Just Ranting

So recently I had the lovely experience of going up to the car dealership and enjoy the pleasure of car shopping! Gosh I really love car shopping, its just an experience that I don't think I could really live without! Well the reason that I had to go up to the dealership in the first place is because our millage was up on the lease. This is not to be confused with the lease being up by the way... Yeah, that's right, we drove the car too much and the last time this happened it ended up costing me a ton of extra money; so to avoid that, I thought I would be smart about the millage this time and just turn the vehicle back into GM early.

Well I spent most of my afternoon looking at vehicles and haggling with the salesman over different vehicles until finally we both agreed on a car with the options and pricing that I wanted. Turns out it was the same style of car that we had leased. No big deal really, its a nice car and for a family it is roomy. The vehicle that we decided on is a Chevy Impala. The car is nice, we even decided to take it up to our cottage the next day to get the car broke in.

We've had the car about a week now, no complaints and it even seems like it drives better than the last one. I am just starting to think, gosh what a great deal, got out of the lease, and we are buying what I hope is the last car for a long time. Little did I know, a little envelope was waiting for me in the post. Yesterday when I went and checked the mail, there was letter from GMAC, no big deal, I thought that it was probably a thank you letter from GMAC for leasing a vehicle from them. Well I wasn't too far off, they did thank me, but then there were charges for vehicle damage. They are charging me over $1,000 for road damage the vehicle sustained. Like I said, I thought I was doing the smart thing for turning in the car early, as they only charged me for the millage overage and no damage the last time. That bill only came to about $900 and the funny part is the car had been rear ended and there were a ton of scratches. Well I guess they figured that they were going to charge you one way or another.

It is very frustrating and the worst part is the letter stated that this may not be the final charge as they still have to sell the vehicle and because of economic conditions we may be responsible for the remaining balance of the vehicle if the vehicle sells for less than the value of the vehicle is worth. Its amazing that they include in a letter, about economic conditions as though they are the only ones feeling the pinch of the current economic condition. They should look at my 401k! I have lost thousands dollars in the past year and some of it was wrapped up in GM stock that took a beating. So who is responsible for the money that I've lost? I think I should be able to send a letter to all of my investments that state: "due to the current economic condition, you may be responsible for the remaining balance of my retirement in the event that I come up short of plan at retirement age!"