It’s been eight years since we have had a second vehicle, and for us it was a decision made after lots of thought and discussion. Initially we went on the road with a second vehicle (I had a company car at the time) but after several months of travel I ultimately turned in my company car and we have been a solo truck family every since.

For me this was a huge transition, but rarely one I regretted especially when we were traveling a lot. It wasn’t the cost, we have had friends do studies on this and the savings in gas mainly make the second car costs a wash, but rather the fun of traveling together in the same vehicle from place to place. The times I did miss it were definitely when we were in one place for a length of time. For those times we tried to purchase Ebikes as an alternative but to be honest I have never been really comfortable bike riding in any place that has significant traffic.

Oh and I probably should mention I have had a second car fund just sitting since the beginning which was just enough (with some bonus money) to purchase a second vehicle. Still, we waited and it wasn’t until Lee started picking up some work here in LA that I thought I really need to do this. Yes I can Uber anywhere I want, but paying $18 (one way) to go to pottery every time was really bugging me, and I found myself going less often. I know, it’s actually less money in the long run, but what can I say I have a thrifty midwestern soul. That hasn’t changed!

As things often go for us once the decision was actually made things happened very quickly. Initially I thought I wanted to buy the vehicle in Florida and drive it here. I was going to fly to my Mom’s, test drive, buy and register it then drive it out. My Mom was totally on board with that plan and I found a dealership near her with the make/models I wanted (Hyundai Venue SEL) and started making calls.

Turns out even if you know exactly what you want, dealing with the dealership over the phone isn’t great and after talking to 6 different people on Day 1 (none of whom could answer my direct questions) I finally asked my Mom to go in person and see what they had on the lot. She went the very next morning and sat in the car I had picked (she really liked it) and put me in contact with a salesperson Manny from New York who understood the ins and outs of buying a car and getting it to another state.

I had gotten a quote from a third party vehicle shipper ($1350) and had decided that shipping would be much easier than driving five full days alone cross country. I wouldn’t have minded the drive so much but I would have to take vacation to do it and I wasn’t interested in that. When I asked the dealership about shipping I got multiple answers from “we don’t do it” to “it will cost $2K” and pretty quickly realized the shipping would be on me. That would be OK though because Mom was going to go pick up the car for me and take it to her place until the shipping company came.

The next and most important question then became about registration. When I say we couldn’t get a straight answer I mean that. I was fine with flying in and staying through the registration process but needed to know how long it would take so I could book my flight. I got answers ranging from “we do it all” you drive off the lot with real tags to “I have no idea” and after two calls to the DMV and looking at websites it still wasn’t super clear. Heck I am still not sure to be honest I got so many competing answers.

Still I was ready to make this all work especially after Manny verified there was one vehicle on the lot in my chosen color and make. This mattered to me because only the middle tier SEL has a sun roof and the top tier Limited had features I just wouldn’t need or want. So we found the car and I received the first quote via text. All the nonsense in the quote for additional fees didn’t bother me nearly as much as they quoted me $2K over sticker. Look, I am old school. I was not trying to negotiate some fabulous deal here, but I certainly was not going to pay more than sticker. That’s just dumb. Oh and did I mention the price jumped from $23,850 to $30K with all the extras? Seriously.

So I am super annoyed and trying to do all this around conference calls, but I redlined it and said I absolutely wouldn’t pay above sticker and after some nonsense about how the salesperson called in a special favor because he liked my Mom I got this quote back.

This quote was in my price range and although I knew I was still getting screwed I was like fine I will go test drive one here just to be double sure and then I will put down a deposit. Oh, I forgot to mention that the dealership will take your deposit to “hold” hold the car but was very honest about the fact that if anyone walked in they would sell it out from under you. Why the deposit then? Well they would move it off the main lot but if anyone wanted that specific car they were selling it. OK then well what was the point of flying in? And all the extra fees you see above were supposedly the cost of doing the entire transaction remotely. Since it would save me $700 or so on a flight I thought it was a wash but it still bugged me especially after the over sticker price initial quote. Basically I had no trust in their pricing, but at least it was in the ballpark.

