So, bottom line on the loan: Must wait for mystery package, sign form, mail back, and then, maybe, I can start to apply for the loan. I could also go sign the form in person, but the closest branch is 20 minutes from my apartment, and it'd probably take me longer to find the time to go there than it would for them to just mail the stuff to me.
dealer updates.
So, by yesterday afternoon, I still hadn't heard anything from any dealers
other than the three that I mentioned before. Out of those three, the one in Salinas was
by far the best choice, and so I called them up yesterday afternoon to find
out more information. I talked to a woman who told me that the sales guys
were all busy, and she took my name and cell phone number. A sales guy called
me back about 15 minutes later. I explained that I was using
cyclebytel.com and that
their bid had been the best for the SV650S that I was looking for. He
confirmed that they did, in fact, have SVSs in stock, but he wouldn't give
me any more information than that. After a few minutes, I got him to admit
that the $500 discount quoted on cyclebytel still applied, but I couldn't
get anything about tax, licensing, freight, or total cost out of him. Every
time I tried to ask, he'd say, "you'll have to come in for that." And every
time he'd say that, I'd tell him, "I live in Sunnyvale, it's a bit hard for
me to do a 140-mile round trip drive just to drop in for a quote." And every
time I'd say that, he'd say, "but it's a nice drive!" We went around and
around in circles like that for a few minutes, until I gave up on that too,
and got off the phone.
I wasn't really sure how to feel about that conversation, so I sent an email off to the Short Biker's List, basically asking if this was standard dealer procedure (in which case I'd shrug and take it as a part of the process) or if they were being rude to not give me any info that could help me avoid a useless 140-mile drive (in which case I wouldn't be very happy to continue dealing with them). I also posted a similar question to a motorcycle message board I'm on. Most of the responses in both places seemed to insinuate that yeah, dealers are just annoying to work with. I got the impression that if the dealer was totally slimy or downright rude or insulting (which the Salinas guy wasn't), to cross them off the list, but to otherwise do the best I could do to make sure that I wasn't being screwed and just grin and bear it.
I found out that in addition to the base price of the bike, the dealers charge tax (which is regulated by the state), licensing (ditto; this is the cost that the dealer pays the DMV to license the bike for you and get plates and etc), freight (the cost of shipping the bike from the warehouse to the dealer) and assembly (it's normally shipped in a few pieces, crated, so it needs to be put back together). Freight and assembly is apparently where the dealers will stick extra costs, and so I have to watch out for those. Bummer, since they won't tell me shit over the phone.
So this afternoon, a different guy from Salinas calls me on my cell phone, to see if I had any further questions. I'm not sure if he knew that I'd already talked to someone yesterday. The guy I talked to today (Jeff? Joe?) was really nice, though. He couldn't give me any hard numbers over the phone, either, but he admitted that the $500 discount special ended this Friday. When I told him that there was no way that I could make it to Salinas by Friday, and that it'd most likely be 2 weeks before my loan application even went through, he told me that since I'd asked about the bike well before the discount expired, that they'd give it to me even if I waited 2 weeks to come in. Which might just be slimy dealer talk, but it was still nice, and I thanked him for that. We ended up chatting a little bit, and got on the subject of Hondas (he asked what I rode now). It turns out that he rides the exact same bike that Peter has, only a year newer, so we talked about the VFRs for a minute, and Nighthawks, and Honda engines, and etc. It was a nice conversation, even though I'm sure it was only because he wanted to make a sale. It sort of reminded me of an ex-boyfriend I had in college who read all the stories I'd written (during my brief stint as an English major), and pretended to be interested in them only because he wanted me to sleep with him. I suppose it's a bad sign to be comparing a company I'm dealing with to that particular person, but I mean no real ill will towards the dealer. It was just a "niceness as a means to getting what I want" moment. I get really uncomfortable when I think there are some ulterior motives going on that I haven't been completely filled in on.
Wow, that sure got off track, didn't it?
So anyway, I explained the deal with my loan to the Salinas guy, as a way of explaining why there'd be a time delay in my getting down there. He sorta slipped in that once I get the savings account, I can call them with my Meriwest information, and they'll deal directly with the credit union about getting me the loan. I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, I'd love to just be able to say, "cool, you guys work it out, I'll just sit over here and wait for the paperwork to be done." On the other hand, I'm not sure I entirely trust the dealer, since, well, they're the ones who'll be getting the money from said loan. I don't want them going to Meriwest and being like, "yeah, she'd like a loan for ONE BIIILION DOLLARS!". So I'm not sure how that works; if I sign a "yes I accept this price" thing for the dealer before they talk to the credit union, or if it'd just be easier for me to take out the loan and then write the check to the dealer, or what. Feh. It sucks to be both naturally anti-confrontational and naturally extremely paranoid. ;)
Anyone have any blinding insight on the "dealer talking to credit union" thing?