I was driving down a road near my house, my friends are in the car and we're jamming out to our favorite songs, when suddenly the light changes to red and I slam my brakes. I go to turn right on red and my car won't go anywhere. The engine apparently died. I do what I do when all of my technology isn't working, I turn it off and on. And believe it or not the car started working again. However, I noticed every time I slam on the brakes the engine dies. When I alerted my parents about the problem they were concerned and had me take it to the shop. Our mechanic kept the car for three days. When I came to pick it up I asked him what was wrong with it, he responded that he drove the car around and nothing happened so he doesn't know.
OK, it is 2016 and the only way for someone to know what's wrong with a car is for it to break again? Anyway, I drive the car home, and I kid you not, on the drive home the car breaks down again. I told my parents that I'm not giving the car back to the mechanic so he can not have it break again while he drives it around. I noticed this problem only occurs when the breaks are hit hard. So I did the logical thing, gave the car to my sister and started saving up for a new car. I have been saving up for a while now and was excited to go used car shopping. I soon realized that used car shopping is the equivalent to walking across a bed of hot coals while getting acupuncture, its agonizing.
So here is where my story of used car shopping begins. I researched various car models looking for something that I was interested in. I found a couple of Ford cars that I liked, and apparently my uncle had a a connection with a Ford dealer. I go there to talk to him and we explain how our budget is around $14,000 and how we will be willing to go up to $15K if we found a good enough deal. He assured us he has a ton of cars in that price range. I went out to the lot and test drove a couple of really nice Ford Escapes. When we went to go discuss the pricing of the two cars, the prices were listed at $18,000 and $16,000. But to put it in our "price range" he lowered the second one to $15,900. Thanks. So I now wasted an entire day looking at cars I couldn't even afford. My mother and I spent the next several days searching the internet looking for cars in my price range. I ended up going to a used car dealership and was exposed to the true evils of used car shopping. To avoid smearing any companies reputation, I'll make up a name, so let's call them hmm AMKO AUTO of Laurel Maryland (sure that works). Any way I saw a car listed for $14,444 which was in our price range, I test drove the car and I loved it. I went to go discuss the price and that's when I learned if something is too good to be true, it's because it is. Apparently the $14,444 they list on their website is the price they bought the car at and sell it to us with $3,000 transaction fee. So this $14K car is really a $17K car. I went home disappointed with another wasted day. Out of curiosity a couple of days later I called the dealership under a pseudo name and inquired about the price of their cars, and they assured me it's the online price plus a small processing fee of $300 *cough bullshit cough*. So thanks the "made up" dealership, AMKO AUTO of Laurel, Maryland.
Anyway this story does have a happy ending. After another week of looking online I decided to go to CarMax after work one day. CarMax is the way used car shopping should be. They have fair prices that do not change, they have a lot full of cars with all their doors unlocked, it was amazing. So my advice is to skip all the dealerships and just go to CarMax. I am not sponsored by CarMax but hey, if they want to throw some money my way, I wouldn't mind.
