Van swap 2006

As I wrote in my last post we decided to update our van this summer. Well, back in the middle of July we went out to the giant car sale at the KSU Stadium and Little Apple Toyota had a 2001 Sienna with 88K miles that I had seen on the web the week before out there. They were asking a price that was close enough to what we had in cash that we wouldn't have to finance, which we really liked. We ended up getting it for $11000, which was a good deal (though not a great one).

I love the new van. It drives SO much better than the Pontiac, though that is not surprising since it is a Toyota and much more like a car than a van. It is quite a bit narower and shorter so it fits in our garage better and should get a bit better gas milage around town.

The next challenge then was selling the old van during the heat of summer when gas prices were over $3 a gallon. Advertisements in the Manhattan Mercury were next to useless. It seems they created only one or two calls. We had much better results just putting a for sale sign on the windows and parking it on 14th st. I had several people seriously look at it, but the most interesting situation came when a guy called who barely spoke any english and made an offer.

After some confusion and trying to meet him one of his friends called and arranged for a meeting with a translator. It turned out to be a Mexican national who works at Panda Express in the Union. He was willing to give me half the amount at our Monday meeting then the rest at the end of the week. That night several of his friends joined him for a test drive. I thought after a couple of days the deal was good, then on Thursday they called and said he wanted his money back. In order to keep the negotiations simple I didn't put a time limit on his backing out so after a few VERY unpleasant minutes arguing with a Panda Express server I gave him his money back. In the mean time I had turned several other people away and was getting paranoid that soon I would have to reinusure the van.

It turned out to be difficult to get anyone else to buy it, though I continued to have a fair amount of interest in it. Finally, on evening before the last day I could register the new van I got a call from another person. She wanted to test drive it the next night. Unfortunatly, I still had to register the new van and arrange to renew the insurance on the old one. Fortunatly she ended up buying it the next morning and most surpisingly paying full asking price. I was so surprised I filled the tank for her!

I ended up not having to extend coverage on the old van, and selling it for more than I was going to get from the guy who backed out. It caused me much unwanted stress, but I learned a lot about selling cars and not trusting people, and still came out ahead, so I can't complain!