New car buying - the omibus thread

In My Humble Opinion
21

Yep – kbb told me mine was worth $5K+ as a trade-in and the dealer offered $3500. They said because it was two-wheel drive and over 100K miles (just over!) they would just send it to auction. They ended up giving me $4200 since the car I wanted came in with a few little extras and they were matching the net amount I had agreed to pay. I did everything over email and they gave me the trade-in sight unseen so it was worth it for the ease.

My father had a remarkable experience recently. He was trading in a lower-mileage quad-cab Tacoma with the full bed, and happened to go in on the last day of the quarter. He wanted a basic Forester, which he thought would be low 20s based on True Car (which the dealer had said they would accept), and kbb told him ~$15K top end for his truck. He thought he would pay no more than $7500 net. I’m thinking, that’s awfully optimistic for the trade-in.

He goes in and they have him test drive a bells-and-whistles Forester while they reviewed his truck. OK, the Forester is listed at $27K. They tell him they can do $12K net. <Wow, what a good deal, I think.> He says, that’s OK, it’s more than I wanted to pay. He’s leaving but has to go back for his truck keys so they of course chase after him. Well, how much do you want to pay? I was thinking $5000. Can you do $5600? OK, I guess so. With the required fee, it was $6000 which must have been their bottom line for a car that had sat there, and was being sold in Q1.

A $27K car for $6K! Unbelievable this guy. And he thinks maybe he paid a little too much. :smack:

22

My wife’s union has a “perk” that she can purchase a new Ford at cost + 1%. It sounds fishy, or to good to be true, anybody have any thoughts on it?

I’m thinking that it’s a decent deal but with dealer kickbacks “cost” is an inflated number that doesn’t reflect the profit to the dealership.

23

kiz, SFP, You’re welcome and I hope you get some useful info from the sites. I’d imagine there would be an American version of it.

Just remember that there are lots of options out there and don’t be afraid to walk if you aren’t getting a fair deal. It’s your money and the second largest purchase you’ll probably ever make.

24

Which union, and which company does she work at? Chances are they participate in Ford’s X-Plan, and it’s legitimate and can be a good deal (but not as good a deal as being an employee). It’s also a very highly audited program, and it’s unlikely the dealer will try shenanigans, especially if you’re in an area with a lot of Ford employees and family members and suppliers.

25

The “Beat The Car Salesman” site applies to anybody :wink:

I mentioned to somebody yesterday that it’s the sheer number of options out there which floors me. I’m not particularly married to one brand or another – I just want a vehicle big enough for my dogs. I want a vehicle which which has a back seat that will fold down flat (do you know how difficult this is to find in my price range? I think RAV4’s are great but you have to TAKE OUT THE BACK SEAT if you’re carting something). I want a vehicle which will get me to/from where I want to go and isn’t going to fall apart within the first few years I have it.

I research until I turn blue. Last night I did the “narrow down your choices” thing on the Carmax site, go check their inventory…and they have nothing in my price range unless it’s over 100K miles :headdesk:

26

+1 Never trade in your car. The dealer has no reason on earth to give you a good price. An honest salesman will tell you that.

Most dealerships have an “internet” or “fleet” guy who will give you their bottom line price. Take it or leave it.

27

Fuck that. Private sale is a hassle. Either you sell it before you buy the new one, and you wind up having to rent or borrow a car in between, or you sell it afterwards, and risk having it sit around for weeks or even months. Not to mention all the title paperwork you have to take care of yourself and the small yet significant chance that a potential buyer will rob you or an actual buyer will fuck you.

28

They’ll buy my car and I get free sex? And you’re saying that like it’s a bad thing?

Seriously, the hassle isn’t as bad as you make it out to be. I am not sure what your hourly rate but a couple grand is easily 2 weeks salary for a lot of people, and at least a week for most of them. I have only done a trade-in once in my life, all the other times I have sold the car myself. Sometimes, to make it easier, I have pulled money from savings, etc to pay off the car if there was an existing loan balance on it (usually a few thousand) so that I can just sign the title and take the cash (which then repays the savings account.) But even when I don’t, if you ask a reasonable price for the car and do some decent up-front screening of people (ie you are honest with them about the car’s condition and send lots of pictures) you can usually land a sale pretty quickly.

It’s some of the easiest money you will ever make.

29

I agree wholeheartedly. Plus at least in Washington, you’d get a sales tax credit meaning you’d only pay sales tax on the difference in price between the vehicles. That effectively added $3,000 to what I got for my trade in last time, putting squarely into private sale territory.

