New owner of an awesome Z. Have some newbie questions

winnre

As a former Mercedes and Porsche owner I am no stranger to luxury vehicles that have power and grace. About three months ago I started looking for a fun car, just a car because I WANT one, not because I NEED one.

My first stop was a used Maserati Spyder, but with no maintenance records and six owners in under 25k miles I decided to pass it up. I looked at all sorts of cars from Toyota and Subaru to BMW and Jaguar. Then I saw the Ford Mustang. I was dead set on it until I found out the manual transmission is not made in America. It is not even made in the Americas. It's from China! No sale!

Now I have seen the Z cars out there since the days of the 280Z. I wanted a 240Z and in California that means no smog control hardware, a definite plus. Well I decided to check out the Z mainly because I saw one on the road that just struck me as the most beautiful thing I ever saw. I followed it to the dealership and it had promptly sold to the test driver. But I was hooked. I wanted a white one. Magma red would work too.

My search began. I test drove a few models and was not to keen on sport or A7 but I did like the GPS. That means the touring package (although the dealer swears they can put the GPS into the base model). I wanted to finance a meager amount to have it on my credit file. So with a $20k down payment I was going to finance $10k on the base model. Then the dealer told me the payments for a $10k loan would be $395/mo for 6 years. They even had the nerve to add GAP insurance with such a hefty down! A little reverse math put them at around 25% interest. I said no way. They countered with 16%. I left to go to another dealer. Then I found I had left my license at the first dealer, so back I went where they then offered me 9.99%. No sale.

I found myself drifting from dealer to dealer. I used truecar to get a better feel for the prices and my phone was flooded with calls from dealers all over the place.

Eventually I saw the error of my ways in not considering the sport package especially with the shift-rev deal. Sweet. But to get sport and nav means touring. The only place I can shave is on A7 vs M6 to save a few nickels. I really wanted to stay under $40k.

Finally the stars aligned. A dealer told me they had a Touring with Sport, Nav, A7, and all the fixings for $39k, down from $43k. The M6 version was still listed at $41k. Why so little? Well this car was getting old, it had a whopping 40 miles on it and was getting a bit long in tooth at the dealer lot, so they wanted it to get a new home. And I was just the person to make that happen. With $27k down I was at the perfect point for payments and all, and for well under 5% too. Take that other dealership!

Only thing is that the color is gunmetal grey, which is really growing on me with those red brake calipers radiating through the most awesome rims that planet earth has even had grace her outer layer.

So here I am, a new member, wanting to learn and know all that I can about this beautiful piece of art I now possess!