We picked up the new (to us) Durango yesterday that is replacing the Durango that was totaled in Michelle’s recent accident. The 04 SLT is not quite as well appointed as the 05 Limited that is now scrap metal, but I knocked 20,000 miles off what the Durango had, and I banked some of the insurance proceeds, so it’s all good.

Normally, I would spend a couple months car shopping, complete with detailed spreadsheets to figure out the sweet spot in the feature / price matrix. I didn’t have the luxury of a couple of months, I had a couple of weeks at best.

First, I was surprised at the lack of used Durangos in the area. When I started looking there were exactly zero used Durangos for sale in Fredericksburg. A few did come on the market while I was looking though. So, in roughly the order I visited them, here are my impressions of the used car dealers in the area.

Safford Dodge: Didn’t have any used Durangos on the lot. It seems to me that the local Dodge dealer should always have 1 or 2 of each major Dodge product on the lot.

Chrysler of Culpeper: Test drove an 05 SLT there. Mechanically sound, but the interior was too bare bones for Michelle. They were laid back, I didn’t get any pressure from either the sales guy or manager.

Carmax. It’s like Walmart with high prices. By that I mean nobody there seems to really care if you buy a car from them or not. They had 4 or 5 Durangos between F’burg and Potomac Mills, and they were all several thousand more than I was willing to spend for those particular vehicles. The Durango I looked at Potomac Mills had tires that were so bald I really question how it passed inspection. You can’t be asking top dollar on a truck that will cost me $800 for new tires the day after I buy it.

Eastern Auto: They mark the vehicles way, way up. The one Durango I looked at was $5000 over retail blue book. Based on their obnoxious commercials I was expecting the hard sell, but they actually seemed to be fairly laid back. There is definately lots of room to haggle on their prices though.

Kip Killmon Ford in Louisa: This is where I bought the ‘Rango. I got it for about $2700 under retail blue book, and the dealer put brand new OEM tires on it when he brought it in. He also let me borrow it for a day so I could have my mechanic look at it. After it got a clean bill of health I took it back to Louisa and put a deposit down to hold it for a couple of days until the insurance check cleared. I brought it home on Friday. I made the trip down 208 to Louisa 3 times in 4 days. It’s a quaint small town, I half expected Sheriff Taylor to drop in to say howdy. If you are in the market for a car and see one in Louisa I think it’s worth the effort to head down there.

I still need to get a trailer hitch installed, and I need to get replacement wireless key fobs and it did not come with either keyless entry fob.

Hopefully I won’t be car shopping again anytime soon.