicle.  He then proceeded to tell me that Renault have the worst re-sale value and that i should get out of owning a Renault as soon as possible.  He also told me that Renault would be closing it's Pinetown branch soon as there is soon to be only one Renault Dealership in KZN......I have no idea if that is true or not.  He then very kindly, offered to give me an R8000.00 discount.  Sorry for you mate, we can't afford to buy your car unless you settle it for us!! 

 

Kia Carens

 

kiacarens

We arrived at Kia, and had a look at the Carens, it's also a really excellent car and seems like fantastic value at R214 000.  It has leather seats, airbags, abs etc, parking sensors and of course the all important 3 rows of seats, and comes standard with roof racks!  The sales lady was also extremely helpful and showed us how everything worked and did a valuation of our car for us while we were looking at the new one.  She too promised to phone me on Monday morning (today) with the valuation and to arrange a test drive.  She never did phone back.  I eventually called her at 3 this afternoon and she said that she was still waiting for the settlement figure to get back to us.  I am going for a test drive on Wednesday morning, will let you know what it's like!!

Renault Grand Scenic 2.0 Dynamique

grandscenic

We arrived at the Renault dealership (bear in mind that we all ready own a Renault and always take our car to the dealership for it's services) we milled around for ages until someone came over to 'help' us.  He had absolutely NO idea how the seats folded down or up, or how to set up the extra seats in the back.  When we asked him if it was safe to put a car seat in the extra seats in the third row, we just got a completely blank stare and he disappeared off for about half an hour and came back with a Renault brand car seat (he thought we were asking him about the car seat not the actual seat in the car!)  Another sales rep arrived and promptly tried to 'help' me fit our car seat in the back and just made it more and more tricky.  The original sales rep just disappeared off the planet.  He then sat down with me and tried to do a valuation, but he couldn't because he didn't have the right piece of paper or some other nonsense.  He told us to come back on Saturday morning to have the valuation done.  Which we did.  We arrived and waited around for well over an hour while someone took the car for a drive.  The sales manager then had the absolute cheek to ask us if he should 'try' and arrange more than our settlement figure for the car.  DUH!!  We owe much less than the car is worth.  He then told us that he couldn't complete the valuation because the guy wasn't there.  He promised to call me on Monday (Today) with the valuation figure.  Of course, he didn't and i ended up calling him at about 4.  He informed me that the guy who does the valuations wasn't there.  This was after 5 minutes of him not remembering us even coming in on saturday!!  He then told me how much money he made over the Christmas period and how happy he was to work over Christmas because he made soooo much.  He then promised to call me tomorrow.  I was so put off by the awful service!  I don't even like the grand scenic and i think it's just because the service has put me off!  It is a lot more than the other cars at R241 000.  Lets just hope that they give us a really excellent deal!!

I am officially of the opinion that car dealerships are just out to rip customers off.