Essay: Buying a "new" car for the first time in years

When I was a young fella, back in the Jurassic, the car-buying experience was simpler than it is today, but also more unpleasant. You'd pop into a dealership, chat with a pushy, annoying salesman, take a car out for a spin, peek under the hood and wait while the salesman claimed to be checking with his manager to see if they could accommodate your request for a small cut in the price. (They couldn't.) 

I was reminded this week that times have changed. When Liz and I visited a dealership Monday to check out a four-year-old car we had spotted on the lot the day before, the salesman was polite and humorous, a nice guy, actually. There was no hard sell. The process of buying the car took longer than it did in years gone by, with more paperwork and documentation than I remember. But we got the car we wanted, and for a fair price. The three employees involved in the transaction were pleasant to deal with.

The biggest change I noticed, though, was the proliferation of bells and whistles on new cars. (Call me an old timer, but I think a four-year-old car is new-adjacent.) This technological transformation jumped out at us because we’ve been out of the car-buying game for quite a while.

The car we replaced this week is a 2007 Toyota Prius with more than 100,000 miles on it. (It was brand new when we bought it.) Our other vehicle, which we’re holding on to, is a 2015 Toyota Rav4 with over 80,000 miles. Our “new” car is a 2022 Toyota Corolla that has logged a mere 50,000 miles. So it’s just entering middle age.

But let’s get back to the bells and whistles. Through no fault of his own, it seemed to take forever for the salesman to explain the Corolla’s many buttons and switches and tabs and other assorted doodads, gizmos and thingamabobs.

It’s an impressive array, especially to people who drove the same Prius for 19 years. I suppose, once we master these technological wonders, we’ll enjoy the car even more than we do already.

In the meantime, though, I’m playing it safe by steering clear of any Corolla doohickeys that I don’t fully understand. Because the last thing I want to do is punch an innocuous-looking button and inadvertently launch the next moon mission.