Everything I Needed to Know I Learned While Buying a Car

You probably don’t enjoy buying a car, assuming you’ve experienced this convoluted trauma. Yet running the auto dealership gauntlet is informative: about yourself, whether you understand how relationships work, and your mastery of tough stuff like negotiation.

The schooling offered in the auto showroom begins with “curb appeal:” how the vehicle looks. All material goods offer the same criterion by which to judge them. We value houses, watches, and phones this way. First impressions don’t stop there, but continue with the physical appearance of everyone you meet, the sound of a new voice, the scent as you stand close.

You then peer under the hood of the car. Applying this to people, you get to know them, check for substance beneath the surface; evaluate the individual’s humanity, strength, and kindness or self-interest. At least I hope you do and thereby move beyond the dazzle of a stunning exterior. A pity if instead your head is stupefied by a gorgeous facade and you ignore a person of common appearance bearing treasures within.

The vehicle sales rep hopes you will be captured by his kindness and prone to an impulsive decision. He highlights the techno whistles and bells. Will you be lured by his siren song and dance? We all need resistance to a sales pitch, whether the seller is trying to unload a TV or promote himself.

Given an auto’s cost one can benefit from homework. Do you have the patience to perform the needed research or will you do what “feels” right? We face the war between emotions and intellect daily: between due diligence and slipshod judgment.

How dependent are you? Do you rely on others to make decisions? Friends and relatives have lots of opinions about cars and, if they are experienced and smart, such knowledge is worth considering. Best, however, to learn what can be discovered on your own as well as from expert advice: “own” the process by which you come to own the product.

The act of car buying shakes up some of us. We plead for a spouse or friend by our side. A successful transaction demands the ability to say “no” and stick to it — a test for many.

Decades ago my wife and I lived in New Jersey. Soon after our arrival our car was destroyed in an accident. We hoped to purchase a new 1972 Dodge Duster, expecting that we’d get a better price than on the just released 1973 model.

The first salesman we met counted on our being callow customers, novices in the veiled combat of car buying. The man told us he had the only remaining new 1972 Duster in New Jersey. Aleta and I understood there would be many more ’73 models than the 1972 Dodge we wanted, but we didn’t trust his report. He offered us a price, but we said no and began to walk out. The sales rep trailed us. As our closeness to the door increased the price of the vehicle decreased. We soon discovered dozens of available 1972 Dusters, the cars he said were as rare as a dodo, the extinct flightless bird.

There is power in letting people see your back. Wanting a thing less than the next guy usually gives you the upper hand in a transaction with him. So, too, in romance. Rhett Butler’s last words in Gone with the Wind offer an example of the attitude I’m writing about. Such a stance often elicits concessions by the counterparty in his effort to get what he wants from you. Generally, the longer you remain silent the more favorable the terms offered become. In effect, you can set most of the conditions.

When desiring a thing desperately we risk giving away the best of ourselves in the act of acquisition. Money is the least of it. Honor and basic human decency may be forfeited, as well. Among ancient philosophers, the Stoics gave particular emphasis to the dangers of becoming too “attached,” whether to objects, honors, power, or people. Buddhists make the same argument.

Self-possession, they would argue, is far more valuable than anything you can buy.

Some things in life are not worth the price you pay for them. As many young people have discovered, cars can be among those things. Sadly, the list of overvalued commodities, jobs, titles, high income lifestyles, and relationships is beyond reckoning. Beware defining your hoped-for future by a list of “must haves.”

As the knight guarding the Holy Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade would remind us, “choose wisely.”