haggling, negotiating, price gouging - fun stuff!

I'd rate myself as above-average, in terms of the cluefulness around the car buying experience. I picked up last vehicle in Los Angeles and I was quite content of getting it $3000 cheaper, than the cheapest quote in the bay area.

So I started asking around for quotes on the mini cooper with local bay area dealers and also some dealers in southern california. SoCal is a big car market, and one has a lot more choices on the options, given the huge inventories that dealers have.

To make a long story short, after a few hours on the phone/email, haggling on pricing, pitching one dealer against another and getting the price down by about $1500, I was ready to put my money where my mouth was.
BMW of mountain view seem to match our lowest offer from Sacremento, and keeping convinience in mind, we decided to go with them.

Today, we put down our $1000 deposit on the car, after double checking all the options/configurations on it. The dealer says its going to be a January 2008 production with a late february delivery!

I'll start tracking the progress on that in a couple of weeks. Right now, heading back home to pack. We're going away for 2 weeks to Austin to visit my sister and her family. Should be fun!!

Choices. Choices.Choices - Internet, a boon or a bane?

Ok, over the last week I've been going nuts, thanks to miniusa.com , where they let you customize your car - down to the very last bolt in the engine(ok, I am exaggerating). But almost close. I built atleast 7 or 8 cars, with different colors, wheels, packages, interior options/upholstery etc.

I finally submitted my proposals to the future owner. And the winner is: A Chilli RED with white racing stripes. Here is how it probably will look like.

Specs on the puppy.

Paint

• Chrome Line Exterior
• Chrome Mirror Caps
• Chili Red Body Color
• White Roof/Mirrors

Premium Package

• 10-Speaker. Hi-Fi Sound System
• Automatic AC
• Dual Pane Panoramic Sunroof

Sport Package

• Sport Suspension
• Dynamic Stability Control
• 17" Web-spokes (Run Flat Perf.)
• White Bonnet Stripes
• Performance Front Fog Lamps
• Xenon Headlamps w/Power Wash
• 6-Speed Getrag Manual

Cockpit

• Sport Seats
• Chrome Line Interior
• On-Board Computer
• Center Arm Rest
• Cloth/Leather: Rooster Red/Black
• Alarm System
• Leather Sport Wheel w/Multifunction
• Rooster Red Color Line
• Interior Surface Piano Black

Accessories

• Black Carpet Floor Mats (4)
• Black Rubber Floor Mat (boot)
• Chrome Bonnet Scoop

Time to start shopping around for a good price.

Mini Clubman - what is that?

So,we were almost ready to pick out the options on our spanking new Mini Cooper S and Ashish, a friend of mine and a serious car enthusiast, who knew about our Mini affinity, emailed me and told me that there is a newer, bigger version of the Mini Cooper - The Mini Clubman which will start shipping in 2008.

Dang, back to research on miniusa.com. Mini had very little info about the car, but none of the dealers had it. Looked up some other websites, which had spy shots of the car. The Clubman looked cool. It had 2 rear barn doors and also a club door on the passenger side, for easier access for the rear seats. It was also longer by 10 inches and wider by another 6 or so, compared to its predecessor. Any extra room, would help I thought. Right?

We didnt want to decide on it, wihtout actually looking at it. We were almost ready to give up on the clubman and move on, but then it struck me. The SF auto show was going to be in town. After calling several dealers, if they're going to show the Clubman on the floor, and not getting any response back, I called the auto show organisers to no avail.

Finally jumped on a few mini forums, to confirm that infact the SF show will have a clubman for display!! Cool!
picked a weekday, and did an early morning run to SF with Sumati and Rishon. Took a good peek at the clubman. It looked quite cool and nice. The space was definitely going to be useful.

Unable to decide, we decided to sit on it for a day or two. Oh, given that my son has become a car freak, it was almost impossible to get him out of the car show. He kept running towards every brand like a maniac. He insisted we sit in a few - so we sat in a Lexus GS300, a Land Rover and a Ford Mustang.

I started calling the dealers for quotes/timelines on the Clubman. Looks like there's a hype about this and all dealers are charging a $3K premium on it. In addition to it, the car itself cost another extra $3k than the regular Mini. And they couldnt guarantee a timeline at which they could get the car. April, May, may be? And $6k definitely didnt look worth the small space increase.

Screw you all, we're going back to Plan A.

Going Retro? Yes Maam, I think so!

