Jimmy Chang Car Salesman Extraordinaire
Last night, I had the pleasure of doing business with the best car salesman I've ever met. No, I haven't gotten rid of my Bug yet, but not from lack of effort by one Jimmy Chang.
But, before I sing the praises of Mr. Chang, I would like to point out once again why I love my man so much!
We were getting ready to leave last night and I was pretty tense and terse. I thought I was doing a pretty good job of putting up a brave face, but as we were walking out the door N says "Are you sure about this?"
I couldn't even look him in the eye when I answered "No... but I know it has to be done."
"I knew there was something wrong, I could see it in your face" *pause* "We really need a car with more room"
"LOGICALLY, I KNOW this, but the rest of me doesn't always follow logic..."
He sat, thinking about this for a moment, and then he said, "How about this. We get the van, and then when we pay it and the Jeep off, we'll get you a convertible Bug."
I shook my head at him, part of my brain going `right, like that would happen'. But somehow, him knowing and understanding how I felt, and doing everything he could to make it better, made it better.
As we got close to the Car dealership, we gave them a call to let them know we were coming. N talked to Jimmy who seemed very excited. "I'll get the car ready! You ask for Jimmy...ok?"
As we approached the dealership we spotted the van and of course did the goofy tourist thing. *pointing* "Oh look! There it is!". We had to pass the place, go to the next light and turn around so it took a bit to actually pull onto the lot, and to our amazement, the van was GONE! We wandered around a bit, asked a few people for `Jimmy' and were told to he would be a few minutes.
A few minutes later we were approached by a elderly oriental gentleman dressed in jeans, a polo shirt and baseball cap. "Are you N___? Yes? I'm Jimmy Chang." He was so NOT what I would have expected: the casual attire, the age, the thick accent. But he had a fantastic smile and an enthusiastic hand shake. He won TONS of points by doing his best to talk to BOTH of us, meeting my eye every time he spoke and directing just as many of his comments to me as he did to N. Even if I did have to ask him to repeat some things so I could understand. As he lead us out to look at the van he casually mentioned "You saw this on ad for $7,999, less then it says right?"
N and I looked at each other and he shrugged. He had done all the research and had written down the info he had found in the internet. He looked at his papper, looked at me, shook his head then told Jimmy "Uh, yeah..."
By the tone of N's voice it was OBVIOUS we had no idea what the guy was talking about. Jimmy looked at both of us in turn, grinned and said "You saw it for $1000 less! If they advertised it for that we'll make sure they give it to your for that price. Just say yes!"
Needless to say the guy had already impressed us. He had taken the van out back when he heard we were coming and had rinsed off the dust. And NOW he was telling us that somewhere, someone had advertised this van for $1000 less and was telling us he would give us that price even though we hadn't seen the ad.
We took the van for the usual test drive. I made N drive it because test-driving a vehicle makes me so nervous I can't function. Jimmy sat in the back he had kept up a running inventory of this van's merits. "You want to tow? This is a good van for this, built on a truck cassis." "It has two air conditioners, and the kids can plug in, here in the back to listen to their music." And so on. Suddenly he says "Try the air conditioner. Make sure it works. You try everything, make sure it works."
So I did. Nigel started laughing at me as I pushed buttons, flipped switches all the while going. "Ooo what's THIS button do?"
After we parked, Jimmy hopped out of the van, told us, "You look it over one more time" and he went back inside. When he came back out he had a newspaper ad in his hand. "Here," he told N. "See it's advertised for 7.9. You tell them you saw it in the paper. Not on the internet. They have to honor this price, they advertised it."
Of course we weren't going to argue with the guy! Then came the shock, the blow this poor enthusiastic sales guy wasn't expecting. We told him we wanted to trade in the BUG. He took all my information, 2001 Beatle, 122,000 miles... amount owed almost 10k. He went into the back and then came back out, downcast. "here's the deal.." he started out. He went on to explain that trade in for the car was listed at 6,000 and that there was no way to hide 4,000 in the loan for the van. "But, there may be another way..." He then explained that we could LEASE a NEW van, hide the $4,000 in the lease and we would have a car that seats seven.
I have to tell you, the thought of getting a new van with leather seats and all the new fangled doodads was a bit appealing to me. But, this was a Mazda dealership. And I wasn't too thrilled with the MPV. N nearly fainted when he saw the sticker price of $35k. Then Jimmy said the thing that had us laughing the rest of the night. "Of course you can't tow with it, it's a JAPANESE car!"
The statement in and of itself was funny enough, but to hear it come out of the mouth of this fifty-something oriental man, with his thick accent, and with the OBVIOUS distain. It was all I could do to not burst out laughing right then and there!
As leasing wasn't for us, Jimmy was cool, he didn't pressure us, he didn't push, he handed us our paper work, told us "This is yours, you keep it, no one look at it but you." And then added "You go home and think about it. Call me." And then escorted us to our car. N shook his hand, which seemed to startle him. I had my hands full at this point so I nodded. To my surprise and pleasure this nice gentleman gave me a very formal and very oriental bow.
As we backed out, I had to tell N, "Look out!" Jimmy had jumped in the path of our car and was waving us down. "You pull this car over there. I'm going to see if I can get this guy to say OK to 10 thousand for it. The sales manager is gone. Shhhhh, we'll get this guy to say OK and then you can take the van"
It was very clandestine and very SWEET of him to give it another try. Unfortunately, he couldn't even convince THIS guy (whoever that happened to be) to ok $10k for my car, so it's still mine and we don't have a van yet. But I have to say, that was the most pleasant car experience I've EVER walked away from.
If you are ever in Redwood City, stop by Redwood City Mazda and tell Jimmy Chang I said HEY.
Posted by parttimemom
at 11:46 AM PDT
Updated: Friday, 25 June 2004 1:58 PM PDT
lazy
cool
not sure
bright
chillin'
