Questions about car purchase negotiations - update in #16!

[echoesofspring]

So we've made a car purchasing decision, but I have some questions about finalizing the deal, and making sure we get the best price we can get that's fair to us and the individual salespeople that are investing their time in the process.

We've been offered a price from a dealer A where we did a test drive that seems fair right off the bat, pretty close to Edmunds True Market Value/essentially invoice. etc. I figured out all the accessories we wanted, etc. and got the quote for exactly that.

I've emailed a couple other dealerships, the only other actual quote with all accessories, etc. is coming in about $700 more (Dealer B). The biggest discrepancy in price is that there is currently a rebate being offered for customers who are financing. We are paying cash and dealer A is still offering the full amount of the rebate, dealer B is offering 2/3s of it. (I guess I should confirm that the sales guy at dealer A remembers we are paying cash, we told him that when we got the initial quote) .

So I don't know, do I do some back and forth trying to get someone to go lower? How do I do that fairly? It sort of seems like in this day and age they have the same access I do to the internet so they know what I'm expecting to pay if I've done my research, and Dealer B is probably expecting some negotiation. If I did want to negotiate, I'm not even sure how I phrase it, what to ask for from Dealer A.

Also, my other question is that this particular vehicle isn't on either lot, so while we've tried to be as specific as possible, it's possible the car they find us is slightly different, so do we wait to try and negotiate? B/c it seems silly to try and get the price down a couple hundred bucks and then they come back with a vehicle with say an option we didn't care about but was factory installed and then we start over?

It seems psychologically unfinished, if that makes sense, to not negotiate with Dealer A, but it would certainly be a relief to just be done, kwim? Maybe I hung up on what what I read once in a sales book - that a little bit of negotiation leaves both parties feeling good, where if you just accept the price everybody wonders if they could have done better)

And sage advice? TIA!

[nfowife]

I would tell dealer b you have a price from another dealer of xyz out the door including what you want. Ask if they can beat it or not. If they can go back to dealer and and see if they can make their price better. At some point one of them will say they can't do better and there you go.

In my experience if they have a car for you with x,y,z that you have negotiated for and the car also has option w, it is usually thrown in with the car at the same price. You don't start over at that point.

[lhafer]

I do internet deals. I get quotes online from various dealers. I will take the lowest quote o have, take it to the dealer and see if they can beat it (for the same car?. If not, I go with the internet dealer. If they can, then I make the deal and drive off with that car.

[brittone2]

Have you tried widening your circle a bit? I know we were getting #s from a few dealerships that were fairly local. I had read that sometimes being open to a wider radius might get you a price drop. I contacted dealers 1-2 hours away and suddenly there was another substantial drop in price when the negotiations had pretty much stalled locally. At that time, they would deliver the vehicle on a truck free of charge. Of course, you'd have to be careful about looking it over before taking delivery when it would be inconvenient to remedy after the fact.

We ended up buying locally, but opening up our radius a bit more did get us one more substantial drop in price. That was a long time ago though-2005!

[codex57]

Well, if she's central california, there might not be many other options within 2 hours. Depending on the price difference, I'd do it anyways. It's not hard to e-mail. When I buy, I e-mail the Bay Area, which is 2 hours from me. I'll also selectively e-mail dealers in SoCal, which are 6-8 hours from me. I'm originally from SoCal so I'm generally aware of certain dealers known to have good pricing.

Anyways, I'd just do what nfowife suggested. If it's not at or below invoice (without rebate), they have room to move.

If there's a rebate, they can at least go that much below invoice. After that, you get into what's called a "dealer holdback" which is $ they get from the manufacturer for expenses of selling the car (like insurance, taking up space on their lot, etc). Most dealers don't like to touch their holdback tho.

And FWIW, I don't find Edmund's TMV to be accurate in CA. I'd suggest going into Edmund's forums and seeing if there's a pricing thread for the model car you're considering.

