New Car Blues

We took a road trip to St. Louis last weekend, which is a four-hour drive. It was nice to have a new car that has a DVD player to keep the kids entertained. It also has a GPS so when I'm asked, "How much loooonnger?", I can reply with exactness, "47 minutes!"

We did have one problem. The car has 8 seats and, for the life of me, I could not find the seatbelt for the 8th seat. I studied the manual and searched all around the seat to no avail. I finally took it to the dealership where I bought it and asked for help finding the seatbelt. At first, I felt like an idiot but after the fourth guy scratched his head and said he couldn't find it either, I felt better. Finally, they called a salesman out to see if he knew where it was. He informed me that my 8th seat was not an original part of the car but that the previous owners had put it in. There was no way that a seatbelt could be put in for that seat. Oh, joy. The whole reason why I bought the car was because it had 8 seats.

I headed over to talk to the salesman who had sold me the car and explained the situation. He had sold me a car without a seatbelt. He went in to talk to his manager, who then called the general manager. After about ten minutes, he came out and said he had no idea what to do about the situation but he would give me a call when something was figured out. Basically, we might have no other option but to downgrade to an EX because the Touring model doesn't even offer 8 seats. That did not make me happy. After all, you can't take me back to the farm after I've seen Paris. What would I have to give up? Power doors, rockin' sound system? Who knows.

Later in the day, he called Mark. (Side note. I hate it when people do this. I'm the one who came in with the problem. Call me, not my husband.) Listen to this sweet offer. I bring in my used 2007 model and trade it for a brand new 2010 model, plus they'll drop my loan interest rate by 2 full points. Awesome.