I have to take a minute to share this special story with you all. Andy and I sure felt like that little red car was "the one" for us after having this happen.

Last week, as you all know, we were growing desperate in our search for the right vehicle. We encountered a fair number of obstacles, and were beginning to wonder if we should reconsider our approach altogether.

At some point, on a whim, I sent a "request for quote" to Miller Honda, a dealer that I knew had one Fit in a manual transmission in stock. They called me a couple of times, and we went through the same song and dance as when I called the dealer directly. I basically wrote it off.

Saturday we were heading out the door to this same dealer to check out that same car, and for some reason I decided to check my e-mail. I think I was concerned that my Mom had been trying to reach me unsuccessfully. In any case, I did check it, and I only had two e-mails. One was from Stephanie at Miller Honda, with a quote for the vehicle we were going to look at.

The quote was a little higher than I had hoped; $1200 above invoice, and a little higher than we had decided we wanted to go. However, we printed the e-mail as a backup strategy for our negotiation process, in case we got that far. Of course, we still hadn't decided on the Fit over the Matrix, so we didn't take it that seriously.

We arrive at the dealer and ask for Stephanie; instead we get her partner Bruce. He was a pretty nice guy, straightforward and not too sappy - not your average car salesman. Upon arriving at the vehicle, we discovered that two price adjustments had pushed the sticker price on the vehicle up by $5700!!! Ouch. Our little car was no longer affordable.

The first was an accessories package that ran $695; bummer, but whatever. The second was a $5,000 "market adjustment." Well, at least they're honest about price gouging.

We drove the car, went up the street and drove a Matrix, then went to have lunch, where we discussed the probability of the dealer honoring their quote that was now $5,000 lower than the sticker price. Sure enough, we decided on the Fit and when we got back to the dealer, they accepted the price quote e-mail as a legally binding document, and sold us the car.

It turned out that "Stephanie" was new and had screwed up big time, sending out old information. The e-mail quote was good for 72 hours, and would have expired Sunday morning. Long story short, someone was watching out for us big time!

That concludes the story about the $5,000 e-mail.