Van Searching Is Basically Tinder
As you may know, Austin and I met on Tinder. Back in those days, online dating was like a weekly ritual for me. I’d swipe around on the evenings when I was bored and see what I liked. On the weekends, I’d go out on dates to take potential partners for a test drive. Sometimes I’d date several partners at once – we weren’t exclusive and I wanted to find the best fit!
I was surprised to find that buying a van is a lot like online dating. I’d swipe around during the week and take test drives on the weekends. I’d become enamored with a van because of the pictures I saw online, but then see it in person and decide we just weren’t gonna work out (vans with rust, I just can’t do it!).
In August, we started going around to see various vans on the weekends. In the first week of August, we saw an adorable blue 2002 Dodge Sprinter that was way older than we originally considered, but it had low mileage and – even better – a low price. We could have purchased that van in cash that day if we wanted. A hole in the roof, broken A/C, and old body style didn’t do it for me, so we kept looking.
The second week, we visited a van that was a great deal, but a 144” wheelbase. I wasn’t sold on the 144” wheelbase but the price was certainly attractive. The used car dealer that we went to was just like the ones you see in the movies – with the “smooth” talking, greasy salesman and all. We had such a bad experience that we left because it was too much of a hassle to even try to get a test drive (even though the dealership guy had the key in his hand) without waiting forever, talking about financing, and fending off pushy sales talk (before we even saw the van!).
Later that day, we went to see a Mercedes Sprinter 170” that I was pretty sure was the one… but after I had gotten my hopes up, I got ghosted. The van wasn’t at the dealership when we got there. Note to self: always call ahead on the same day! The salesman here told us that Sprinters were selling like hotcakes and that he’d offloaded 20 in 2 months.
Discouraged, we headed home. On the way, we passed by a dealership with a big beautiful buffet of used Sprinters and stopped in. The salesman corroborated the fact that Sprinters were selling fast and that he couldn’t get enough to replace the ones he’d sold. There were none left in our price range, so we gave him details on what we were looking for and headed home for real this time.
This week, the third week of the search, we looked on Craigslist and found a listing for a Sprinter 144” that was at an absolute rock-bottom price. It had been listed 20 minutes before we saw it, and we immediately called the dealership to tell them we wanted to come test drive it the next morning (desperate much?). The van had a bright orange vinyl decal that someone had partially removed, and we suspected that this was the reason for the low price.
On Saturday, we went to the dealer, and we couldn’t believe it…
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