New Car Story

After reading this forum for a month or more, I picked up my new Prius on Saturday! In mid-April I contacted Sarah at Miller Toyota in Manassas, VA, after reading here about all of the good deals she has made. We talked a few times, and then on April 22nd I called her and agreed to take a Silver package #6, at $950 under MSRP, (plus their $198 dealer proc fee). She said the car would arrive around May 15th and transferred me to someone who took my $250 credit card deposit. The following week, as posted here, she was told to stop discounting, and to stop dealing out-of-state. I had nothing in writing, but she stuck by the verbal deal. I told her that we would drive up from Florida to get the car, but it would have to be on the weekend. Last Friday afternoon she called to say that the car was in. My wife and I went into "road trip" mode, packed, and called around and rented a Hertz Toyota Corolla at Orlando International Airport (with a one-way charge of $26.95 plus tax!) to Dulles Airport (not far from Manassas). At 7:30 Friday night we took a cab 34 miles to the airport, and were on the road at 9PM. I drove all night, except for 3 hours in a rest area, and we arrived at Miller Toyota Saturday at about 4PM, after getting stuck in construction traffic near Manassas. It turns out that Miller had raised their dealer fee to $268, and I let it slide, I was so happy to get the car. Sarah was a joy to work with, and we were out of there in less than two hours. We dropped the rental at Dulles, and my wife drove two of the three hours to see family in Maryland. I tried to overcome my excitement with the car, and get some sleep. (Didn't get much!)

We left Maryland at 10AM on Sunday morning, with me driving, to return home, thoroughly enjoying the car. When we hit North Carolina we heard weather forecasts for local storms with damaging hail. There was lots of traffic on I95, and we began going in and out of rain storms that continued intermittently all the way into Georgia. Somewhere in NC, in the middle of a light rain shower, I was doing about 65MPH in the slow lane, with a solid line of cars passing at about 75+MPH. I saw a ten-wheeler slowly coming down a ramp up ahead, and as I approached (with nowhere else to go) he suddenly pulled into my lane at about 5MPH. I hit the brakes as much as I dared, but was certain that I couldn't stop on the newly wet road. (and if I did, would the next guy?) With cars to the left, I had to go right, and I ended up on the shoulder beside the truck, as he slowly accellerated in "my" lane. Luckily, no one else was coming down the ramp! Too bad I didn't have a CB so that I could tell him how much I apppreciated his driving!

Later, after the sun came out, in lots of traffic again, a sudden downpour hit and everyone hit the brakes. Again I had to take to the shoulder, as did many others in both lanes. As we crept forward, we came upon three vehicles that had piled up as the rain hit, I guess. One SUV looked like it had hit a brick wall going in reverse, as it was crunched-in about two feet in the rear. A little later we saw another accident in the north-bound lanes.

We were very glad to be home, when we arrived at 3AM Monday morning. So, over this slightly extended two-day weekend, I figure I logged about 33 hours of driving, 18 in the new Prius, which performed beautifully. Yeah, it was worth it! Many thanks to this forum, Sarah, and Miller Toyota for sticking by their deal. I would highly recommend them!

By the way, Sarah says she is allowed to deal out-of-state again, but they are at MSRP now.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sho-Bud @ May 17 2006, 03:23 AM) [snapback]256700[/snapback]</div>

Yes, I did read that, and it was bothering me when I had to brake. But at least I did already have over 300 miles on the car when the first incident happened.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(NoVaSnow @ May 17 2006, 11:39 AM) [snapback]256835[/snapback]</div>

Cool, I guess our cars are related!

My deal was probably a little better because Sarah had quoted me earlier in the week, and we played phone tag until April 22nd, when I gave the deposit.