Dave Stein's Blog: An Independent Perspective on Sales Training and Sales Effectiveness

Update – Sept 25th:

We love the Prius.  We’re averaging 55 mpg.  It’s bigger inside than you would think. (The dogs have plenty of room.)  Brian, the salesperson at Falmouth Toyota, did a terrific job, diligently taking care of all the paperwork to get us our Cash-for-Clunkers instant rebate the day the program concluded.  All in all, it was a positive experience.  But we miss the jeep.

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -  – - – - – - – -

My wife and I let the first Cash-for-Clunkers thing go by.  We didn’t see ourselves as having a clunker, so we really didn’t pay attention to it.  My wife noticed the expiration of the C-F-C program a few weeks ago and we came up with a plan… Let’s first check and see if our 1995 Jeep Wrangler qualifies as a clunker, and if so, take it to the mechanic and see if it will last a while.  If so, great.  If not, we can get $4,500 for it in the program.

The Jeep has only 32,000 miles.  It’s lived here on Martha’s Vineyard since 1999.  Lots of little things are broken. There is plenty of rust, it leaks in the rain, the soft top has disintegrated, and the hard top’s back window doesn’t stay open, but we love it.  We really do.

I figure I’ve owned 25 cars or so.  Most of them I bought new.  This gem, which we paid $17k for in 1994, we really love.  We’ve got two other cars, but this one is so… so perfect.  Our 5-year-old grandson sits in it for hours, taking everyone for mock drives to California.  Our daughter prefers it to the other cars for tooling around the island.  I drive it almost exclusively. We drive it on the beach.  I take the recycling to the transfer station with it.  When we have snow, which is rare, we only drive the Jeep. The dogs love it as well.

Our mechanic first gave us an encouraging report: Oil change, radiator flush, new seal for the front differential, lube, a few other repairs plus four new tires.  $1,400 or so.  We love that Jeep.  Let’s keep it, we said.

Then we got some bad news.  More rust than initially thought, and a serious problem with the rear axle.  The mechanic said we should move on.  It could get very costly very soon.

I’d love to buy an American car.  Perhaps a Volt.  But we can’t wait two years and $40k seems a bit steep.  So I called the closest Toyota dealer on Cape Cod about a 2010 Prius with an upgraded stereo.  Available!  $18,500 after the clunker credit.  What a deal.  (We’re sincerely grateful that we have the cash for a new car, I must add.)

Then we thought about getting another Jeep.  They only make them with six cylinders now.  Ours was a four that got well over 20 mpg.  The new ones get only 15 mpg or so.  Ugh.  They don’t qualify for the program.  Maybe we should buy an older, used one, we thought.  Consumers Rep0rts says they are seriously unreliable.  Buying a used one would probably be a mistake.  So we passed on that idea.

So here we are, having to euthanize our Jeep.  We could keep it until it dies, but then we’d lose out on the C-F-C money.  I don’t know about you, but $4,500 is a lot of money to sacrifice for driving a Jeep around for 3, maybe 6 months.  Even one we love.

Couldn’t the government wait until it died a natural death and then give us the $4,500 credit toward a new car?  Not likely.  They’ve got other things to worry about at the moment.

We’re getting our new Prius in red, in memory of our favorite car which will soon be Jeepthanized.  May it rest in pieces.

Photo credit:  Dave Stein, August 2008.  MacGregor and Oreo waiting to go to the beach.

Filed under: Uncategorized