-Chapter 4- Vickey, Evey and the Car Purchase

On our second day in New Zealand, we visited the Car City Fair Market, a large parking lot in the middle of Auckland, where dealers tried to get rid of their cars and especially campervans. When we looked down on the place, we would have turned back if it hadn't seemed so unprofessional. But luckily we did it anyway, because that's how we found our good old Toyota Estima: the cheapest and only suitable one on the whole lot. As we checked out the car from a few meters away, we were approached by a super nice German backpacker named Vicky. She was the same age as us and apparently had just as much knowledge about cars. In a completely unprofessional manner, she showed us everything and surprised us with a test drive after a short time. The dealer named Evey pushed me to the back door so I could ride on the bed and Vicky drove off. She said she would sleep in Evey's front yard and had bought her own car from him. She also said that he picks up cars from the side of the road, refurbishes them, and then sells them again illegally. (She said it as if that was something in his favor). As far as we could tell, the car was fine. We checked the inspection, looked under the hood, and panickedly called our dad. When he said everything looked clean, we spontaneously decided to buy it. It wasn't until we were waiting for the dealer with Vicky that I realized we had forgotten to check the mileage: a whopping 330,000. But we bought it anyway. Vicky said we could still try to negotiate. This is how it went:

Vicky to Evey: "The girls want the car for $4000 instead of $4500."

He looks grim: "$4300."

Celina: "$4200?"

"Deal."

Then Vicky drove us through several ramps as we were looking for a bank in Auckland's city center. When we arrived back at the parking lot, Evey made the down payment of $500 disappear into his pocket. We asked for an address or confirmation, but Vicky reassured us: "No no," she said, "you just have to trust us."

-> To be continued