UPDATE 12/31: Not all Subaru dealers are bad, some dealers of other brands are pretty good, being a Cubs fan has its privileges occasionally, and does anyone have any experience with Swap-a-Lease or similar site/programs? Special thanks to reader Gary for the CarsDirect tip - I'll give that a thumbs up as well.

So, latest royalty check in hand, I headed out just hoping to test drive one of the cars I've had my eye on. With just a few payments left on the Volvo, I took the chance of a free evening to test drive a Subaru WRX.

It's a nice car, runs like a scalded cat, and has pretty much everything I want. What options am I looking for? Very minimal - auto transmission and the turbo gauge. I'm flexible on color. The salesman (Brent) was quite nice, taking our info, checking out the situation with the Volvo, and heading for finance saying he'd be "back in five minutes."

Thirty minutes later, he came back with his finance manager, Sean (I think). Despite the fact that their web site links directly to what I'm about to show you ... well, look at this -

From Subaru's web site (no direct link, but accessible with one click from the lower left "special financing" section on their front page.)
"Sign and Drive Lease Offer* - Now through January 3, 2005 - ALL 2005 non-Outback Legacy models, 2005 Forester X models, Impreza RS Sedan (excludes Sport Package) and 2005 Impreza WRX Sedan (excludes STi) are eligible for a special sign and drive lease. $0 first payment, $0 down, $0 due at signing.

2005 Impreza WRX Sedan (excludes STi)
$295

It is, of course, the latter that I'm interested in. So pink-shirt wearing finance manager Sean drops a $405 price on me. He tells me of "special cash back", talks about what he could offer on my Volvo, and gives me a condescending explanation of how he bait-and-switched me. It was *not* a convincing sales job on a guy that knew more about the car than he did.

Look, I do my homework and honestly like the car buying/haggling process. What I don't like is dishonesty, be it overt lying or covert "this is how the world works, son" stories. I'm willing to pay a fair price and understand auto sales is a business. Do your job and I'll do mine and we'll both get what we want.

But I won't be going back to Tom Wood Subaru and I'd advise you don't either. I might still get a WRX, if someone out there has an honest Subaru dealer they can recommend (of course, Midwest preferred) or if you want to recommend another car.

Best part was walking out, saying to myself "I'm blogging this." Someone should make a t-shirt saying that ...

Oh, baseball bone: There's some talk that Javier Vazquez is being bid on by three teams. The Orioles offer is pretty well known (Erik Bedard and Jorge Julio), the Phillies are offering Randy Wolf and Marlon Byrd, while Texas is also in with something still unknown, perhaps Alfonso Soriano. The Dodgers are also back in - kind of - with a Shawn Green for Vazquez and Dioner Navarro. Expect this end of the deal to take nearly as long as Randy Johnson to the Yanks did.

Also, how did I miss this story. See that small black thing on Jason Johnson 's belt? It's an insulin pump! That's a first and that's damned impressive.