I was committed to driving the car one more time though before pulling the trigger and if I couldn’t drive the exact vehicle I wanted to drive one just like it. I also wanted to see the colors in person before finalizing because some colors don’t look the same in person. So Lee found the exact make and model down in Long Beach which was an hour drive but worth it in my opinion. This experience was MUCH better. Lee chose that particular dealership because of the 10 he contacted, it was the only one willing to tell him if they had the car we wanted on the lot, and/or what the final “out the door” cash price was.

The young man we worked with was very nice and gave us a quote which was beautiful in its clarity.

Even though the taxes were a little more expensive the lack of a million other fees more than made up for it. At this point I jettisoned the idea of getting it from Florida and instead we started to explore just getting the vehicle registered here. Part of that was the Florida dealership refused to go below $27K and part of it was these folks were much nicer to deal with. I have been buying Hyundai’s since 2000 and like most of their dealerships and this was a good one.

This is where things started to get a little weird though and instead of working against us the dealer and his team worked with us and spoiler alert it all worked out. Let me walk you through it though. Basically we had two choices. We could drive the car off the lot and then remotely register it in Florida. Since the tax in California was slightly higher (7.25% CA versus 7% FL) we would not need to pay tax again and we would just need to wait until we received the title and then get a Sheriff or dealer to validate the VIN and register remotely, or we could register in CA.

Since we are getting closer to becoming CA residents we ultimately decided to go that route, but then we needed an address to send the title and tags to. That was a problem because our RV park doesn’t allow regular US mail sent to it (in order to stop us from declaring residency here) so we could use a PO box but needed any CA address on the form. They don’t validate the address so we could use any place but I was surprised that in a place that has so many homeless an address was a firm requirement.

Secondly we had to have insurance of course, and I thought this might be an issue but it turns out Progressive at least makes it easier to have a car insured in a separate zip code from your main. I also did some research on establishing residency and because of remote work husbands and wives can establish separate state residency because it follows the individual and not the couple. So essentially we decided to have Lee start the process of establishing residency for himself (and we put the car in his name) and I would maintain my separate residency until such time as we move into an apartment. The whole thing is a little goofy but I think we will be OK long-term.

The other weird thing was that even though we paid cash we had to get a credit check, which they called an “identity check” and fill out the full contract just like we were getting a loan. That slowed things down considerably but I sort of get why they needed to validate the money was coming from a clean source. Anyway 3.5 hours later we were done and started the loooong drive back with the new car. It took 2-1/2 hours to get back which is the worst traffic we have been in since coming here (5pm on a Thursday) but I now have a beautiful brand new car!!

Quick note for you car enthusiasts who are curious what you get for $26K. The car is their middle tier trim for this model, and has a sunroof which oddly the top tier does not. It also has lane notification which beeps if you are crossing close to someone (which I like) but not driver assist which moves the steering wheel, which is fine. I hate that, it freaks me out. It has a light on the mirrors when you are changing lanes and someone is too close which is great and key assist program where as long as the keys are on you you can lock or unlock doors simply which I love.

All this stuff is new to me because our truck is 2014 so its pretty cool but I didn’t want or need too many bells and whistles. The seat does have a manual way to make higher (good for me) but the seat adjuster is manual as well but again not a big deal. The back seat goes down in a 60/40 split (which I care about) and a backup camera. Anyways its done and I am excited especially the gas mileage which is 29 city and 31 freeway…hooray!!! Since it costs about $200 a tankful in the truck here that savings will add up fast!

We very much appreciate your support of our blog.

• You can purchase the ebook telling the story of how we became full-time RVers.
• You can purchase our recipe book filled with 80 recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. You can purchase the kindle or paperback version on Amazon or buy the Apple version on Itunes