[AnnieW625]

I am going to throw a monkey wrench into your negotiations. Are you Costco members? If so fill out the form online for the car you want. Once you do that then the Costco website will tell you which dealer is your local Costco dealer. The Costco program gaurantees that you will pay only the invoice price for the car (without any haggling) and then usually give an additional $_00 off of the price of the car under invoice. The invoice prices are listed next to each model on their website and depending on your area the invoice price is probably less than the price of Edmunds. You don't need to be a Costco member either to get that information just visit Costco Auto Program webpage to see the prices, but if you want to submit your information to participate in the program then you need to be a Costco member. It should be worth the $50 so even if you only use it to buy the car the membership fee should pay for itself.

So I just bought my car back in January. I knew that Dealer A (near my work) was a local Costco dealer because they advertise it on their electronic sign. I found the model of the car I wanted at that dealer so I went in and test drove it because my car is kind of rare (manual w/diesel engine) and I wanted to know what the additional discounted price was. I liked the car, the dealer seemed okay, and while I wasn't a huge fan of having a black car at least I knew they had one (and I knew I couldn't be picky if I really wanted the tranny/engine combination).

So then I went home and looked at local Dealer B, and local Dealer C's stock as well (both are less than 5 miles from my house). I found the same model of the car (but white) at Dealer B. So I emailed the dealer and told them I wanted to test drive the car. I also filled out the Costco form and it turns out that Dealer B was the local Costco dealer. At the same time I also filled out the AAA Auto Program application, which turned out their dealer was Dealer C (although dealer A is also an AAA dealer).

I ended up buying from Dealer B because they offered me $800 under invoice for my car, which was $300 more than what Dealer A offered me. Dealer C said he couldn't find the car in question near us and the only other one he knew of was 400 miles away and he wouldn't ship it. He also didn't offer me a price over the phone for the car so I told him that we might stop by over the weekend (they had a smaller sedan, but not both a manual and a diesel). We never made it over there so he called me on Monday AM, and I told him I already bought the car from another dealer and he got all defensive and told me he could have gotten me the same car I bought for $1800 under invoice, which he never mentioned when I had initially been contacted by him three days earlier.

Dealer B did call me about two weeks later to see if I was still interested in buying the car from them and I told them I had found it in white at another dealer. I told the sales man I would still rec. the dealer to others (and I did write a yelp.com review) and he was fine with that and wasn't pushy or rude at all.

So, if you buy from Dealer A you could potentially get a nasty phone call from Dealer B, but Dealer B should realize and know that there are other dealers out there as well and if they want to have a good reputation then they need to not be rude to other people who didn't buy at their dealership.

I too find Edmunds to be high in price, in 2006 when I bought my Pilot I used CarsDirect to get a price and it was lower than Edmunds. CarsDirect should be valid on the central coast as well. If you are in SLO I would go as far south as say Westlake Village or Thousand Oaks. If you are closer to Monterey I would go as far north as San Jose. I also looked for Costco prices in Sacramento as well and actually found my car in that area and might have traveled there had the price been good, but once I got to $800 under invoice I was fine with that.

[codex57]

I am going to throw a monkey wrench into your negotiations. Are you Costco members? If so fill out the form online for the car you want. Once you do that then the Costco website will tell you which dealer is your local Costco dealer. The Costco program gaurantees that you will pay only the invoice price for the car (without any haggling) and then usually give an additional $_00 off of the price of the car under invoice. The invoice prices are listed next to each model on their website and depending on your area the invoice price is probably less than the price of Edmunds. You don't need to be a Costco member either to get that information just visit Costco Auto Program webpage to see the prices, but if you want to submit your information to participate in the program then you need to be a Costco member. It should be worth the $50 so even if you only use it to buy the car the membership fee should pay for itself.


Really? Is that in writing somewhere? Cuz that would be frickin fantastic and incredibly simple.

[AnnieW625]

Really? Is that in writing somewhere? Cuz that would be frickin fantastic and incredibly simple.