30

You’re both right. You will surely get ripped off on your trade in, but private sale is a huge pain in the ass, especially if you’re trying to sell a care for anything more than $10k. I typically trade in my cars for the convenience, knowing full well I’m leaving thousands of dollars on the table by not selling privately.

As for buying with cash vs. financing, I can only reiterate that in my experience I’ve had better negotiating results when paying cash. I understand there are some kickbacks to the dealer for setting up your financing, but I think sometimes they just want to make an easy sale and get cash in hand today.

31

Had the exact same experience a few months ago. I finally accepted the offer when they threw another $500 in for the trade in. 2 weeks later went to the credit union and paid off the loan. Saved some money and paid zero interest.

32

I don’t understand the comments about private sales being a huge hassle. In most cases, “paperwork” is just signing over the title after you get the money.

Protecting yourself and having the buyer do the things I mentioned earlier is certainly worth the extra money you get for your car. The total time for selling any of my cars to a private seller (other than the few days of advertising), was usually about a half hour, including a test drive.

It depends on the car as to whether it’s worth it to you. If it’s a 15 year old junker, then the difference in the money you get will be nearly nil. For me, I was buying a new car every 2-3 years or so, so being offered $14K for a two-year old Jeep Wrangler Sahara was insulting, when I could sell it myself for $18K.

33

So did you actually manage to sell your Jeep yourself for $18k?

Private party sales are usually a breeze for cheap cars (craigslist flakes notwithstanding) but the problem is that financing is very streamlined by the dealers, and so if you’ve got a car that’s worth enough that the buyer will likely finance that tends to be something of a hassle. Especially if you still owe money on the car and your two banks have to figure everything out. Also IME, the pool of buyers interested in buying a more expensive used car private party is much, much smaller than the pool of cheap car buyers so it tends to take a lonnnnng time to sell.

34

Yes. I’ve always gotten asking price, as I list them at about $500 under NADA and stand firm on the price.

I can see where paperwork could get problematic if you don’t own the vehicle outright. I haven’t owed money on a car since 1985.

35

Hey all,

Thanks for the reples. We had a family emergency, so I had to put this on hold, but I am trying to close it out in the next 2 days.

It has been an interesting experience, that is for sure.

Gus Gusterson, can you tell me more about the car buyer you used, how you found him, etc? That would be something I would certainly consider, especially if I can’t get this done this week. Life can be hectic, and right now, I don’t have a ton of free time. If I could pay someone $500 to do the legwork, that would be fabulous.

Chefguy, thanks for the feedback regarding a private purchase. I am a bit surprised you had little trouble selling a car for that much money, but kudos to you! No question, you made the best deal for yourself. I understand trading my car in will cost me money… I have no trouble with this, since I have to make the choice of losing some money on the trade, or spending the time to advertise, etc… And right now, time is very tight. As long as the dealership is reasonable, I will be too. If they insult me, and I need to start the process over, I may try the private sales route just to see what kind of interest I receive.

I have looked for a vehicle similary equipped, with more miles on it, to see what the local asking price is. I am amazed at how much dealers are asking for this car. I know their asking price is padded, and they put some wiggle room in there, but still… I am not expecting nearly that kind of money for my trade-in. All my current car needs that I am aware of is a new set of tires. The ones on it will pass inspection, but with the winter coming, I would not risk driving it with the current set. Other than that, it is good to go, and I will have no trouble driving it for a few more months (or however long I need to) before heading down this path again.)

For those of you that have used truecar, here is something I found interesting… I changed my zipcode to be about 30 miles feom where I live. There is a dealership I pass often in my car that never showed up when I did the truecar exercise, so I put the dealership’s zip code in and sure enough, it popped up, with a few “similar” vehciles they had in stock.

The truecar price, for the same exact car, was over $1100 HIGHER than the one I was given with my own zip.

I found that a bit surprising. We are not talking about a long drive, nor was the second truecar search operating in a higher cost-of-living area (just the opposite, in fact. This dealership is in a rural area, and the town is very small).

Anyway, i am more convinced than ever that services like truecar work with the manufacturers, and get paid by them for advertising, and for helping get customers on the lots. But they aren"t giving you the best price.

They are good psychological tools to help people feel better about the deal they are getting.

Truecar is great. The first question is “what car are you considering?” No matter what you select, it says “good choice. What model”?

And when it shows you the deal you are getting, it is always “this is a great deal”, or something similar.

Yesterday, I sent an email to three local dealers, all asking the same questions.

The first question was 1) if you don’t have the car I want on the lot, but it is at another dealership in the area, will there be any “finders fee” or other charge to transfer the car to your dealership?

One guy said “we’d have to buy the car, and we’d have to pay to have someone drive the car to our lot, so yes, there would be an additional charge.”

