Peace of Mind Organizing

Buying and selling a car in this crazy car market

8 October 2021

As you probably know, there is a shortage of cars in the U.S., thanks, apparently, to a shortage of computer chips. That means that you can sell your current car for more money than you might expect. But it also means that it’s hard to find a car to replace it at a reasonable price.

I wanted to take advantage of the demand for used cars to sell my 2014 Ford Transit Connect van. I bought it to use in my business and it was great for carrying around lots of bins and organizing supplies. But now that I have employees I don’t need to carry around so much stuff. And I wasn’t a big fan of driving that van.

To sell it, I got bids from Carmax, Carvana and WeBuyAnyCar.com. Carvana offered me $16,129 for the van, which was $1929 more than Carmax’s offer (and $4269 more than WeBuyAnyCar’s initial offer). After accepting the offer, all I had to do was upload some documents to prove ownership and the odometer reading and arrange for it to be picked up from my home. It couldn’t have been easier. Two days after it was picked up, the money landed in my bank account.

But I needed a car to replace the van. I set my sights on a new Nissan Leaf all-electric car. (My friend Shannon Wilkinson has one and loves it and that was enough for me.) I almost never get new cars, but in this case, I wanted the most advanced technology and the opportunity to take advantage of the federal tax credit for buying a new electric car. Plus Nissan lowered the price of the 2022 models as compared to 2021.

Trouble was, there were no 2022 Nissan Leafs in all of St. Louis, according to the NissanUSA website. I was told they might be in stock in late October. I didn’t want to wait that long. So here’s what I did.

Every day, I checked inventory within 250 miles of me on the NissanUSA website. I knew I wanted the larger battery (the Plus), so I could get more miles on a charge (215 miles for the Plus vs 150 miles for the S version). And I was pretty sure I wanted leather seats. So that meant I was searching for a 2022 Nissan Leaf SL Plus. As soon as one showed up, I would contact the dealer. And I would be told the car was already sold. That was frustrating, so I started contacting dealers who had cars marked “In Transit” rather than waiting for the car to arrive before contacting them. I kept a spreadsheet of all the individual cars I had inquired about so that didn’t lose track of the nearly identical cars sold by a bunch of different dealers. I went to a local dealer and test drove a 2020 that I wasn’t interested in buying (with full disclosure to the salesman). That test drive cemented my decision that this is the car I wanted to buy.

The day after the test drive, September 30, I heard from one of the dealerships I’d been in touch with, Dream Nissan in Kansas City, Kansas. A 2020 Nissan Leaf SL Plus had just arrived on the lot. It was grey (Gun Metallic), my second-favorite of all the colors (though any color would have been fine). And they were offering to make it mine.

Dream Nissan, unlike other dealers I’ve heard about, did not try to charge me above the sticker price, despite the high demand for the car. And there was a Nissan rebate that brought the price down below MSRP. The car had all the bells and whistles I sought. (It’s easily the nicest car I’ve ever owned.) I decided to lease, rather than purchase, this car because with technology advancing I didn’t think I’d want to drive it for a long time. (I had to forfeit the federal tax credit to do that.) I was able to do all the paperwork for the lease over the phone and internet on September 30 and made arrangements to pick up the car on Saturday, October 2.

Bright and early Saturday morning, I took Amtrak to Kansas City’s Union Station, where a Dream Nissan employee picked me up and took me to the dealership across the state line. I got a quick tour of the car and off I went. The trickiest part was that the 262-mile trip was longer than the driving range of the car. So I had to find a fast-charging station to juice up my car. And I wasn’t driving through very populated areas.

I used PlugShare to locate a charger in Boonville, Missouri. Unfortunately, when I got there the charger was out of order. (Best laid plans.) I ended up deciding to spend the night in Columbia (where I could find no fast chargers) and drive to a fast charger in Kingdom City the next morning. (I had a contingency plan if that one was out of order). I got there with 20 miles to spare on my battery. The Kingdom City charger was in great working order and was on my way home in an hour. This was a great crash-course in charging my car!

Dream Nissan was a dream to work with, if you’ll forgive a pun. The Remote Sales salesman I worked with, Chris Herring, was responsive and helpful, as was everyone else I spoke with. There was no hard sell and no attempt to upsell me. And here’s the best part: They are reimbursing me for my travel expenses, even the hotel room.

Once I got to the dealership, a salesman named John Hart gave me a tour and test drive of the vehicle and he was diligent in making sure that the very helpful Nissan Connect EV&Services app was working for me. That actually took more than a week, but John spoke directly to Nissan and made it happen and I’m so grateful. (I was getting a confusing error message about the fact that my cell phone provider was AT&T.)

I love my car. I love that I didn’t have to compromise. I love that I figured out how to find a car without too much difficulty and without much waiting, despite the strange car-buying times we are in.

Tagged with: buying a car in 2021, car, decisions, leasing a car, selling a used car, shopping

Comments