In the end, the car buying process wasn't all that painful.  And considering I hadn't bought a new car in 16 years, I thought episode was surprisingly straight forward.

You see, I didn't even haggle.  I walked in, asked to test drive a specific car; even asked for it by its VIN  I knew the asking price before leaving my house. 

I was armed with some good advance knowledge, gleaned from the Edmunds web site, which I researched on the advice of a trusted car dealership insider, who just happens to be my kid sister.  She sells cars on the west coast and she gave me the whole "buying a car" drill, a kind of script to expect at the dealership.  She told me what kind of deal I could realistically expect to make and how to get it.  The only piece of advice from her I didn't take was to buy a car in the last week of the month, when dealerships are desperate to make their quotas. 

Edmunds provides a great way to find the True Market Value (TMV) of a new car, that is what others around the country are paying for the same car, equipped the same as you're considering, etc. 

In my case, the dealer was having a "dealer's invoice" sale.  And sure enough, the invoice at the dealer was the same as I'd gotten online from Edmunds and was, in fact, a few hundred dollars below TMV.  No other dealer around would touch that offer so I jumped at it. 

And so when I'd actually bought the car (that's it in the above picture) I pulled the finance manager aside, as I might do a government source hanging out at the margin of some press conference, and asked him:  "OK, now that you have my money, now that the game is over, tell me honestly, without blowing smoke up my ass, how much money did you guys actually make on this deal?"

He smiled, pulled me back to his office and showed me the "deal screen" on his computer; all the incentives, dealer holdbacks, etc., are factored in and the profit for the dealer shown on a separate line.  He swung the monitor my way and jammed a slightly greasy finger toward a bottom line figure:  $487.00

Fair enough.

The Ford Escape Hybrid gets about 31 miles per gallon around town, 36 on the highway.  Will the car hold up?  "What good ever came out of Ford?" my best friend has already chided me when I mentioned I was considering the Escape.  I suppose that remains to be seen.  I have a seven year, 75,000 mile bumper-to-bumper warranty.  If anything on the car breaks, it's covered under the warranty, so I'm not too worried.  Best of all, the Hybrid is replacing our Dodge Caravan Sport, a beast of a vehicle that has been nothing by a money pig since we bought it (used). 

That leaves finding a replacement for my trusty '94 Mazda pickup with 187,500 miles on it.  I've had this truck since the oddometer said 1,704... I'm in no hurry.

Update:  Well, I wasn't in any hurry but apparently my wife was.  She called me on Friday to say, "Honey, I sold your truck!"  Ok, I lied... she never said "Honey."   Sold it for $1,000.  Even with the transmission slipping I think the guy that bought it got a great deal. 

Several people are coming to look at the van tomorrow.  Now I'm thinking maybe we'll become a two Ford Hybrid family...