Sooo... There was one last van I wanted to check out, but it was located at a dealer ~3 hours south of us on the Oregon Coast, I won't name the dealership to protect the innocent, nor name the lame ; )
Knowing a bit of how the system works I called the dealership Wednesday morning at ~8:30am and spoke to a retail salesman as the fleet crew was unavailable. The individual stated they would contact the fleet manager/salesman and get back to me. At about 8:45 he called stating the fleet contact told him the van was available and to sell it... ( I had given them the Vin I was interested in, a T-350 3.5 w/LSD LWB HR extended body cargo). I told the salesman I was willing to make the three hour drive and would take the van for a test drive upon arrival about noon. He said "I will have it ready for you".
I hang up the phone by 9am, and we get in our rig to drive south.
An absolutely BEAUTIFUL DAY on the coast...
We arrived a bit after noon in the un-named town ~3 hours south of Astoria on the Oregon Coast... We parked the rig a block away as we'd had enough of the Van Crush thing ; ) from the prior day's three Ford Dealership crews we'd spent time with.
When I walked into the dealership I introduced myself and it happened to be the fellow I spoke to that morning (he was sitting talking with someone, but immediately got up and walked toward me, and I was dressed in camo and jeans so it's not like I looked like I was there to shell out 40K on a van). I'm thinking the guy was just chatting with a local? Otherwise his abrupt get-up-talk-to-stranger without comment to the one he was conversing with was, well...poor customer relations?
So the three of us (him, my wife and I) walk out of the salesroom toward a bunch of Transits...
Have you ever played the game "Traffic Jam" ??
That is a close approximation to what the commercial lot looked like. And where was the van he said would be ready for us upon our arrival?? This is an approximation, but not intentionally exaggerated in any way... the van was sandwiched with one row perpendicular in front, two to three vehicles parallel on either side, and two rows perpendicular behind and it could not be driving forward as there was a curb, the only way out was behind and to a single exit to it's left...three rows back. Yea, ready ( < SARCASM < )
He said; "Oh, i'll have it ready for you in five minutes, we've been real busy getting ready for an off site." Seriously? And you've had THREE HOURS to figure out where to come up with "Five minutes" to get the van "ready for us"?
Now, if you know me, you know i'm a type B Zen sort of guy. My fuse is, well, LONG. My dearly beloved on the other hand? Lets just say she has stated on many occasions during our 34 year relationship that my calm in the storm has gotten her ( & us ) through some crazy times. I could practically see the smoke coming out of her ears!
The salesman turns to me stating he would jockey the other vehicles out of the way and if we'd like to take a look inside the van we could do so, and hands me the keys.
Cari and I walked to the van, I opened the door and took some measurements after placing the key on the driver's seat. A few minutes pass with no sign of progress or salesman.
Cari is even more noticeably shaken by the experience.
I had to make a decision.
I looked around the lot...he was in the cab of a large box van, one of several he would have to move before the van we were interested in was "Ready" for that test drive.
And then it happed.
With a grin on my face I asked Cari to trust me.
And with her hand in mine, we sneaked off the lot.
Hunched down below his vision. From rig to rig...
By the time we got to the van I had Cari laughing so hard I thought the neighborhood was going to start pointing at us. We felt like two teenagers that were sneaking away from just T-P'ing someone's car in their driveway.
Then, about 15 minutes later my phone rings, I hand it to Cari and say let it go to voice mail if the number is not recognized...
Then she played back the VM; "Thom, are you in the parking lot? Did you leave the neighborhood?"
That got us both laughing again. Seriously? He thought there was even a remote chance that we might stick around after being treated as such?
And THAT was the last time we will ever deal with that dealership. EVER. I don't care if they've got the perfect-for-us-rig on their lot i'll have another dealer have it brought into their lot.
You gotta laugh at life some times!
: ) Thom
PS.
Then on the way home, still an occasional giggle out of the two of us, we got some awesome happy news... Our son texted us that he just made Staff Sargent (US Air Force), his 2 year-older-sister has an additional stripe as a Tech Sargent. <<< Sooo Excited and proud of him!!
After all reflecting? We think the day was perfect!
Lessons learned.