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Comments
I am looking to buy a VW 1.8T passat or within the next month or two. I have never bought a car before. I have not test driven the car at a dealer, but I have driven my friend's and like it and its safety features. I live in St. Louis and have some questions I hope someone with experience buying cars can help me out.
1. I am wondering if there which VW dealers in the St. Louis area people have dealth with and if they had a good experience with them.
2. I have just seen the 2001.5 Passat in the mall and like the styling. I am assuming that since it just came out, I can't get as good of a deal as if I bought a 2001 Passat. Are the 2001.5 Passats that much better?
3. What would be a fair price for both the base 2001 and 2001.5 Passat? How much over invoice/how reliable is the number that this website quotes as "fair market price"?
4. I would like to write a check for the entire amount of the car once I decide to buy one. Does this gives me any advantage with the dealer and when do I let him know about this?
5. What are other good resources I can use? Is the Consumer Reports car price guide ($12/copy) worth it?
6. How do I know if people posting messages on this website aren't dealers who can put out false info?
Sorry if these are elementary questions, but I just stumbled across this website when I was starting to research. Any help would be appreciated.
I got 8.3% through VW with a "good" but not a excellent rating. They said the going rate for a score over 700 is 7.35%
advise you about what you want to know and more,
but in answer to Question No. 4 let me say that
it does not make one iota of difference...You see
although many folks consider Auto Dealers members
in good standing of the Mafia, or are Cartel related like DeBeers, we do, in fact, report all
sales to the States in which we do business, and therefore cannot pocket your check and not pay taxes on that income...Therefore, it matters not that you are a one pay or financing through your
Credit Union...
As far as dealers go... Try the guys in Belleville, but Ive heard mixed reviews. I hear the guys in St Charles are perhaps the cheapest guys in town, and I'd also look into Suntrup in South County. Click on my name and you'll link to my e-mail, I'd be happy to give you some inside scoops on the St Louis market. Basically, there's a few people that are a waste of time to deal with, probably wont even sell you a 2001.5 Passat for MSRP, let alone below it.
As far as pricing goes.. there's deals to be had, but it appears that you have to be sharp on 2001.5s. Some people have reported getting offers from dealers for $800 or so over invoice, give or take a couple hundred, and some have reported 3 dealers all telling them MSRP or close to it. It depends on the market. It also seems to depend on what exactly you're looking for I think.
I'm actually a dealership owner, but not for Volkswagen and Im also in Florida. There's a couple of VW guys here, from VA and CA I think and they have some pretty helpful info. Also, it's not terribly productive for us to use the boards to solicit business to be truthful.
And the Consumer Reports Pricing service is basically paying $12 for info that's as good (New car pricing) as you can get on the web for free and as hit or miss (Used Car Pricing) as what's also available for free on the web. So save your shekels!
Shoot me an e-mail if you have questions on the St Louis dealers....
Bill
Jason
I have seen several similar questions regarding market conditions due to the recent release of 2001.5's as well as the difference between the 2.8 & 1.8.
I may be able to offer some help based on my recent experience. I just purchased a 2001 GLX v6 manual a week ago.
The dealership I bought from had NO room for the 2001.5's on the lot, therefore they needed to clear out some of the 2001's.(All the 2001.5's were in the back behind a fence) I did not want the GLX model, but that is what they had in the color, transmission, & interior I wanted. Therefore, I had a little negotiating room due to they were trying to unload the GLX and I did not want all the options! They could have found what I was looking for at another dealer or gotten rid of one their cars? They choose to unload one of their own.
I don't know for sure, but I have to assume that VW is offering factory incentives to the dealers to unload the 2001's. They kind of screwed the dealers by coming out with a new model mid-year. This provides more flexibility in pricing. I got mine for $1 over invoice + fees, "so they say anyway". Bottom line, I paid $26,500 for my car. (still don't know if ii got the best deal I could have, more below on that)
I think there is less room to negotiate on the 2001.5's then the 2001's. A lot of dealers have to get rid of the 2001's to make room for the 2001.5's. (It really depends on your area and the dealer stock)
In regards to the 2.8 v/s 1.8, I came from a BMW 325i so there was no question I had to go with the 2.8! I drove both versions of the A4 as well and came to the same conclusion, the 1.8 is zippy, but the 2.8 blows it away!
