Today, I would be able to enjoy my second favorite pastime - living vicariously through a friend who is searching for a vehicle at the end of his lease.
On the docket for today - a 2013 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 with 11,700 miles. A fresh delivery to the preowned lot of a local Chevrolet dealer. This dealership, known for foaming at the mouth over the idea of extorting dollars from those shopping for V8 sports cars that run so rich fuel drips from the tailpipe at idle, would be the first target for the day.
My friend makes quite the comfortable living and is at the end of his lease on his G37, and is looking to purchase something as opposed to leasing another Infiniti. He has always been a V8 muscle/pony car kind of guy, which made his purchase of the G37 so surprising, and subsequently, caused me to ease up on the idea of stepping into a Q50S and encourage returning to his roots.
I drive my Z to his office to pick him up and ride out into town. I'm mildly pumped at the idea of trying out something that makes 200hp more than my DD, but I was already mentally preparing for disappointment.
We roll up to the dealership, and just to paint a visual for you, I give you this:
NONE SHALL ZOOM. Image circa 2015 via camera circa 2004.
It's a beast, alright. I park my Z on the side of the lot and barely get one leg out of the car before Ryyan (yes, two Ys) greets me (amazing how the guy assumes the guy driving the Nissan Z complete with the Z-logo North Face jacket is the one shopping for a Camaro - salesmen profiling is always awesome).
My friend introduces himself as we walk over to the beast incarnate. Car is unlocked so about 10 seconds later the doors, trunk (don't ask - typically if you're shopping for a two door the trunk is the last thing that matters), and hood are open. Immediately I notice the factory supercharger cover is gone, front strut tower brace is aftermarket, Moroso catch cans are installed, crank pulley swapped out for a cheap one from Lingenfelter (sarcasm detection activate), as well as a Lingenfelter intake finished off out back by a Magnaflow exhaust. The car has 11,700 miles or so on it, and the tires are a millimeter away from the wear bars, meaning my assumption of each of those 11,700 miles being heavily enjoyed probably had some weight to it.
We talk about it for a bit more and Ryyan runs inside to get da keyys (couldn't help it - but hey... he didn't choose the pseudo-vowel life, the pseudo-vowel life chose him so I'll let up for a couple paragraphs).
Come comes shuffling back with the keys, much slower this time than when I pulled up in my "rice rocket" (not my words, but the words of a f*** V8 Camaro guy from elsewhere on the lot - I decided not to engage. I'm ready to go eat wings already.) With the wonderful news of not allowing a test drive, but we could start it up. My buddy basically says he wouldn't be able to get back until this afternoon to make a deal, but doesn't want to waste time if the car doesn't check out for a test drive. Salesman still says no - mainly because there just aren't any around and they don't let people take cars of this caliber for joyrides. Not only is my buddy plenty endowed enough to be good for a purchase, he bought his last Camaro from them and told them so. He explained the situation to him and he still wouldn't let him drive it.
Salesman starts up the car and revs it for him. At this point I nearly pass out behind the car from gas fumes. Obviously straight piped and tuned to dump all the fuel into the combustion chamber. Idle is pulled back some. This car has been heavily modified. Salesman continues to try and justify the "no test drive without a buy" by explaining how he got the car from Detroit via auction. Guy that had it was into car shows and he likely drag raced based on how it was modified. At this point I'm ready to laugh my way out of the dealership and I'm checked out. How many more bad things could you add to that?
"Yeah man, this thing was ridden hard and put away wet. Roided (modded) to the gills. Needs tires. But it's RARE and basically you gotta take liability of this thing before we'll let you roll it two inches down the road." Proceeds to tell us that we'd have to go to North Carolina to find another one and the price is $48k. I ask about the warranty, even with the moderate modifications to the engine and supercharger, and he quickly says "fully under warranty". Sure he can say that - whatever it takes to sell. The car is technically federally illegal (test pipes) and who's to say that if there was ever a warranty claim on the engine that GM's marvelous customer and warranty relations department wouldn't tell the dealer to pack sand?
During the time he told me that, I've come up with a TMV of $44k for the car (not modded or ragged out, via Edmunds app), and four examples within 100 miles of this dealer (Three of them even looked stock!) all on my iPhone standing there in the parking lot.
My buddy is now traveling to look at the next closest one (a whopping 30 extra minutes of driving from this dealer) that is in his top color choice of black, same model year as this white one, has 9,200 less miles on the clock and is LISTED for nearly $3000 less than the salesman's unlisted price quote of nearly $48,000.
Bottom line is this - if you're going to s***, be good at it, and at least s*** enough to where I can't disprove everything you're saying within a minute using my smartphone. If I'm interested in something, I'm a returning customer, and I'm a potential buyer, at least take me on a damn ride in the thing. I'm not buying ANY car without test driving it. Sure as hell not buying something the caliber of a ZL1 without a test drive.
I hate stupid car salesmen. I didn't even get to RIDE in a "over 600hp" ZL1 today. (yep - according to vowels mcgee it had that much power after mods). However, if I was going to buy the black one, I'd bring it back to Ryyan after doing so and ask him what kind of clayy bar the detail shop uses out back.
