So after checking out at least 10 cars on the lot, I decided to suck it up and extend the loan term so I could get int something that wasn’t beat. Â I”ll say this – the inventory at Bill Kolb Jr Subaru is VAST, a lot of the cars though – various body issues, interior issues – there are gems in the crowd but don’t expect one for under 16k. Â My first choice, an ’08 Legacy Elite (dealer package with double-stitched leather interior and moon roof) ran for $15,8k – was driven by a manager, and from far away looked real nice. Â Up close though, the front fender had visible BRUSH STROKES under the smooth buffed clear coat, further down the drivers side towards the rear quarter panel, again you had very nicely buffed pits in the paint. Â Real shoddy cover up job, plus a bunch of dings.
The next 9 or so cars had various levels of body damage, from scratches, scuffs, to dints, and very ugly dents and deep gouges/scrapes. Â These were all cars of varying mileage (15k to 50k) and ranged from 2007 to 2009. Â Some were definitely owned by smokers, and had that musty smell that only comes from one thing. Â None of the cloth interior cars were too good either. Â At this point, I was pretty much ready to call it quits and head over to Mahwah to look at a batch of Ford Fusions. Â We were going to check out one last car, a black ’08 with 40k miles when I walked past my car, an ’09 Elite with 17k (now 18k) miles on the odometer. Â It was more than I was initially planning to spend, and in the end my monthly payment went up by $3 from what I was paying on the VW – but I have a lot more car that is much more family friendly.
I did good on the trade in, factoring the various accidents I had with it, and in the end also landed a very good interest rate as well as a 6/60k bumper to bumper warranty at cost. Â You can’t really haggle at this dealer on the car itself – but you CAN haggle (and save a lot) when it comes to the trade-in as well as the loan terms and interest rates.
Funniest part of all of this – in the end I spent about 5k more than I planned to spend on the fusion, got a newer car with fewer miles. Â I just need to have them redo the brakes, as well as track down some new keyless entry keys (for less than the $159 the dealer wanted). Â The car’s handling is phenomenal, plenty of power (not a rocket like my old GTI, but for a big car it can move when you want it to). great reviews, great reliability – I’m hoping to get at least 300k miles out of this car – and by then, pass it on to one of my step kids. 🙂