Anyway, good luck to everyone, I think they are great cars. My only advice is read the "Advice" section of Edmund's website it is pretty dead on! DO NOT discuss trade value or montly payments until you have agreed on the price you are paying for the car!!!!!!!THEY WILL TRY AND SUCK YOU INTO THAT MISTAKE!!! I made that mistake and almost had to go to another dealer because they kept throwing the funny trade-in allowance numbers around. Trade in allowance is all BS, I had to threaten to leave unless they quoted me a bottom line figure not including my trade and if they brought up my trade again i would leave!!
Once they quoted me the price they were charging for the car, then we had a solid # to work from. I made a mistake discussing trade and monthly payments and think I could have gotten a better deal if I had not! Don't make the same mistake!
Howard
I'll let you all know the details in a few weeks.
Good dealing to everyone...
I misinterpreted. Like I said I had a very hard time even finding my car...
Bill
Just confirms my decision to buy one as soon as I can afford it! Interesting thing I noticed was three different tires on the 2001.5 passats. Some had the Continentals, some had Michelins, and then some were Goodyear! I drove the Goodyears.
For those of you looking for Colorado Red- they had one. Anyone had experience with Central Florida VW dealers?
Thanks.
I'm from Northern NJ and got prices of $29,700.00 and $28,900.00 and the supply of vehicles is plentiful. How does the $28,900.00 sound? Fair?, or should I still shop around? Does anybody know what is a reasonable price?
Thanks
I've also heard good things about Royal if it helps.
I had to buy my GLX from Reeves over in Tampa (I hate going out of town) only because I needed it for a birthday gift very quickly but I could have gotten the same deal, if not better locally. It was just a matter of I needed a Silver/Grey GLX Manual THAT DAY.
Bill
Only 1 dealer has responded, her
price was $25,574 for the automatic
with the cold weather, luxury and
leather packages. I have asked for
a breakdown of the total price, but
have not yet received this. Can anyone recommend a Pgh dealership?
I would also appreciate any comments
on whether or not this seems to be
a fair price.
Just put in your zip code and how many miles you are willing to travel, and you will get a list of
Dealers within that Perimeter...Find the one with
an Internet Sales Manager and you will find your
New Passat in a hassle free environment...
Will the 2001.5 models be marked down when the 2002 models start showing up. Just b/c they are still 2001 MY?
Thanks for any opinions/advice!
& purposes. The true 2002 will be the Passat Plus.
The only change on the 2001.5 will be the VIN code
change...
The D1 to launch in the fall at the Frankfurt show
and in Detroit will be another, but it will also be a different class of vehicle...
Generally, an out-of-town dealer will quote you a lower price simply because they want to steal the deal. It's like when I worked at Lexus over in Winter Park. Lexus of Melbourne (A small dealer with a small market with too much allocation) would quote insane prices to our customers. So I tested them. I grabbed my cell phone, said I lived in Orlando and wanted an IS300, they gave me a dirt-cheap price. I then had another guy at work call them from his cell phone, claiming to live in Palm Bay and the price he was quoted was $1,750 higher, or reflective of market on the cars at the time. See where I'm going with this?
So, you may want to call a few dealers out of town (I have no knowledge of the guys up in Jax) but I'd bounce the number off of Royal. If you found a salesperson you like, it's easier to buy the car in Winter Park than in Jacksonville I think. As a rule we dont like customers in our area buying cars from outside the area. Get your prices, then call your salesperson and say something like this: "Look, I want to buy the car in orlando, I live in Orlando, but the guys in Key Largo (or wherever) Quoted me $750 over invoice, if you match it we have a deal"
Generally, they'll match it. It comes down to our egos, we don't like seeing you come in for an oil change with an Orange or Seminole county plate wrapped in a Tampa dealer's plate frame
Bill
Are there any dealers that people in Chicano can recommend? Also, with the 2001.5 is there much of a power difference between the 4 and 6 cylinder?
