My car lease is up soon. I’ve looked around and driven a few cars, but I’ve been dreading the hours of negotiations it seems to take to get a decent deal. Is there a way to do it online? Agree to terms and then go fill out the paperwork and pick up the car?
I’ve looked around quite a bit, but every site I’ve found just ends up referring me to dealers, and when I call them, they just tell me to come in to make a deal.
CarsDirect sell cars online and there are many other sites. Whether you’d be well-advised to buy a car without getting a good look at it is another matter.
There’s Tesla.
What car buying sites are you looking at? I was under the impression there are several sites which do exactly as you ask. For example the warehouse clubs:
Costco does not sell directly - at least this was my experience 2 years back. They get all your information and pass it on a locally approved dealer who gives you a “costco discount”. The dealer just pads other areas to make up for the discount.
Most dealers now have an internet “specialist” who can deal with you either by email or over the phone. I bought my '98 Jeep like that. You might look at Dave Smith in Kellogg, Idaho. They will quote you via email, and their prices are generally a flat 500 over invoice or some such; the only problem is that you would have to go there to pick up the vehicle.
What Chefguy said. When I bought a new car 2 years ago, I found numerous dealerships in my area that you could simply email for a quote using their website. I found the model I wanted, and emailed about 5 dealerships asking for their best quote. All five responded with actual, bottom line numbers–no tricks or “come onto the lot and we’ll talk about it.”
In each case, I picked a car that was in dealer stock at that moment (i.e., ready to go off the lot), figuring this would increase the odds of getting a good deal. I took the best quote I got from a dealer 100 miles away, and sent it to my local dealer, asking if he could beat it. He beat the price by $100, and that was that.
My bought my truck using my credit union’s “personal shopper”. I worked out the loan with my credit union. The personal shopper asked me what I was looking for and called me back the next day with 2-3 options. I picked the one I wanted and it was delivered to my home. I signed a few papers in my driveway and was done. No hassle.
No, this isn’t my experience at all. True, Costco does not sell you cars, the dealer does. But you DO NOT deal with sales people. Typically, you go through the Leasing department. After giving the info to Costco and getting referrals to local dealers, you call the Costco Rep at the dealer (as I said, typically the leasing person) and make an appointment to come in. At the appointment, you give the exact details of the car to the lease person including any options. They give you the price, and you either say yes or no.
In my experience, there is no high pressure sales tactics at all. They might mention additional options like “coatings” or whatever, but all you have to say is no and they move right on.
I have bought all of my cars in the last several decades through the Costco program and have always had a good experience with it.
J.
Echoing this process here. I helped a friend with a purchase not too long ago and this was the process we used. Do your online research, narrow down what you want, test drive a few cars to be sure, then go to the internet. You can learn what other people are paying for your exact car so you know what you should pay.
We bought two cars this way, using e-mail or the dealer’s web inquiry form. Most dealers have an “Internet” sales dept and they want to move inventory, and will eagerly provide you with a written quote and all - the process does work pretty much like neuroman describes. Make sure you get “out the door” quotes, and understand if tax, lic, and destination fees are all accounted for, to mitigate any surprises.
Most dealers in my area will still end up requiring you to visit the finance dept where they will try to upsell you on extended warrantees - but just stick to your guns and decline all of that if you are not interested.
Do not forget to test drive - you do have to go to the dealer for that.
I don’t think they do anymore. That was their business model, and in fact I bought a car from them directly online back in 2000. But since then I believe, under pressure from the authorities at the behest of dealers they’ve backed off that model and it’s now more like Costco or cars.com where they set you up with a ‘good’ price but you take that to a dealer to close the deal with them.
When I bought my car from CarsDirect in 2000, the deal was with them. The car just showed up at my house (or a parking lot nearby actually) on a flat bed, shipped from a particular dealer’s inventory in the next state over, but I never had direct contact with that dealer. Again I don’t think anyone works that way now with major brands. Tesla does in some states but has been shot down trying to sell direct in others, including mine, again by the laws car dealers have had passed to protect their business.
I later attempted to use Costco’s service, in 2009. But it didn’t work out. The price the dealer gives them was OK but not terrific. And then when I tried to get them to improve it they, manager particularly, acted like I was asking to deflower his daughter as a side deal or something. And the Costco deal doesn’t cover the trade in, so the manger gave me a ridiculous low ball for that. I walked out, and got a better deal elsewhere haggling on my own, though admittedly it wasn’t the same brand. Also the particular dealer hooked up with Costco was in a neighborhood of dealerships used to dealing with relatively lower income minority folks and immigrants. It’s just a fact that those people get charged more for cars, in general, and dealers used to feasting off that kind of clientele tend to lose interest or even get genuinely annoyed when older upper middle class white guys walk in and start trying to drive a hard bargain. But other dealers are used to it, or just more willing to take the customers as they come.
Bought my last new car using TrueCar. Got a great deal, about $1,500 under dealer invoice. Talked to the dealer on the phone, and they even delivered the car to my house.
I think this has a lot more to do with the dealer you dealt with than the Costco program itself. All the program really is is a pre-negotiated price (which I think is just something like $x over invoice). All Costco does is give the dealer your information-- whether the dealer decides to get you in and out the door quick or give you the full Jerry Lundegaard treatment is up to them. I bought a car through Costco this year and had to go through the sales department. There was no dickering over the price of the car itself, but still all the customary dickering over financing and trade ins and the usual sales pitches with the extended warranty and other ADP (Additional Dealer Profit) items.
I think the price I got through Costco was pretty decent for the car I wanted, but it was a fairly in-demand model so I don’t think I would have gotten them to budge much negotiating on my own. Again, since as I understand it the Costco price is just $X over invoice, if you’re looking at a high-demand models that usually sell for close to their MSRP the Costco price can be a screaming deal. But if you’re looking at a model that tends to languish on the lots and sell for closer to or even below the invoice price, you can probably do better on your own.
I do think along the lines of what Chefguy mentioned that dealing with dealerships via E-mail as much as possible is a VERY good way to avoid most of the car dealer BS, regardless of whether you’re using a pre-negotiated price service or not.
And you know this how?
As above, it was also my experience. I planned to do a trade in, and the Costco program dealer’s prices on the trade-in was low by at least as much as the new car price was good, as compared to the trade in price I later got at another dealer haggling on my own, where the new car price actually also ended up better relative to dealer invoice (as per Consumer Reports). That’s not a scientific experiment obviously, and in my case it wasn’t even holding the brand of car constant.
However I think the general lesson I took from this is probably right more often than not. That is, as in the examples others have given, if you’re satisfied with the Costco price and there’s no trade-in or financing (you’re either paying cash or have already arranged it), the Costco program is probably good. You go there and say no to other extra’s (extended warranty etc) you’d have to say no to anyway, and get the car at a price you’re happy with. However my approach was to try use the Costco price as opening offer in a further haggle to get the price down further, since the Costco price was OK not terrific. But the dealer was having none of it. Then they gave me a low ball on the trade-in…goodbye.