It is super easy.
1. go to Costco Auto Program website, enter in your zip code (or any zip code)
2. Select in the car you want
3. page takes you to the models that are available
4. select model you want
5. page takes you to the model and shows you the invoice price next to the MSRP. (my invoice price was actually $20 less than what was shown)

Different automakers offer different incentives as well. I was getting emails about GMC offering an additional $700 to $1000 off on certain models. When I visited Dealer A they told me that the incentive was $500 under invoice, but when I found my car at Dealer B I was still expecting only $500 off, but was given $800 off so there might be different incentives at different dealers as well. Dealer B is the largest VW volume dealer in my area if not most of So Cal (told to me by the dealer and I'd believe they are pretty big, and have two locations, plus an Audi/BMW/Porsche dealership). I was actually kind of freaked out about dealing with them because their yelp.com reviews were horrible, but I had a great experience.

[echoesofspring]

Thanks everyone. I have submitted requests for quotes from some dealers outside the area, hadn't tried south, but have tried north and haven't gotten responses yet or got some that were significantly higher. (Last time we bought a car, couldn't find a local dealer that wanted to play so we did end up driving to San Jose! That was prekids however, and I'd prefer not to do that this time around.)

Interesting to hear the critique of Edmunds TMV, good to know. Dealer A is at invoice + marketing assessment (about $300), minus full rebate. I suppose I could fill out the costco form and see if I can do any better, do they ever drop the marketing assessment?

[AnnieW625]

...... I suppose I could fill out the costco form and see if I can do any better, do they ever drop the marketing assessment?

I would, it can't hurt, and either dealer could be the Costco dealer or you could get another dealer all together. The marketing assessment is probably their word for dealer fees. My dealer only charged $50 in prep fees.

What are you looking at buying (just curious:popc1:)?

[echoesofspring]

I would, it can't hurt, and either dealer could be the Costco dealer or you could get another dealer all together.

I filled it out and it's Dealer B, who had given me a quote that was about $700 over Dealer A before. So it'll be interesting to see what price they offer me coming through Costco.

Submitted a few requests to dealers south of here as well. Am ready to be done.

[khm]

Bummer, the Costco thing doesn't pan out for us. No new cars we are interested in participate (I don't think we are doing new anyways), and the used ones are only for VW. I'd love a VW (currently rocking an old Audi and it's been great!), but they don't have a 3 row SUV.

[KLD313]

I took my two lowest and played one against the other. I got one into half holdback and stopped at that point because they were closer to me than the other dealer and I liked the salesperson better.

[AnnieW625]

Bummer, the Costco thing doesn't pan out for us. No new cars we are interested in participate (I don't think we are doing new anyways), and the used ones are only for VW. I'd love a VW (currently rocking an old Audi and it's been great!), but they don't have a 3 row SUV.

Costco works for used cars too. Check with AAA or a credit union as they have similar buying programs.

[khm]

Costco works for used cars too. Check with AAA or a credit union as they have similar buying programs.

The only used dealer that came up was the VW. If they have something non VW they can sell that. Alas they don't right now.

The only new make we are considering is a Toyota and no Toyota dealers participate at all here.

[echoesofspring]

******* Update *******
BBBers - you rock!
So yesterday/last night I got a couple quotes from 2 more dealers and they were both about $X less than my current local lowest Dealer A (invoice - 100% of the financing incentive even though we're paying by cash). I really wanted to give our biz to A since we test drove with them and they've seemed straightforward to work with. Sent an email to both Dealer A and B (another local, much closer to us, but much higher initial quote) and asked them if they could do better. Dealer A immediately called this morning at 9 on the dot and met me more than halfway to X. I haven't heard from Dealer B, but they were already so far away from A in price I think they are out of the game. Sold!

I really don't think I could do any better, or at least am quickly entering into the land of diminishing returns for lots of extra time. I'm pretty sure the extra savings offered by the other quotes was an additional financing incentive, which was Dealer A's first play this morning, if we financed he could match the extra $X. (He's the only one who we've told cash vs. finance since the others were quick internet quotes). But he was able to sweeten the pot a bit which was great.

I'm so, so, so glad I asked here, we felt like we were getting a pretty good price already. But your responses encouraged me to try a little harder and saved us almost enough to pay for the hotel for first ever family road trip we're going to take in a couple weeks. DH is calling me the Negotiator.... ;) Thank you!!!