Bittersweet Day

I’ve known for over a month that I was going to have to say farewell to my beloved SUV, as it no longer made financial or actual sense for Mr. Roccapuccia and I to keep a luxury SUV for me to drive .75km to the train station and .75km home from the train station every day… And that in a couple of months, I will have to be driving 4.5km to and from work. It just no longer made sense to keep the SUV. We’ve been preparing for her departure for a few weeks (Y’all will remember the Lady Penelope disaster, the beater BMW that we had to dispose of), but today was the day that I drove her to the dealership, had her inspected and then signed over the lease papers to her new owner. I have to drop her off in the coming days to be shipped to her new home.

What makes it so difficult is the level to which you are accustomed to being coddled by the luxury car dealerships. For example, this morning I had to drop off the SUV for an inspection before I signed the papers. I made arrangements to drop it off at 7:30am. I pulled up at 7:31 am to a door which automatically opened, someone opened my door for me and immediately offered me a coffee. While I grabbed my purse and umbrella from the seat, they took my key and dropped it in a sensor which read the odometer and pulled up my file with the dealership. They knew I needed a lift downtown, so I was escorted over to a waiting car where my seat heater was already turned on and I was whisked away. We pulled out of the dealership at 7:33am. Seriously, I was in and out in 2 minutes. While this may seem abrupt or short to some people, this is my version of car dealership/customer service heaven. I want to spend as little time there as possible and get what needs to be done done. I am not a patient person, apparently neither are any other luxury car owners.

I was picked up from my building in the poshest of posh cars the dealership drives and was driven back to the dealership, where my car had been inspected, buffed, polished, cleaned and there was no confusion about who I was (“Hello, Miss A, did you have a great day? You car is just on its way up- would you like a coffee for the road home?”) and I was in and out in a record number of minutes again. Super super super pleased with the service and with the whole experience. I’m going to miss that when I get a new car which will be infinitely more ghetto (My budget alone implies ghetto) and I’m just another car in line at Mr. Lube.

It really boils down to when you’re buying luxury items- there is a prestige with owning the item, yes, but you are also buying into an experience. Every experience I’ve had with this luxury car I’ve been happy with… From the day I bought it until the day I signed over the papers with the dealership (Today) It’s like the experience you expect from a shopping trip to the world’s best luxury brands. You expect a good quality product, absolutely, but you also expect a certain something as you’re buying it and when you’re having it maintained or require some assistance with it. Take my experience last summer buying a bag from Salvatore Ferragamo in Italy- I was waited on hand and foot and treated like I could have bought anything and everything in the store- although I was clearly looking for a handbag within a certain price range. The packaging, the tissue paper, the ownership papers… It’s an experience.

Ah, I won’t lie- I’ll probably shed a tear when I drop off the car. It’s the second to last remnant of my downtown lifestyle besides my trendy designer dog. It’s also been a fabulous car which has served me and Mr. Roccapuccia extremely well. But it’s also time to move on to practical life… Where a Honda Civic will reliably get me from A to B for a fraction of the cost for the time being. I have renovations galore on my house and no real requirement in a car other than can get me from A to B.  Don’t worry luxury brand, I’ll be in touch again down the road. Don’t worry, I’ll be back.

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Tagged as: Luxury Brands, Shopping Experience