The last couple of months, just went by without any research on the car front due to a "pukathon" on the home front. Finally we went down to test drive the mini cooper S last week at the Mini of Mountain View. Man, this puppy is zippy for its size. I had to try out the "go-karting" capabilities of this one, so took the Hwy 85 north -> Hwy 237 East ramp, and boy it stuck to the ground at about 60-65mph on the S turn!
I was impressed! Although my son and wife didnt feel well after the test drive, with nausea kicking in ;) Sumati liked it. We tried out Rishon's car seat and it fits decently. He could in and out of the car, without too much effort. The cargo space is a joke, but is not something new to us, having owned a jeep wrangler for about 5 years!! We also went down to Lexus of Steven's creek, looked around the IS 250. Its a great car and good value for money. A perfect car for a small family, decent mileage and good standard options on it. For once, I was using my "left brain" and coaxing Sumati to pick the lexus - it being more practical with 4 doors, a decent trunk, future proofing for the family, blah.blah.blah. I dont know how that happened. Of course, she was using her "right brain", to balance it out. I think she had made up her mind.


So here we go. Its going to be a MINI COOPER S people!! Oh, we're all so excited!

A descendant of project ADO15(Austin Drawing Office Project Numer 15), which was conceived during the Suez Crisis in 1956 in our hands soon. Read more on its history here.

Run? for Fun? Are you Crazy? Yes you are!

Last sunday, Ranjeet a good buddy of mine participated in the silicon valley marathon event and finished sucessfully! It was good to see him complete this after 6+ months of ardous training. He had never run before and started off as a rookie in the beginning of this season. it sure was great inspiration for all us standing on the curbsite and cheering him on!!

To add to this ,yet another physically active dude, Naveen had run "The Relay" - a 200 mile marathon relay from calistoga, CA to Santa Cruz, CA in june of 2007, after a weeklong partying in barbados. Naveen also had a strict regimen of training and nutrition.

To sum it all up, we had 2 runners in our group, who had awakened our spirits and opened yet another corridor to walk in our lives - RUNNING!! talking about spirits, I think the idea of a bunch of us running the relay came up in a bar, while we were having a few drinks(After all, all good ideas so come alive in a bar!!).

So there it was. we were going to find a team of 12 and run this relay in April of 2008!! am Nervous, but i'll play along!!

Beer, Garlic fries, Milk, OJ and Cake - In a charitable and musical ambience

Today marked a very important day in my life. The Bridge School Benefit concert with my SON! His first ever concert!! 2 years and 9 months old, I was happy to share a part of my life that he thoroughly enjoys too - music.

Thanks to Amit, he bought tickets a couple of months ago. It was me, Rish, Amit, VenuJ and Aditya.

Amit took me to my FIRST metallica concert in 1996. And my son's first metallica concert in 2007.
Touching two lives, two generations in a row ;) Thanks Amit!

Thanks to Venu, who showered two basket of fries and a cake to Rish, while I settled down with a fat tire, in the lawn at shoreline.

Rish swinged with us for john Mayer, Neil young and My morning jacket. Folks were watching him, as he would very nicely sync up with the ever changing rhythmic progression swiging his arms and head with all of us.

A very memorable evening and hopefully many more "hanging out" sessions with my son.
Pictures at: http://www.flickr.com/gp/92066787@N00/cBHN7q

No coupe, No Sedan, No hatchback, no SUV? WTF!!

Okay, the wifey comes back with some "research" and here are her requirements:

- No Coupe, 2 doors is not an option for a family bigger than 2 people.
- No Sedan, plain looking, all of them regardless of the price/performance look the same from the outside
- No wagons - they are what you get, when you have your 401K in hand
- No hatchbacks - too funky looking, not exactly her type.
- No SUV - we already have one. <-- This was the only one which kinda made sense!! Ok, now what? Boats are kinda pricey and I am not a big fan of flying. We _had_ to find something which travels on land. I got whacked in the head, for proposing a nice BMW R 1200 GS with a sidecar for kid drop off duties :) I miss my jeep wrangler quite a bit, so tried to sneak that in as well, when she was in a nice mood, but boy that proposal too got dissed pretty badly.

I do like the VW GTI/Rabbit,but again I had to hold back on my urges and let her decide.

So we talked about options and finally came down to 2 choices.

1. Mini Cooper S
2. Lexus IS 250

Lets see how we progress. we're gonna test drive both these and see how thing go.

yay, time to spend more money on gas!

Okay,we're just back from a nice long trip to barbados and its about time, we threw our son out of the house ;) Ahem, just for a few hours a day - aka pre-school. The brat is about two and a half years old and its time, he stopped hanging out with adults late nights on saturdays, and tried to socialise with his own kind during day time.

We're now seeing the need for a second car, given that there are umpteen drop-off and pick-up duties involved with our son starting pre-school. We never missed having a second car. Sam and I managed well with 6 wheels. A 4-wheeler and a bike. But the time has arrived to expand the auto portfolio in the house.

Given that I was (pre)dominantly involved in our previous purchase - The Toyota 4Runner, I thought of playing fair and putting this task in Sumati's hand completely, albeit resisting the urge and excitement, given my insane researching habits.

Lets see what she comes up with..