The Car Buying Experience

I have recently bought a new car and found that the times are changing. Years ago if you found a car that you wanted a salesman would take you aside and you had to haggle about the price. Just I got use to this in came Saturn. I have owned 2 Saturns and found that my first was an experience I won't forget. Everytime I tried to get the price lower they would not budge. It turned out they were as low as they could go and relied on good customer service & sales skills to get your business. I grew to really like this approach. This weekend I bought a new to me (used) car. Now I did get a good deal. It is a 2005 Dodge with low miles and you would not believe how low the monthly payments are if I told you. What I didn't like was that this time and one about a year ago when my wife got a new car was I felt like a hostage negotiator. I originally only went to look but, as expected, a salesman came up to help. Now here is where it changes. I told him I heard they were having a sale but was just there to look. He practically drags me in to get information. I give it to him but when he ask me to sign I refused. I don't believe in signing unless I am buying. Next he shows us around to ones that he thinks will match what we can pay. Hey I prefer to look by myself. If I see a Rolls Royce I know I can't afford it but at least I can dream and I might even get to sit in the car if the door is unlocked. Suddenly I saw a car that I was interested in and at the time I thought I could afford. He took my wife and I in to talk terms. Now here is where I made my biggest mistake. Since my car would be used as a trade in he asked for my car key so they could look at it to see how much they would give for it as a trade in. I gave him the key. I should not have done that. I should have said I will drive the car to them and open it so they can judge it. At least then I would still have the key. Once they had the key they had me where they wanted me. They kept telling me the price and the monthly payments. I kept being polite and saying I can't afford that so please give me my car key so we can go home and not waste each others time. They refused to give me my car. They just kept lowering the price of the car. Finally it got so low that the sales person asked if I would buy the car if he could get that price? I didn't think he could get the price so I said yes. I thought I was safe and would get my Saturn back. He got the price. Not wanting to be a liar I boiught the car. Now I am sure I got a good car. However, it was rotten customer service. I felt like it was my child and a stranger were being held hostage and when I paid the ransom they freed the stranger but kept my child. I have now learned not to give my car keys to the sales person. If I don't like the way things are going I can leave if I still have the car keys. I hope the car sales business makes quick changes. The customer may not always be right anymore but the customer always appreciates manners.
Now one of the reasons I wanted to get a newer car is that my Saturn had over 50,000 miles on it. I figured that it might start spending more time in the service station then it would in my driveway. However, it was paid off. For 3 years I didn't have a car payment. During those 3 years money was and still is tight. Now I have to pay for a car. So if any of you have and books, DVD's etc. that you want to buy for yourself or as birthday or Christmas gifts you can click on the Amazon links on the left and buy them there. If you do I get a percentage of the sale price.
Thanks and happy reading.