Saturday

Right...so continuing where I left off. Saturday dawned nice, bright and sunny....while we did crash out the previous night, it wasn't a very great sleep - owing to the lack of pillows and a mattress!! But nevertheless we did try to grab some shut eye. Got a call from a Kim Hoang from San Leandro Honda, stating that they had a special going on for the end of the month, and that she was really desperate to sell a car.

A quick tip - the trick to buying a car in the US is to pit different dealers against each other to get the best possible rate / deal. Then again, within the dealership too, once can get two different rates for the same car - one from the retail salesman and a different one from the internet salesman. While the retail guy makes his commissions on how much the car is sold for, the internet person makes his commission based on how many cars he sells in the month. So the trick is to talk to the internet guy for the best possible rate as he/she would like to move the car off the lot - irrespective of the price, and then talk to the retail guy to see if he would go any lower than the said price.

Since we do not have any credit history in this country, all interest rates on loans were very high - upwards of 10.5%, which is a ridiculous sum of money. Anyhow, since it was a special (it's all in the timing - end of the month & end of the quarter), we managed to secure a 4.9% which is really good.

We ended up buying the Honda Civic EX with Navigation with the automatic transmission. The color is Beige. Will upload some photographs soon. From start to finish - the entire process took less than two hours - including the financing etc. The actual sale took just about half an hour!!!
While we received delivery of the vehicle, we couldn't take it off the lot, as we didn't have insurance. We finally managed to get insurance on Monday and so drove it back from the showroom on Monday. It was the first time that I drove on the Freeway, and believe me, I was gripping the steering wheel like a dead man clutching straws!!! If at all I am able to drive in this country - it's all thanks to Anil. He has been a tremendous help here.

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First Drive in USA

Over the weekend, I drove for the first time in the US. Anil was generous enough to allow me to drive his car for a while, and we basically went out for lunch, and some more shopping (whew!! I wonder when all the shopping will end!!). Anyhow, to cut a long story short, it was a interesting experience. He has a black Toyota Camry, and believe me, it's once of the best colors, but a nightmare to maintain!!

Anyhow, at the outset, I sat on the left hand side of the car, and cursed the number of times that I had an opportunity to drive a left-hand drive vehicle in India, and didn't. The first instinct is for the left leg to depress the clutch prior to starting the vehicle, and that's when you realize that it's an automatic without a floor clutch!!!

Once I got it started, the next step was moving it from P (parking) to D(Drive). One needs to keep the brakes depressed, as otherwise the vehicle will roll forwards. After that it was pretty much smooth sailing. Driving was easy, also I didn't hit any of the freeways as that will take some more time.

Once we stopped, I carried out the same sequence, but in reverse - move from D to P, pull the handbrake, turn of ignition. The best part was that after all this, the left hand instinctively looks for a handbrake to pull, as the body is conditioned to do so, in India.

It was fun. We hope to purchase the car (the honda civic) probably within the next two weeks - so then I'll be sure to give more updates. Also we move into our apartment this weekend - so looking forward to that.

Car Hunting

Hello everyone!! Aloha!! Today we formally started car hunting - looked at the Honda's and Toyota's of the world. Also looked at some of the Lexus models (these are the premium segment of the Toyota group).

Incidentally, for the uninformed, in the US, virtually each car manufacturer has two segments which they market. One is the usual segment such as the Honda, Toyota, etc, while the other is the premium / luxury segments, where the same manufacturers push out luxury cars - as in Honda has the Acura, Toyota has the Lexus, in their luxury segments. I'll see if I can get a consolidated list out to you all.

Anyhow, we saw the Honda Civic (normal & Hybrid) as well as the Honda Accord. We also saw the Toyota Yaris, Corolla, Camry and Prius (hybrid). We also saw a few used Lexus cars whose pricing was kinda comparable to that of a new Camry.

The fact of the matter is that in this country one could go bonkers with the amount of choice that is available. Hopefully, within the next couple of weeks we would have narrowed down our search, and finalized our car!!!