I have realized that the best used car dealerships Toronto has to offer are all within a reasonable walking distance from my apartment. It’s possible that all the used cars in Toronto has are being sold by the kind of people I ran into. I mean, what are the chances that all of the good ones are near me, right? Maybe most of them are great.
What got me started on this is that I recently had an amazing experience with 2 of the used car dealerships by my home. I almost can’t believe this but one of the first places I went didn’t have the car I was looking for so they referred me to another dealership who did. They referred me to their competitor. Now, maybe they have some sort of finder’s fee deal worked out or something, I don’t know what they do to make their businesses work. But, as a customer, I was impressed.
I walked to the second dealership and they had the car pulled right up front for me when I got there. “We knew you were on your way!” the salesman said. The car was clean, it was fairly priced. What was the catch?
I asked if there was any way I could have my mechanic look at it and they were more than willing to help me set something up. I called my guy who said he could fit me in the next day around 10 am. Immediately, the salesman was like, “Great, be here at 9:30 for a test drive and you can take it to your guy’s garage.”
I was like, whoa. They’re okay with me doing this, this car must be legit. Next morning, I showed up and they let me drive the car over to my mechanic’s place. Get this: they let me go alone. I left a credit card for collateral and that was it.
I was not surprised to find out that the car needed minimal work. The brake pads were going to need changed soon and it needed 2 new tires. But all in all, it was a great experience. They knocked a little off the price, too, when I told them that I was going to need to put some money in it soon after buying it.
All in all, I was really impressed. It ended up being a lot less stressful than I imagined. I’m thankful I live in Toronto, my friend in Nova scotia had trouble finding a good car dealership, until he did.