My wife and I plan to buy a camping trailer soon. Small- to mid-sized. We’ve gone to an RV show, and done additional research. The trailers we’ve looked at are in the 17-20 foot range. I compiled a list of trailers and their weights, and the heaviest trailer on the list weighs in at 5900 lbs. I’ve come to the conclusion that to be on safe side, the truck I purchase needs to be able to tow a minimum of 7500 or 8000 lbs.
I’ve decided I want a Ford F-150. I’ve had Fords in the past, and they’ve been good vehicles. I had a Ranger for 15 years. We currently have an Escape. I’ve done many a Google search on what trucks are comparable to the F-150, and read many articles, and it always seems to come down to: just buy an F-150.
Anyway, that’s the background. What I want advice on is how to buy the truck. I hate that haggling bullshit. The last few times we’ve bought a car, we’ve made a point of going to “no-haggle” places. We bought the Escape at Carmax. I would prefer to go there again, but their selection of F-150s is light. I’ve looked into Enterprise and Hertz, and they have a better selection. But the problem with all three of these places is that most of their trucks would need to be transferred here from other parts of the nation, which involves paying a transfer fee of several hundred dollars, or even more than $1000.
So now I’m wondering… there’s a Ford dealership that has quite a few used F-150s, just minutes away from my home. But again, I hate that haggling shit. If I go there, and they give me a price and I just say “fine, I’ll take it,” how badly am I getting screwed?
Do you have a CostCo nearby ? Are you members ? If so, you can try the CostCo car purchase system. I have done this and was pleased - particularly because it eliminates the haggling and BS.
The way it works is you call this number (or maybe now enter it on a website), and provide the information on vehicle you are looking to buy (and your member ID). They will point you to 1) a dealer and 2) a particular salesman at that dealership who handles the CostCo sales. CostCo has previously agreed to a set % markup over dealer invoice. The salesman will show you the price you would pay. If you like, you can have them show you the dealer invoice as well and confirm the CostCo markup. If you are okay with the price, you can go forward with the purchase. If you’re not okay with the price, you just walk.
He said he wants to buy a USED truck. Costco won’t help him with that, they deal in new car sales.
Since you know what you want, I would do what I did: Use cargurus.com. You can put in your search criteria, it will tell you the KBB value of a given vehicle, and you can see as many pictures as the place has posted. You can save specific vehicles and watch for price drops and compare prices pretty easily. If you limit your search to within 500 miles, shipping costs should be $500 or less. If you do it this way, make sure you tell the dealer you are looking for an out the door price, and don’t agree to a phone call until he puts that price in writing in an e-mail to you.
Once you find one you like, you arrange for a local mechanic to have it inspected and make sure it’s in good shape. This will cost you between $100 and $250 depending on just how much you want them to test. Then you make the final call to the the dealer and offer them a couple hundred under their listing and they should take it.
Another option is to pay someone to do the haggling bullshit for you. Automatchconsulting is one such place, I am sure there are others. You tell them what you want, options, colors, etc and they will find you the best one at the best price, and collect a small fee.
Good luck! I recently bought a 2014 Volvo S60 R-Design Platinum this way. I put in my search and was really pining for one that looked really nice but it was priced about 2K too high. Within a week of me finding it they had lowered the price by 2K and I called, had it inspected, and had it shipped to my door (ok, well, to the edge of my neighborhood since a 3-car trailer would not fit…) for $450.
It’s been a lot of years since I’ve bought a used car from a car lot (over 40 and every lot can be different) but the only lot I’d buy from is one that sells cars new and back in those days the vehicle was “overpriced” by about 15%.
No, they do used/preowned too. Mostly ones that are a couple years old, not beaters.
Pickups have among the lowest depreciation rates, so you don’t save as much buying used as other vehicle segments. That said, F-150s are so popular that they have more supply than Toyotas.
You can potentially contact the dealers and get a quote, then contact other dealers and see if they can beat the price, rinse and repeat. YMMV depending on where you live and how far you’re willing to travel to buy one, but you have lots of Ford dealers local.