A few weeks ago, my brother Benjamin rings me up on the blower with an interesting proposition that would take advantage of one my favourite pastimes that my Hungarian heritage comes in quite handy…the dark arts known as haggling.
We all know Vizzini’s famous bit about Sicilians right before he finds out the hard way that both chalices were poisoned with iocane powder but had he been Hungarian, he might well have said “never go in against a Hungarian if money is on the line!“
That’s not to say that we’re notoriously cheap (though we certainly can be the ones that not only turn on a dime but actually stop to pick it up!) as it’s a bit more nuanced than merely being miserly with one’s funds.
Historically, we Magyars have never been particularly rich and making the best we can with what one has is a matter of survival and necessity rather than desire.
However, there is a deep-rooted sense of honour (personal and definitely familial) where the goal of any social and financial interaction is that everyone leaves the transaction with their honour intact and a sense that whilst the haggling may well be intense and hard bargains won and agreed, as long as everyone leaves feeling the deal is fair and honourable, all will be well.
And then pass the bogrács gulyás and the Tokaji aszú and let’s make a evening fit for the songs! 😉
That would be a very familiar concept to our ancient ancestors who came from the Far East many centuries earlier for whom the ancient art of “saving face” is a very real thing amongst the modern Asian cultures.
Haggling and driving hard bargains is about as natural to Hungarians as flying is to the bird or swimming in the river is to the fish.
But for a few of us, the real art of the deal is enjoying driving as hard and occasionally shameless bargain as we can against an adversary who is determined to shake out every last forint from your pockets and engaging once again in the ancient battle of wits between seller and buyer and having as much fun as possible whilst doing it.
That’s why I get these calls asking me to go and have a bit of a lark sitting in on and driving negotiations with perhaps the wiliest and most slippery salespeople out there…the ones who sell cars on commission.
It’s also why I very rarely if ever refuse the opportunity to have a bit of perverse fun at their expense! 🙂
In this case, Ben and his lovely lady Jessica are in the market to replace her 2007 Kia Sedona with over 200K miles on the clock and a bit of bad news on the mechanical front which I can certainly empathize with and she’s thinking that a more modern Toyota RAV4 just might be a lovely new ride.
The twist is that Jessica abhors the car purchasing process about as much as I take a perverse pleasure in exploiting that same process for the best possible deal, perhaps even more so.
So absolutely, this face is on the case and we start our respective research projects with the goal of narrowing down the candidate vehicles and then meet up at the dealer to hopefully have a bit of fun, a few laughs, and we just might leave with Jessica in her new daily commuter!
As it turned out, I was going to be at loose ends as everyone else was off for a bit of holiday at the coast and I had a couple of labradoodles hanging about my place whilst they were away so I’d be able to let my haggling flag fly! 🙂
So join us in the journey where I’m going to detail how I tend to approach purchasing a car and hopefully let you see that there really isn’t any dark magic involved and maybe there’s some techniques you might find useful the next time you’re going up against Joe Isuzu on the showroom floor.
This is a start of a new series of articles called “Top Nerd Top Tips” where I’ll share some of the best tricks and tips I’ve learnt over the years (occasionally the hard way but that’s life, eh?).
So let’s be off on the journey where the most important things occur well before we arrive at the dealership… 🙂