The Stew

So I decided that I wanted one of these: a Nissan Altima. I was originally going to go with the 3.5L V6 — but with gas prices creeping ever higher, I decided to go with the 2.5L V4 instead, since it gets better mileage. As a bonus, it’s also several thousand cheaper.

I did the same thing before buying this car that I did before I bought my previous car in 2000: I visited CarBuyingTips.com. I think the site hasn’t been redesigned since 2000, but it doesn’t matter — it’s the best collection of stuff to arm yourself against shady practices that you’re likely to find.

Good thing I did, too, because I had a pretty bad expereince at one dealership.

Let me back up a second. I have the benefit of living in a fairly large town, so there are seven Nissan dealers within easy driving distance from me. Wielding the power of the Web, I set those seven dealers competing against each other for my business. Four responded in ways that went beyond simple form emails.

One salesperson really stood out — it was obvious he wanted my business. I visited that dealership first, and test drove the car there. I told the guy that I had at least three other dealerships to visit before I made a decision. He was cool with it. I figured I’d end up giving him my business.

Due to a busy summer schedule, coupled with the fact that car dealerships aren’t open on Sunday for some asinine reason, I didn’t get to make it to another dealer before I decided to go back and get a firm quote. He hemmed an hawed when I asked him for the best price he could give me — he wanted me to make an offer first. So I did. Based on the research I’d done, and bearing in mind that the dealership was in business to make some cash, I made a perfectly reasonable offer. He said he’d take it to his manager.

He disappears. About 10 minutes later, he finally comes back. “Good news,” he says, “we can get you in that car for $420 a month.” I told him that I’m not buying a car payment, I’m buying a car — and I want to know how much the car costs. He disappears for another five minutes and returns with his sales manager.

The conversation with the manager started off nice enough. The sales manager recognized the company logo on the polo shirt I was wearing (it was from a previous employer) and he actually knew something about the company. After some chitchat, we got back to the car — which is where it all started going downhill.

I asked how much they were willing to reduce the price. He said that he’d give me a “VIP” discount, which was still nearly $900 more than I had said I wanted to pay. I thanked him for the information and said that I would consider their offer.

That’s when he basically laid into me. I was stealing food from the mouths of his children; I was treating him and the salesperson as a “price check” and that was a crappy thing to do, etc. It went on for a few minutes, and when it was obvious that he wasn’t going to browbeat me into buying the car, he got up and left like he was bored with the conversation. I thanked the salesperson for his time and I left — in a really bad mood.

I had another appointment that day at another dealership, and I wasn’t looking forward to it after what had happened. I went anyway.

The experience couldn’t have been more different. The salesperson walked with me to check out the inventory on the lot, then we went back to her office to discuss the deal. I asked her what the best deal she could offer — and I expected her to run off to a sales manager somewhere for a half hour or so. Instead, she punched a few numbers on a calculator, then turned the calculator so I could see the number.

It was about $50 cheaper than what I told the other dealership I wanted to pay. I told her to put a “sold” sticker on the car.

In less time than I had to wait for the other guy to get his sales manager, I had bought a car. I can’t recommend this dealership enough. For those of you interested, it’s Kline Nissan in Maplewood. Ask for Terry Jo.

I won’t mention the name of the other dealership. I don’t want to give them any publicity, good or bad.

Okay, in the great contest of 2008, I picked a loser that should have — by all rights — won outright. I’m of course talking about HD DVD’s loss to Blu-ray. Proof: “Casablanca” is on HD DVD but not Blu-ray; “Meet the Spartans” is on Blu-ray but not HD DVD.

In that other contest, I picked the winner. Obama was in town yesterday to declare, in a great speech, that he’s the Democratic candidate for president. In a not-so-great speech in New York, Hillary Clinton failed to acknowledge that she’d lost her bid to be the candidate, and asked that people visit her Web site and send her a message to let her know what to do next. Go to her site (I’ll save you the trouble) and you’re greeted by a pre-written note that you can send her that says the following: “I’m with you Hillary, and I’m proud of everything we are fighting for.” There’s room for an optional message, which some folks have used to tell her to go away. Politely, I’m sure.

News reports say that she’ll drop out in two days. Of course, news reports were saying yesterday that she’d drop out yesterday, and that didn’t happen. I’m not holding my breath, even if she’s acting like a kid who’s holding hers.

1) Blackberry Better — Turns out there are a couple of easy fixes for some of the frustrations I’ve been encountering on my Blackberry. First, if I’d read the manual, I would probably have come across Standby Mode. By holding down the Mute key, it goes into a low-power mode that ignores all key presses except the aforementioned Mute key. No more random key presses as my car keys bump against my phone.

Second, and this isn’t in the manual, I downloaded Opera as a Web browser. Not only is it 1000 times less likely to display a “can’t find the network” error, it actually makes the Internet usable. In fact, that’s how this entry is being posted.

2) Samsung Comes Through — The promised May update to the BD-UP5000 combo Blu-ray/HD DVD player came on May 31. The unit seems faster, still plays anything I throw at it, and now decodes Dolby TrueHD sound and outputs it in full surround-sound glory. Listening to the theme to the old Star Trek TV show in all its re-recorded 5.1 goodness was enough to bring a smile to this geek’s face.