I test drove both the Aura and the Malibu, turns out they are the exact same car. Few minor details on the options and detailing, but the same car. Except my quote on the Aura was about 3K cheaper.
But the salesperson pissed me off. My appointment was at 5:30, I got there at 5:25, she was paged, repeatedly, and finally showed about 5:40 saying she was tied up on the phone. She took my info for the trade in and said she would be right back so we could test drive the Aura. She came back about 6:15, with the trade in estimate. I told her that I was not happy about waiting and that I had assumed that the trade in would be appraised while I was driving the Aura. She then said, "Oh, I just decided to stay there while he appraised it." So we took the Aura for a quick drive since I had told the Chevy dealer between 6:30 and 7:00.
At the Chevy dealer they were waiting for me at the door, with a car ready to go. They took the info and the keys for the Focus and we were off. As I said it was the same as the Aura, only one of the options that came with the Malibu was traction control, and as it had started to snow I was able to notice the difference. Walking back to the showroom, Gordon my biggest Malibu fan said, "get the Aura, it's the same car, and the Aura is a lot cheaper." And that would have been it, if I wasn't feeling like I didn't want to give Saturn the sale.
The trade in came in at exactly the same price and Tom (the sales guy) asked me how I felt. I explained that I like the Malibu but it was the same car as the Aura and the Aura was considerably cheaper. He asked if he could bring in his sales manager to see if they could beat the price from the Saturn dealer. Normally I would not have gone for new pricing, give me your best price the first time. But I was really upset with Saturn and did not want to reward crappy customer service with a sale.
So in came the sales manager and said, "no way they're pricing the Aura that low with the same options." So I showed him the invoice from Saturn. He said, "yeah well the Malibu has leather trimmed suede seats," to which I replied, "big whoop, not what matters to me." He worked some numbers, gave me employee pricing, upped the price on the trade in and came in $700 less than the Aura.
I so I am driving a dark metallic blue Malibu, with black leather trimmed suede seats, and I love it.
