My New Car: 2008 Toyota Corolla

Just about 2 hours ago, I became the proud owner of a brand new silver 2008 Toyota Corolla. I had no intention of driving one home today, but the sales guy ended up offering it for my asking price. I figured I'll just take it and spare myself another day of haggling.

I actually started the day off in a Nissan dealership. I thought I would buy an economical Versa, but the Sentra looked nicer so I test drived them both. Both were ho hum on the road. I told the sales guy I wanted to check out the Toyotas first, which is what I went on to do. I wasn't quite sure what I wanted from Toyota though. I didn't like the Yaris, the RAV4 are too big now, and the Corolla just seemed too common. I had a look at the Corolla anyways, since it was about the right size and price for me. Plus, they get good mileage at about 28/35. Once I test drove the car though, I knew this was the one.

The 2 main things about the Corolla was how comfortable I felt in it. Everything was within a short arm's reach and the seat was high so I could see well over the steering wheel. The drive is also very smooth and the engine pretty quiet. I like this car better than the RAV4 I previously owned. I chose a Corolla with a sports trim that came with all of the options, including a sun roof. The only thing a Corolla doesn't have is MP3 playback capability - not even an audio jack.

The sticker price at the dealership was $19600 or so. All of the 2007's were already sold out so I was stuck trying to negotiate on a 2008. The sales dude off the bat came down to $18600 since I was paying cash. I wasn't planning to buy so I kind of threw out my "buy now" number at $17000 thinking he wouldn't match it. He said he couldn't do it, so we walked out. Sure enough he came knocking on our car window with their "invoice" price of $18300. I was firm on my $17000 so he brought it to $17500... 400... 300... 250 (at this point there's no reason for them to stop)... and finally $17000. It was almost too easy so I'm wondering if I could've gotten it for 16 something had I started with that. Probably. I think they were trying to make their end of the month sales quota. I shouldn't complain though at $2600 below MSRP and $1100 under true market value (from edmunds.com), so I'm happy with my purchase. Now I just need to make sure I don't run into a deer the first day off the lot like my friend did with her brand new Corolla (she had a silver one with the sport trim too) back in '06.