Like Driving a Sofa

December 3rd, 2024

I sat next to her at the dealership. I had been in almost the same position exactly one year prior, when I bought the young woman a Honda Accord. Unfortunately, she no longer owned the Accord. Two weeks ago, she had totaled the car in an accident. I don’t know all the details of the accident, and they don’t really matter that much. She wasn’t cited or arrested. However, she instantly became carless and in need of transportation. For purely selfish reasons, I agreed to go to the car dealership and help her to buy another ride. I was not willing to be her chauffeur, even for a short period of time. I told her that I had no intention of paying for the whole purchase. She had money from her insurance company, but it would not quite pay for a car, even a beater. I offered to cover what her claim settlement would not pay.

I despise car dealerships, passionately. I could try to describe this particular one, but they are all pretty much the same. The sales team is always composed of people working on commission, and they are either utterly bored or feverishly trying to convince a customer to buy a vehicle. I don’t envy those individuals. I could never do that kind of work. I would rather clean bathrooms. At least then I would still have my self-respect.

She had looked up a car online that she wanted. It was a 2012 Ford Focus. As expected, it was no longer there by the time we showed up. The sales rep looked on his computer for other cars in her price range, which was a rather low range.

He told her, “I have a 2009 Buick Lucerne for around $5K. It has 160,000 miles on it. There was only one owner, so it looks pretty clean.”

I looked at her. “You want to see it?”

She nodded to me with an obvious lack of enthusiasm.

I glanced around the showroom. I noticed something odd.

I asked the sales rep, “”You have a gong here?’

He looked back over his shoulder at the large brass gong hanging in the room, with a mallet sitting next to it. “Yeah, we do.”

“So, do you hit the gong when you make a sale?”

He smiled and said, “The customer bangs the gong.”

I suspected we were not going to bang the gong.

The dealer went out to the lot to look for the car. That took quite a while. I have never understood how car dealerships can lose track of their vehicles. I worked for almost three decades at a trucking company and we always knew where every piece of equipment was. We made yard checks several times a day to keep track of the trucks and trailers. Years ago, I worked very briefly at a car dealership, and nobody there knew where their vehicles were. I remember walking around the lot for over an hour only to learn that the car I needed to find was offsite at a vendor for detailing. This place was very similar to my former employer’s.

At last, the salesperson pulled up in a black Buick. I let the young woman make the test drive on her own. She has frequently commented that I don’t know much about cars, so there was no reason for me to ride along. She came back looking unimpressed.

I asked her, “How was it?”

She replied, “The steering seemed…kind of loose.”

The salesman smiled and said, “It’s a Buick. It’s a soft, smooth ride. It’s like driving a sofa.”

Yeah, it is. As the young woman pointed out to me, it’s an old man’s car. It’s the kind of sedan that a guy would drive slowly to his colonoscopy appointment. Not really the type of vehicle for a woman who wants quick response and sharp handling.

I asked the salesperson about a warranty. There was none. The State of Wisconsin required the dealer to complete a list of safety checks, but that was it. As my dad used to say, the Buick had a “black top” warranty. Once the customer drives off the dealership’s black top and into the street, the warranty is null and void.

We closed the deal. The guy came back from his boss with the numbers. It came up to $6500. I stared at the paperwork, and I considered trying to bring the price down a bit. Then I thought,

“What for? Maybe I can haggle and get the price down a couple hundred bucks, but then this guy would probably have to look me straight in the eye and lie to me. I would have to listen to that. There’s not enough money to make that kind of abuse worthwhile.”

I wrote a check. Some guy from finance gathered us up and sat us down in his office. Papers were signed. Money changed hands. The young woman had a car, and I had smaller sum in my bank account.

The salesperson thanked us profusely. We shook hands. The young woman drove off in her car. I left in mine.

The gong was silent.