The right car for the wrong guy

After spending much of last week shopping for a new car, I am thrilled by the way we were treated at the dealership where we bought.

But several other dealerships seem to be stuck on the high pressure sales stuff. Does it ever actually work anymore?

A few things I dealt with:

A saleswoman at a Chevrolet lot who knew next to nothing about the cars she was selling, except the ones that were on "Special", which were the $46,000 Yukons. Even after we told her we were looking at small SUVs, she kept pushing us toward the full sized beasts. Then she decided that maybe we needed an Aveo, the Chevy shoe box on wheels. We may like out little family, but we don't need to be THAT close.

After we bought the Vue, we burned her business card. Kind of a sacrifice to the SUV gods.

A Nissan salesman chased me between cars for 10 minutes. He never did catch up to me. Maybe if he had spent more time walking and less time yelling to find me. Too bad they park the cars too close for the fat guys to fit between...

I saw a Mercury dealership that actually prices the udercarriage and upholstery coatings on the options list, along with a $200 VIN etching job. Does anyone ever actually pay for that stuff?

But it wasn't all bad. There was the Mazda salesman that I bet I would like to hang out with sometime. We did not talk about any great car deals, but he was a great storyteller. I know stuff about his kids, his nephews and his college years. I never did get much info about Mazdas, but it was an hour well spent.

And then there was the Honda salesman that told me "But you don't look like a freak." when I told him that I was interested in taking a closer look at the Honda Element. And from what I see, he is right. That is a freaky car for freaky people.