Though my wife and I were feeling beaten and beleaguered by our used car shopping expeditions, we got on the road again this morning, hoping to seal a deal . . . we headed back to the Raceway Kia in Freehold, the first dealership we visited on our tour of New Jersey, and where we thought we had a decent deal pending on a red 2020 Kia Sportage Ex which was in good shape and had new tires-- we didn't love the initial salesman that we interacted with, he was a bit abrasive and pushy, but the manager seemed was a cool guy and got us near where we wanted to be-- $21,500 out-the-door . . . and my pickleball buddy Tony, a used car purchaser and salesman said this was a very good price, which we had confirmed by checking out 2020 Kia Sportages all around the Garden State-- many of which did not run orr smelled like cat pee-- but when we checked on this particular car in the morning, the price had mysteriously gone up by two grand, so we expected the worst-- although the dealership did have an S model from 2021 which we thought might also fit our needs, but that only had 25k miles on it and it was a year newer so we didn't know if that would be in our price ballpark-- anyway, when we got there, our initial salesman hadn't gotten into work yet-- he was late, and the manager Ufuoma took care of us for a bit and told us to give this guy some shit for being late-- then when he did get in, he told us the red Sportage was sold and gone, but we could take a look at the other car-- but my wife's Spidey-Sense alerted her to some possible subterfuge-- this dude didn't check his computer he just cavalierly said the car was no longer available-- and so while he was going to get the other car, we checked online and then gave a quick call to the other side of the road, Raceway Nissan and apparently the red Sportage was NOT sold, it was still available-- and we told Ufuama the manager this and he was pretty pissed off at his late abrasive sales guy and there was some conflict when he got back and my wife said that she really hadn't liked this guy from the get-go and he said, "I'm right here! You're talking about me in front of me" but that's how it goes in these used car dealerships, they're set up for drama-- so then we were handed over to another young man, who was the first guy into work and the first guy that greeted us, and he turned out to be an East Brunswick graduate-- the school I teach at-- so we hit it off, but once we got down to nuts-and-bolts it turned out that the general manager would NOT approve the $21,500 on the red 2020 model, Ufuoma's price was TOO aggressive and so we thought we were back to square one, but we said how about the 2021 S model, which still had everything we needed-- but no keyless entry and no powered rear hatch-- which we did NOT care about, we just wanted roof racks-- and then the CLIPBOARD came into play-- I had been taking copious notes on a clipboard and although they could have all been bullshit, they were not, and Ufuoma took a look at the clipboard and what the Honda place in Old Bridge offered us on a 2020 S . . . $21, 342 and he said, "If I can do close to that, what do you think?" so we drove the 2021 S and it drove well and was immaculately kept and had a clean CarFax and we did all the wacky bullshit and at some point we all hugged it out-- Ufuoma is a very amicable and very jacked dude . . . in fact, so was the East Brunswick grad sales guy-- he showed us some videos of him working out with some ripped Instagram influencers-- and I should say that there were some pretty clear gender roles in the used car world-- the salesmen are bros and the service guys are dudes and the money and clerical people are nice ladies-- absurd-- and I should also say that we spent WAY too much time in these places, including nearly five hours to finalize all this and we all learned way too much about everyone and everything in this dealership, but we ended up getting a deal that made us all happy, we paid $21,750 out-the-door for a gray 2021 Kia Sportage S with 25k miles on it, but it was not fun and it was not easy and there was more hugging than I'm normally comfortable with, but I like the way the car drives, I like the dashboard, and the color and type of car is definitely an under-the-radar type model, so I'll have no problem sneaking out of work early, without being identified, which is the main reason to own your own car.