Here's my wish list:
Silver stone prey Metallic
Leather Package
Luxury Package
Monsoon Sound
My best has been 25,100. Plus tax & title. Is 23,600 out of the question?
Are there any dealers that people in Chicano can recommend? Also, with the 2001.5 is there much of a power difference between the 4 and 6 cylinder?
Here's my wish list:
Silver stone prey Metallic
Leather Package
Luxury Package
Monsoon Sound
My best has been 25,100. Plus tax & title. Is 23,600 out of the question?
I live in San Antonio and am looking to buy there. I've had difficulties getting straight answers from local floor reps here without getting the full-on, stereotypical car salesman pitch. Not only that, the salesmen have been unknowledgable about the 2001.5, which I am going to buy.
After seeing numerous, informative, posts by VWGUILD, who is also the VW internet sales manager for Wester VW in Seaside CA, I e-mailed him with a SLEW of questions regarding supply, demand, pricing, car specs et. He recommended I call him and we talked for 45 minutes. No sales pitch, no BS.
Mind you, I live in TX, so he had no vested interested in talking to me for 45 minutes other than goodwill and hopes of receiving some good word of mouth. Yes he is a salesman and ultimately is trying to sell cars, but he is by far and away one of the easiest saleman I have ever dealt with!
It is not a 'technical', 'legal', 'practical' or any other type of violation. It's an unsolicited opinion intented to help other users on this site purchase a car--if it also benefits this dealer--so what? You can't buy cars at a grocery store so if you have to buy a car from a dealer, it might as well be from one who is well informed and isn't trying to sucker you into a bad deal.
Brentwood- yeah fires are bad down there, aren't they!
Thanks for the good advice. The reason I had asked about the JAX dealer is b/c I had been communication with the sales manager for a while. But I didn't think that they would be flexible on the price. I would like to buy locally too.
I'm going to either fax or email surrounding dealers in FL and take my best offer to Royal when I'm ready to buy!
Thanks again.
The dealers who hang out here have protested over and over again that they *never* solicit business and that they have *no intention* of personally benefiting from their participation here. Even if they do not instigate a plug, however, I think your post (and other posts that mention salesmen and contact info) indicates that they do in fact benefit quite directly. As I understand it, this is meant to be a non-commercial forum; in my opinion, your post was a free commercial, and something that would be more appropriately displayed at a VW website.
There is no question that some of the dealers here are helpful. For instance, I was surprised and pleased by brentwoodvolvo's post #624. On the other hand, I think that many of the questions fielded by dealers, could just as easily be answered in a non-biased manner by any number of your fellow net-savvy consumers who have easy access to reliable sources. After all, first and foremost this is a consumer forum.
As many of the dealers have demonstrated, they are also here to shape public opinion--literally "pre-negotiating" for their fellow dealers. All you have to do is read the "2001.5 Pricing" forum, or track this discussion back a few months to see their biased "inside information" in predicting MSRP (or higher) pricing for the newest Passat.
Hope that clears it up.
kcram
Host
Smart Shopper and FWI Message Boards
Although I don't think you are paranoid, I do think you have a predetermined opinion of all dealers and are both unwilling and unable to deviate from it, even if it does not apply.
If you think that my post was a 'free commercial', then that could be said about every single post on this site that praises the attributes of the passat. They benefit VW and ALL VW dealers because like I said, you can't buy a VW at the grocery store. Consumers WILL buy the passat, from the dealer I plug or a different one.
