Sister update and the Tale of the Toyota

First update: My sister is home from her reconstruction surgery. She had the surgery on Monday and was home the following Thursday. She is mighty sore but is getting better with each passing day. I dropped by to see her yesterday and she seems to be doing very well. She came home with 6 drainage tubes coming out of her body and is hoping to have them removed during her post-op appointment today. Other than being sore and getting wiped out pretty easily due to being able to do nothing for a couple weeks, she is great. She isn't taking very much pain medicine either. If she gets her tubes out today, she will well on her way to recovering and moving more normally. I asked her if she was ready to have a sit-up contest, but she passed on it for right now. :) Thanks for all the well wishes and thoughts.. I'll keep you informed to her progress.
The next update: As you read a couple weeks ago, we got a new Tundra for the family. Well, after Tundra #1 was sold, we decided to get Heather a new car also. She liked her older car (2005 Chevy Equinox) but she was never in love with it. Just not the car she thought it was gonna be. So, we decided to get her a new one also. She was choosing between the Toyota 4Runner, the Toyota Highlander and the Honda Pilot. She did quite a few hours on the web researching, as she always does, and did a few drive-bys and see the vehicles. She got to look pretty good at a couple 4Runners when I bought my truck and she went at the new '08 Highlander when one got on the lot. Although impressive inside (Heather said the inside changed around so much with all the compartments it was almost like a Transformer) but she wasn't all that impressed with the outer looks. She like the Pilot, but the Toyota name has always been good to us, so she started looking very hard at the 4Runner.
This past Saturday, we decided to go look at the local Toyota Dealer in Macon and see what they had on the lot since the Warner Robins Dealer didn't have what she was looking for the day we went up there. We got there and she found a couple and even drove one. When we went in to discuss the price, we found out the one she was she was looking at was a Demo in black with 4000 miles and we figured we could get it for a great price. When they came back with their offer, it was about $1000 over invoice. You have got to be kidding me!!! Heather looked at the offer and decided to go home and see what we could find on the web. She like the Salesman and wanted to deal with him, so we said we'd come back even though they made a stupid offer on that black demo. So, we home and started looking. We found one that met her needs/wants and called the salesman to see when it would be available. It was still at the port and was headed to Alabama, but he could intercept and have it delivered to Macon. We told him not to worry about it.
Later that night, we found a dark blue (the same color as my Tundra) on their website and it had all the options she was looking it without all the extra options she didn't want. We went back up there on Monday to discuss that car. She didn't really didn't want the same color as my truck, but decided to look at it anyway. I thought it would be cool to have the same color, she thought it would be weird. We looked at the blue car and while they got the info it, we found out it was also a demo with 4500 miles on it. The salesman had been called back from his lunch to help us out. We didn't know that had happened, but he hadn't gotten to the restaurant yet, so it wasn't like he left his food. As he went to get the offer, Heather told him he had one chance because we were on our lunch break and she didn't have time to play games. She also told him she didn't expect much of an offer to come back because of the stupid offer they made on the black demo last weekend. He came back with a stupid offer. They still wanted well above invoice for, what we considered, a "used" car. Heather looked at him and said, "You're kidding me, right?" He said he didn't make the offer, he was just the messenger. She said, well you can give the message that we are leaving. And she got up to leave. He asked if she would just wait for the manager to talk to her. She looked at him and then he said, "What would you give for this car?" She looked him dead in the eye and said, "It's not my job to come in here and tell my highest price I'd pay, it's your job to make me an offer I'll take. You're the salesman, I'm the customer." He left and when he came back, she had had time to stew about everything was just mad at them treating her like a "dumb girl." Not to mention it was easy to see they refused to do what she asked. Heather hates paying interest on anything, so she doesn't want the cash back rebate, she wants the lowest APR she can get. And, she wants to know the "Out the door price." Every time they came in with something, it had the 1500 dollar rebate taken out and it was without taxes, tag fees, etc. In other words, no the out-the-door price.
Before he said anything, he looked at me and said, "Did she negotiate your truck like this?" I told him, "No. The Toyota Dealership in Warner Robins made us an offer that was below what we were going to offer, so there was no arguing. You people don't seem to want to work that way." Then he sat down and instead of giving Heather another lower price on the car, he preceded to explain why they were offering what they were offering. And again, it was with the 1500 dollar cash back and no tax, title and fees added in. Heather was about LIVID at this point. She grabbed her keys and said, very professional like, "Keith, I'm sorry I interrupted your lunch. Go get yourself something to eat, because that's what I'm going to do." He said could his manger talk to her and she told him, "No he can't. I see the way (insert name of Toyota Dealer here) does business and I don't appreciate it. We will not be coming back here." And with that, we walked out of the office. As we walked out, I shook his hand and told him sorry it didn't work out, but if he really wanted to make money in the car business, he needed to go work for the dealer in Warner Robins. All he was doing in the Macon dealership was losing opportunities because of their business practices. As I was pulling around in my truck, I saw the Manager talking to Heather in her car window. I saw her shake her head and he walked away.
Heather and I left and went and ate lunch. She was so mad at this time, she said we will never step foot on the property again. At her window, the manger actually made an offer that, if he would have done it in the beginning, she would have taken it, but he waited until we walked out, so she told him to keep his offer. Remember, she had told them they had one chance (and then gave them a second chance anyway) and they decided to play the game anyway, even though they had been warned.
Heather went to the Warner Robins Dealer that day after work. 4 hours later she came home with a beautiful Nautical Blue Metallic 2007 4Runner with 17 miles on it. For a better deal than the Macon wanted to offer for their "used" car. She didn't really want a car that was the exact same color as mine, as I mentioned earlier, but it is a very nice looking car and she's OK with the same color. We never drive both vehicle together anyway, so what's the difference? She was very happy with her purchase and the experience she had while buying the car. I have a problem with "free advertising." I don't do it. If the dealer doesn't throw anything in for free or make it worth my while, I don't run their name on my vehicles. The first thing I do when I get home is take off the dealer graphics and get rid of the tag frame. Heather said she was so happy with her time up there, that if they had painted a big (inset name of dealership here) Toyota sign on her vehicle, she would have kept it. I'm just glad they didn't piss her off like the other dealership did. But, I knew from the day we bought the truck, she wasn't going to have a bad experience. Although I like my dealership, I'm still not going to advertise them for free. Her graphic is on her car, but not on mine.
But, I will give you the name of the dealership to stay away from: And since we only have two Toyota dealerships in the Macon/Warner Robins area, it will be easy to figure out who the good guys are. The one to stay away from is Bill Butler Toyota.
Heather was awesome to watch these last few days. She thought she was going to embarrass me. I was totally in her corner and loving every minute of it. You really can't get the true feeling of how cool she was from words on a blog, but take my word for it, she was awesome to watch. And the whole time, being as mad as she was, never once losing her composure or being non-professional. That's what I have a failure to do, so it was cool watching someone that can work that way. Although they may treat the next female in there like a "dumb girl" they will never think of Heather that way again. She rocks!!! :)
I will post pictures of the new 4Runner as soon as I can take a couple.