Buying a Car

Jamie and I found a decent deal on a brand new 2009 Chevrolet Trailblazer that we liked. You are not allowed to test drive a vehicle, so you simply rely on the warranty they give you. Nonetheless, this one is fully loaded and we liked it. On December 5, we put down a small deposit on the car. We received the paperwork from the dealership to take back to the finance department of our school for the loan.

On December 6, I dropped off the paperwork at the school and amazingly received a check the next day. I also received the paperwork to fill out regarding the insurance and dropped by the government relations office to receive what they call a "good boy" letter basically stating that I am employed by them and a good person in Saudi Arabia.

The good boy letter was going to take 6 days to receive, so I had to wait that long. In the meantime, I dropped off the loan check and the remainder of the car's balance in cash to the dealership on December 6 and simply waited until I received my good boy letter and official copy of the insurance form.

I received my good boy letter the next day without a stamp from the Chamber of Commerce. I tried going to the dealership to see if they would allow it but they did not. They told me the letter was wrong anyway, so it worked out well that I went over there without the stamp. I went back to GR and told them to revise the letter, which they did, but could not give it to me for 6 days. So we waited...

Finally, on December 12, I picked up my official good boy letter (the correct one) and my official insurance documents and went to the dealership to drop them off. They assured me that it would only take a couple of days to received the registration and license plate.

It did, and on December 15, we went again to the dealership, signed a couple of papers, received the registration card, a receipt for a free tank of gas and a free car cleaning, and drove away very happy in our new car.

Upon entering the vehicle, Jamie noticed the there was a fire extinguisher underneath the floor mat on the passenger's side. it was literally bolted to the floor with the floor mat placed on top of it. Her feet were sitting higher than usual. Single handedly, the worst engineering design I have ever seen on any object in my life. See the picture above. We were told that we could remove it later; and luckily, I was able to just unscrew it and throw it in the back compartment with the tire changing tools. Crazy!

Overall, we are very happy with it. It drives great, but most importantly, it gives us the freedom to go wherever we want to go in town without using a taxi, a neighbor, or the compound bus.