I just don't see the big deal with dealers posting information on this site, ulterior motive or not. People on this site are not stupid. I know exactly why dealers are on this site but as long as they provide information and aren't posting spam, then I have no problem with it. I personally could care less where the information comes from, as long as I get it without a blatant sales pitch. Can the posts from the dealers be biased? Of course, but so can the posts from consumers. I think people on this site know how to filter posts, from dealers and consumers alike.
I live in St. Louis and am looking to buy a 1.8T automatic Passat in the near future. I have used the online pricing services like Autobytel, StoneAge, AutoAdvantage, and carsdirect. All these websites have eventually put me in touch with dealers who basically quoted me MSRP (or more) for the 2001.5 Passat.
My questions are:
1. Has anyone ever gotten a good offer on a car website?
2. Because of these high prices, I am also looking at the "old" 2001 Passat (which I assume I might be able to get a much better deal on than MSRP), do people have an idea of what is a good price for the old 2001 Passat?
3. I read on the Edmunds website that VW dealers have a 1500 dollar factory to dealer incentive on old 2001 Passats that ends the first week of March. Does this mean that the incentive ends or could it increase even more to say $2000?
4. I am also tempted to look at dealer courtesy cars when I go to the dealerships, but got negative feedback about them on this website. One thing I have read is that dealer cars may be a bad idea because any mileage on the car will count toward the 2/24,000 warranty. When I have a car, I don't think I'll put more than 10,000 miles on it for the first two years due to my school situation (people in my class are averaging 5,000mi/year). Is mileage the only thing that detracts from the dealer courtesy car?
Or have people found that dealers do not treat these cars very well since they know they will get rid of them in the near future?
5. I read on a website that a fair way to calculate the price of a car is to take the invoice price, subtract any factory to dealer incentives and "hold back" then pay 5% over that. Is that too much or too little to offer for the old 2001 Passat? How would I adjust this formula for a dealer courtesy car?
thanks
I left work early and raced through traffic to get to the dealership before the salesman left, only to have him tell me when I got there that he "made a mistake" and that he didn't actually have the car I wanted. I had asked him various questions about the car, and he "checked on the car" to answer my questions, so clearly he should have known that what he was looking at was not the car I wanted. He then proceeded to try to sell me various other cars sitting on his lot. He finally realized that I already knew what I wanted, and then he offered to run a search for the car. I think he knew that I was incredibly mad for being misled, because within 15 seconds he claimed that his computer was down, and he wouldn't be able to help me.
I looked today on the Better Business Bureau website and discovered that Trans Ocean VW is rated by the BBB as having an unsatisfactory business record.
Please do not support Trans Ocean VW's deceptive business practices!!!!!
I can tell you that I had a customer the other day in the exact same situation who was about to rip my head off when I told him the car was just sold. Only the car coming up from clean-up with the sold sign in it let the customer know I wasn't like your dealer.
In the future, one way to avoid it is to get a VIN on the car and maybe even put a deposit down over the phone.
Hope you have better luck with the next guy.
Jason
I just put my down payment on my "dream car". It arrives tomorrow!!!! After going round and round with the dealers in the chicago. I think that I got a very good deal, actually, far better than I feared. Here's the way that I did it.....
First, I called around looking for exactly the car that I wanted. And got only a so so price.
Then, I started calling around for any car with the features that I wanted. I didn't care what color int. or exterior. I got a much better price.
Next, I visited dealers and asked if they would BEAT the price that I found. A couple of times I was asked would I buy today. I was being honest and told them that a salesman made me promise to always come back to him before I buy. I told them unequivocally that who ever gave me the best price got my business. All of this then forced them to give me their better offer not a unrealistic price.
Next, I went around to the three lowest priced dealers and asked for everyone's best OTD price. I talked ONLY about OTD PRICE. No trade-in or financing. Remember the three areas that you can get screwed are OTD price, trade-in, or financing.
Finally, I took the plunge and went to the dealer that was the most upfront and honest with me and asked "How much do you want to make on me?" We agreed on a "profit", ran the numbers, and signed on the line. I could have saved a few more dollars, but I ended up buying from the dealer I felt the most comfortable with.
