A Lesson in Purchasing a Car

Further evidence that one cannot usually trust a car salesman, and in this case, two car salesmen.You see, my dad has this ridiculous obsession with buying cars more often than he should. In fact, in the twenty-six years of his married life, he has averaged ONE car per YEAR. The man likes to lease cars. His latest desire, a 2006 Nissan Murano SUV, has been hard to come by so far. The local dealership here in Kalamazoo, which employs a longtime friend of my dad's dropped the ball on trying to find the right kind he wanted, and refused to attempt to acquire just that car from an Indianapolis dealership. My dad, ever the opportunist, decides to drive down there and get it himself. And I went with him.
400 Miles of AM Talk Radio, Gas Station snacks, a bizarre Indiana McDonald's, and NPR later, we arrive at the dealer, with the wimpy salesman waiting at the door for us like an excited schoolboy waiting for the start of summer vacation. So, the people were taking forever preparing the car, and we're getting more suspicious by the moment. And of course, our sales guy Robert, like all car salesmen, has absolutely no power over anything. He has to go report to these two manager guys every time he has a question from us. They finally get the car out, and they quickly get us in it and out testing it on the state highway. Everything was find until we got back to the dealership. In that time the salesman had told us that just before we'd arrived he was told that the car was actually a demo car that was used by a manager for a period of time. (Note: "Period of time" later came to be known as 4500 dang miles). While inspecting the car after the test drive, we find the following: A cracked tail light, dirty leather seats, scuffed dashboard, scratched paint, chips in the hood, dirty wheels. New car my ass. My dad told the salesman to shove his deal up his ass and we left right then. Quite a depressing drive back home, and quite a waste of my day off.