California Man Gives Car to Student Who Cried Over Down Payment at Dealership: 'I Was Shaking'
A nursing student who left a car dealership in tears because she couldn’t afford a vehicle got the ultimate surprise when a fellow customer offered her his car for free.
Kayla Cooper — who works two part-time jobs when she’s not studying nursing — visited the Auto City pre-owned car dealership in El Cajon, California, to look for a new ride in February, she told local ABC affiliate KGTV.
She chatted with a salesperson but eventually left without a new set of wheels because a down payment was out of her price range.
“I came to the car and I was just crying. I didn’t know what to do,” she told the outlet, adding that she needed the vehicle in order to get to work.
Another thing Cooper didn’t know? Customer Dan Laguardia, who was at the dealership that day to trade in his Toyota Scion, overheard her plight.
“When I was doing my transaction, she was like at the table next to me talking to the salesperson, and I could kind of tell she wasn’t getting what she was there for,” he told KGTV.
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Laguardia said he opted to give Cooper his Scion instead of trading it in because “the car had more value to her than it did for me trading it in.”
“That gives her a little bit of a jump-start in life,” he said. “Which, if everybody did that for everybody else, we’d be in a much better place.”
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Cooper said she was shocked by Laguardia’s kind gesture.
“I was shaking, because it’s something so unreal. It’s a whole car — how can someone be so generous to give their car away?” she told the outlet. “When you think everything is really gonna come to an end, just wait and be patient because anything is possible.”
