My first car!

My first car! It's a 2007 Mazda 3 sp23. I have been on carsales.com.au for quite some time now and today was the day i finally made a decision. For these past two weeks i have been to numerous car dealerships to inspect any sp23 in a hatch that came along. I have been to dealerships that went from Kogarah, Penrith, Parramata road and my final destination was Neutral Bay.

I came across sp23's that came in a limited edition yellow, ones that struggled to start and others that have obviously been in an accident before. Also there were ones that were perfectly fine too! What appealed me to this one in Neutral Bay was its km's It has only done 19000kms! That's almost a brand new car!

The story goes, a lady bought the car new off the dealer requesting a 5 speed but someone fucked up and she got a 6 speed. She apparently thought she would be able to deal with it but in the end she really disliked the gear ratios and the constant gear changing. So she went to that dealer at the end of 2008 to trade in that car for the same exact car but in automatic. It's legit, i checked the log books and it had it's 20,000km service past mid 2008 and It's been sitting at that dealership for more than i year i assume.

I test drove it today, not to see if i like the feel of the car but it was more a check up on how the condition of the car was and it was perfect! I found it so odd that the dealer took me around the block once, got out and said i can test drive it myself. lol! Not too sure if that guy was a bit silly or super busy.

Now i haven't driven many manual cars in my life but i have and I'm not too confident. But when i sat inside, foot on the clutch, shift gear, accelerator and easy off the clutch. The car was surprisingly easy to drive! I didn't panic, i just took my time. Then when i got lost in the busy streets of Mosman/Neutral bay i just started to play around with the gear ratios because i too feared that i wouldn't like the 6 speed. But it was fine, something i can defiantly enjoy.

Pulled back into the dealership, got out and then observed the colour because that was one thing i was a bit taken back on. It was advertised as blue, but it's not it's more like a turquoise green/blue colour. More blue in the sun, dark green in the shade and probably poo green at night. lol But i really did like the idea of getting an almost brand new car! So we started talking.

The car was advertised at 25k and I was asking for 10k for the Camry trade in. John (the dealer) said I was asking for too much on the camry. Then we spoke about the number on the camry and the last i heard of it was the 8k-9k mark, then out of nowhere he shoots me an offer! I gave him a figure below that and he turned to me and asked "Did you say that so we can meet each other halfway?" ..... me "Yep", he cracked up instantly! Then done, the car is mine.

How easy was that! I was actually prepared to walk away from that car if it hadn't worked in my favor because i had about 3 other sp23's lined up. But for my first car buying experience it was fun! I was a bit nervous at first but now i don't know why i was in the first place.

So the camry is still at home and the sp23 is just waiting for rego and greenslips. So I should have it by next week!