Cars

Well, perhaps there's fewer differences between the States and the UK than we thought. We picked up our new car yesterday, a leased Honda Accord. The arrangement we'd made with the salesman was that we'd pick the car up on Wednesday (when the rental was due to be renewed), or he'd provide a loaner until our car was ready.

Cat dropped the rental at Budget (where it had cost us an arm and a leg for rental), and caught a taxi to the Honda agency, where she'd been told the car would be ready at 3 o'clock. She was apparently sat down, and essentially ignored for a couple of hours, without being told what was going on or why the delay (or how long the delay would be), and no sign of any loaner. At that point she phoned me, fairly upset, & I arranged to catch a taxi out there and pick up her and the car, and deal with the car yard myself, as she was out of all patience with them.

She then called back shortly thereafter, having left the lot because one of the sales managers had approached her in an unpleasantly aggressive manner and, in the guise of apologising, tried to make her feel angry or bad (I guess as a way of feeling justified in the way they'd treated her). Fortunately rather than losing it with him, she just left the lot, and waited for me on the next sidestreet.

After I picked her up and went back to the yard (I had an internal debate about just telling them to stuff it & walking away from the deal - but the practical problems that that would have created were too great), I dealt with the salesman we'd originally dealt with, who was very apologetic, then got handed to a different sales manager to finish the financial details (and who seemed pretty adept at not listening to what the customers were saying, himself).

We then sat outside waiting for the final details, and the sales manager that had already ticked off Cat came over, and delivered what I'd have to say was one of the slimiest and most unpleasant performances I've seen in many years: under the guise of allegedly apologising, he strenuously and repeatedly made every effort to put all the blame for this on Cat, and tried to portray himself as put-upon and - of course - always in the right: the old politico's trick of the apology that is no apology ("I'm sorry you feel like I kicked you in the nuts").

I'm very proud to say that Cat kept her head, and was quite civil, without accepting an inch of this nonsense, and kept pushing back at him quite directly, without ever being unduly abusive or excessive. It's fortunate that the original salesman came over and finished the details off tho, as I was at the point of becoming confrontational with him - the way the 'apology' had deteriorated, he was essentially calling her a liar, which isn't something I'm going to sit still for.

As it is, I think we both somewhat regret that we hadn't just torn the whole deal up and walked away ... but at least the car is very pleasant, and should be large enough for the comfort of our future guests.