Yes, here comes my shameless plug, but I'm very happy with my price and service....
Jennings Volkswagen
Salesman: Ken Rempel
Now, lets hope that I still get the car...(:
P.S. Does anyone have any other recommendations?
Let me know how you make out. Also, down here, Silver cars with light colored interiors (NO BLACK!) hold their value the best and are the most in demand. So if the dealer will do a Silver car for the same price, grab it assuming you like the color.
And as far as Faxes go.. Like I've said before... The "I want your best price" faxes are not a good idea. Faxing an offer is.
Bill
Generally, I look at these forums, as a dealership principal (owner), as a way to hear what customers are saying. And, sometimes people dont like to hear what we have to say, but believe you me, from a bottom-line standpoint, I can spend my time much more productively in the short-term.
PS, I just picked up a 2001.5 GLX for a family member. WOW What a car!
I'd be tempted to say it's more fun to drive than my Jag!
Bill
I would have liked to have bought it from Jennings WV, like you did, but they didn't have the color I wanted. Still, the salesman I spoke to on the phone was very professional, probably the best of the dealers I spoke to. Oh well, next WV.
Hey, a question for the masses: VW's 2 year/24,000 warranty is really mediocre, considering most manufacturers are at least 3 year/36,000. Do most VW buyers choose to get the extended warranty?
You sure do a lot of talking.
Any advice on leather vs. cloth in Florida?
So, you're saying to actually make an offer to a dealer instead of ask for his "best price"? Would be easier that way anyway. Thanks for the advice.
This makes responding to these types of requests a HUGE waste of time. That's also why its hard to get a decent response in a dealership with that line as well.
Jason
I think it all comes down to a dealer wanting to be "the only dealer in your life" and being able to set their own price without being bothered by other competitors. But, in a buyers market (which is what we are in), it is in the seller's interest to "compete for any possible sale." And, it is most certainly in the buyer's interest to cast a wide net in order to find several acceptable options to pit against one another--this is the very definition of "letting the market set the price."
Joeboy says: "Then, I started calling around for any car with the features that I wanted. I didn't care what color int. or exterior. I got a much better price."
Exactly. If you appear open to "taking a slow seller" off a dealer's hands you will get a better price. The flip side is if you exhibit wild-eyed excitement upon discovering "the perfect car." In that case, the dealer--who just happens to have that model on their lot--will immediately tack on another $1000 to the price. If you go to one dealer and ask them to canvas the local area for your perfect car, they will also tack on $1000, since they can claim to have "added value" to your buying experience...
According to "Capitalism 101," Competition insures a healthy market. You want a car--and the dealer wants your money. If you are focused on the first, without being mindful of the second, you will leave more money on the table.
For me, the best tactic has been to visit the 2 dealers in the area who have the most competitive pricing, based upon posts from those who have actually purchased. This is your opportunity to drive the cars and decide exactly what you wnt. Get pricing from them, then go home and call other dealers. Make sure you tell them a purchase is imminent and that the only thing you are doing now is getting pricing. Ask them what their best price is. If it's higher than your lowest quote, tell them what your lowest quote is and ask them to beat it. Once you have initial pricing from all dealers, go through the process one more time with the 2 or 3 dealers who offered the best price.
I think it is critical to make phone calls because of the point that was made in the above post. Dealers who get 'form letter' faxes and/or e-mails have no idea how serious someone is about buying or where they are at in the process. From a conversion standpoint, it's probably not very productive for them. E-mails did work for me, but I made sure that I got the person's name and did not send them a emotionless/monotone 'form letter'.
I had no problem getting down to about 2.1% over invoice ($27,231 2001.5 GLX)within 4-5 calls. In the end, I was able to get the car at invoice through a co-worker who knew the sales manager. Believe it or not, the other dealer in town said he would match that price! The only "bogus" fees I paid were a $50 doc fee and about $70 in inventory taxes. Final price on a 2001.5 GLX $26,664, drive out of $28,557.