USER THOUGHT: Treo saves big bucks while car shopping

[From Russell] A few days ago my Wife and I went to a local car dealer with a strong desire to buy a new car. One of those hybrid things. We went through the regular routine and eventually ended up in some cubicle with a salesman. After some back and forth the salesman comes in with an offer that seemed a bit high. The trade in value looked ok, the sale price looked ok but, the monthly payment seemed awful high. So I asked him, what is the interest rate? He gave me a shocked look like, 'surely you don't think we would do anything improper?' and then he said "Well, I'm not sure". So I said, "Why don't you find out?" Then as he walked out of the cubicle I remembered that I had my Palm Treo with me and it had a program on it that could figure payments and interest. Out came the Treo and I launched "Loan Helper". I quickly popped in the numbers, hit the "compute" button and looky there: 15.5% interest. When the guy came back I politely told him that it was "no deal" and we would be leaving. He says, "let me see if the finance guy can work something out". So next thing I know, some other guy is in the cubicle and says, "If I can get the payment you want, will you buy it no matter what the interest is?" I said "sure", thinking that there was no way they could raise the interest and lower the payment at the same time. The guy comes back and there is the lower payment. I thought, "wow, they know that I can check up on them so they came to their senses." So I punch in the previous numbers into my Treo with the new payment and the interest comes up at about 8%. Not great but, not bad. So I asked the guy "What did you do, switch cars on us? And no kidding, he gets a sheepish look on his face and says in a low tone "yes". HA! Did they think that we wouldn't know the difference?!!! So I punch in the sales price for this lower priced car and what do you think the interest was? 18%!!!! I'll never, ever go car shopping without my Palm. (I'll probably take a pre-approved loan from my bank as well. Come to think of it... I better check up on THEM too.)