After seeing Tom's post about the '04 SRT-4 I had the urge to look into possibly buying one last week. My thoughts were to trade in my '02 Sonoma and get the Neon.
I did some searching on the net to see who had one and their sticker price. Hendrick Dodge in Cary had two with a sticker of just over $21,000. So I e-mailed them and talked to a salesman on the phone a few times over a period of two days. He assured me they could work a deal and wanted me to "make an appointment" to look at it on Saturday. Since he had all my figures trade-in and so forth I figured it would be worth the trip.
After making my "appointment" (what's up with that?) I arrived at 11:15 Saturday morning. To start with the salesman was 30 minutes late to the "appointment" which I didn't like. I figured the point was for us both to be there on time right? That was just the start.
He looked at my trade and offered me a test drive in the car. He drove it off the lot to a nearby gas station and never gave it enough throttle to spool the turbo! Boy I was impressed.
After he gassed it up I was "allowed" to drive it back for a distance of about 1/4 mile...woohoo! Traffic was tight so I got into the boost for about 1/2 of one gear...man that was a blast.
Next was the paperwork on a performance car I was only allowed to drive about 45 MPH for a quarter mile. After 10 minutes he offered me $3,000 less than the pay-off on my truck, the new car for $4,500 over the sticker, and $3,000 down. The math...$32,000 for a Neon...you've got to be kidding me!
He said they were only allotted three this year so they would not sell it for less that the $25,000 they had posted on the window of the car. Mind you the price on their website which lured me in was $21,000. False advertising in my book, if not enough to piss me off anyway.
I guess I need to go to another dealer or go to the Dan Ecclestone school of new car financing.
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