The next person wrote “no, there is no fee for that.” (This was my understanding as well, as most dealers have set up an “extended dealer network” that helps them find a vehicle in someone’s inventory if a buyer wants that car, and the dealer doesn’t want the buyer to go to the competitor’s lot.)

Whether this is true or not, I don’t know, but in the past I have been told by a dealership that they could find the exact car I was looking for if one exists and is sitting on a lot somewhere nearby. They just do a quick inventory search.

The first guy was a salesman, the second was the internet sales consultant.

I have requested to deal with the fleet manager or sales manager directly, because at this point, dealing with a salesperson is adding an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy that will just prolong the process.

It will be interesting to see how this will wrap up. I am not even sure I will be able to get to a physical dealership in the next two days, so if I do, it will have to be a quick deal. Any hiccups, and I will simply leave.

36

I just had a fantastic car buying experience 3 weeks ago.

I was in the market for a new small hatchback type of car. After researching what I liked and disliked, I decided I wanted a Honda Fit. We ended up getting a 2015 used Honda Fit with 6,900 miles. The dealer was great. There was no pressure, no gimmicks and he was very straight forward with what I was looking at. He provided the CarFax lookup and they didn’t mind one bit that we had our own financing. In fact, they went out of their way to find a better rate for us on the financing. We had no trade in as our old cars are going to our kids.

We ended up saving just over $3,000 because we bought the current model year, but used. Honda Fits, in general, are very difficult to find used because people love them and hold onto them. We were lucky on that front.

So overall, the experience was very enjoyable.

37

Just got a new car (Toyota Camry).

It was a simple easy experience from a Toyota dealership. The salesperson was perfect, not at all pushy or trying to upsell at all, he simply answered questions with matter-of-fact information and trusted that my want were indeed my wants. On sitting down to discuss money, he simply offered 0% financing off the bat. Done and done.

The finance person did take us through the obligatory upselling options speeches, but never asked twice once we said no to anything. All told, we were in and out of the dealership in about an hour and a half.

The OP’s description of wanting/needing so much guidance and help to select a new car is a little bit baffling to me. These days, information and descriptions are simple and easy to find on manufacturer websites.

Basically, I started st the top with high level reliability figures to down-select my shopping to only a few makes/models. Then a couple of weekends of test driving, let things simmer in my brain for a week or two, then straight to the dealer to pick. I’m honestly confused what a “buying service” can do that you can’t do yourself with websites and a calculator. Key point I think is that if you don’t already know your budget and your high-level preference (coupe vs sedan vs SUV vs tricked-out-bling vs dependable-boring vs muddy-dog-paw-resistant) then maybe you aren’t ready to be buying.

re: used car trade-in, I have an old car with more mechanical problems than value, and am just going to craigslist it for whatever pocket-change anybody offers.

38

This is why I’m going for used rather than new: My vehicle is also dog transport. However, I’m finding very slim pickings in AWD/4WD in my price range. I’m going to a nearby dealership with a friend later this week which looks promising :crosses fingers:

Same friend offered to put my husband’s old Sunfire on CL. My husband wants nothing to do with it because “I don’t have time for people I don’t know to come into our driveway and inspect the car and whatever else”. I get his point. It’s just as easy to get $ from a junker, even though it’ll be less than selling it. Plus the junker will pick it up.

39

Ahh, got it, makes sense. My comments were based on “new car” per the thread topic. I can definitely see the usefulness of services to navigate used-car availability and prices.

40

That sounds like an amazing deal.

I bought a new 2015 Fit yesterday, and paid just under “invoice”. Had to go to a dealership 80 miles away, since all the closer ones are completely sold out.

The “internet sales manager” won’t always give you their best price out the door. When I started talking to him, he told me MSRP + a bit. I told him that I’d wait for the 2016s to come in at that price, and to call me if he changed his mind. He called back a few days later and offered a lower price, about half-way between invoice and MSRP. I waited until the 2nd-to-last day of the month and offered a bit less than invoice. He said yes if we bought it by the end of the month.

So, some confirmation that end-of-the-month is the right time to buy. They had a used 2015 Fit with 5000 miles on it, but they wanted… as much as for the new one. Like $100 less. Not sure what was going on there, but I’m guessing that they don’t get manufacturer incentives for meeting sales targets on used cars. Or used cars are under a different person who has different ideas about pricing.

We did have a funny moment while signing papers, since the guy said we had to have full coverage on the car until our check cleared and we had to call our insurance company and add it. He seemed aghast that we didn’t already have it. “You realize that if you cause an accident, you’ll have to pay for the damage, right?!”, he asked, incredulously. Yep, we do understand how insurance works…