2013 and Earlier - Hyundai Sonata Prices Paid and Buying Experience

newowner10

It would make more sense if customers drives the demo car since it runs the best to me. If your theory in correct I would think the salesman would drive it until it gets to 5000 miles and the dealership would keep working on it over the 6 month they drive it. By then it should be fixed and they can sell it at a discount since it has 5000 miles.

stockmanjoe

Hello All:

Just started to get serious about buying a 2009 Sonata Limited I4 with NAVI for about $2K under invoice.

I am in Jacksonville, FL my experinece so far 1) Key Hyundai: called on phone very nice sale guy but he said there is no way to buy it for less than $200 ABOVE invoice - didn't even bother to get me in. 2) Orange Park Hyundai (where I bought my last one) got very indignant with me, said sales manager will call me back - he hasn't. 3) North Florida Hyundai said possibly $1200 to maybe $1500 below invoice, but did not have the color I want. I need to follow up with them. 4) St Augustine Hyundai said no more than $1,000 below invoice was possible. 5) Also contacted Doral Hyundai way down in Miami and they said they were happy to do $2,000 below invoice but it would have to be a car on their lot (no dealer trade). All these places have processing fees any where from 300 to 600 dollars.

I usually get roped into buying at invoice but I am determined to do better this time! I'll let everyone know how it works out.

stockmanjoe

It looks like you are at about $1,000 below invoice without a doc fee. It is certainly a pretty good deal.

[Deleted User]

In the DC Metropolitan area, it looks as if the Limited with Navi is running about $1,500 under invoice plus the rebate.

- Merg

nhphd

Go with the last one who gives $2000 below invoice for the cars in the lot. See the cars and if you like one of them, don't show yourself interested. Pick a color that they don't have and then tell him " What would be your best offer if I get the color that I don't like (actually it is your fav color !!). If he really does not have your fav color, tell him, you are not in a rush and if he can get it for you in 2 weeks, you would put down 1K deposit. Also go and talk to the delaers who said it is not possible to go below 1K below invoice. Tell them that you have a 2K below invoice offer but you like to deal with them. Finally when you got your car go to the dealer who sells 200 above invoice and rub your purchase invoice to his face !!!

lightfootfl

Just a question... did you check with the FitzMall in Clearwater? I think they do pretty good too, based on some of the posts here from time to time.

van

stockmanjoe

Thx Merg for the info! I used to live in Arlington VA. Except for how crowded it is, it is a great area to live in.

stockmanjoe

Van:

I am up in Jax so I am trying to keep around here if at all possible. (The Miami call was really just for the heck of it). I have tried in Orlando, Daytona, Ocala but mostly got the "why don't you come in and see what we can do" dance.

I did not try Fitzmall because it is down in Tampa mostly, but I did look at some of the numbers people posted and I did not think they were all that great from what I could tell. Although with rebates, processing fees, taxes etc. sometimes it is hard to discern what people actually paid. That's why I try to speak in terms of invoice (which includes destination charge) and where in relation to it I paid. PRIOR to any rebates.

Joe

stockmanjoe

Nhphd:

LOL! I like your style! The last one though is down in Miami about 350 miles from here. I guess maybe to save a $1K it MIGHT be worth it but I will probably remain in the local area if I can get at least $1k under invoice.

It is interesting to see the different philosophies of the sales managers. Some really want to push numbers of cars sold, where others push for a higher profit per car sold.

Thanks again! Joe

stockmanjoe

I went to North Florida Hyundai. I wanted to buy the new car at $1500 under invoice and get $11K for my 2006 Hyundai Sonata GLS 4cyl. They offered $2K under invoice for their car but only $9K for my car. They did offer to take my car out of the equation and just sell me the new Sonata for $2K under invoice. (They have a $600 doc fee)

My question to anybody is: Am I asking too much for my car as a trade in?

Joe

backy

What does Edmunds.com and kbb.com give as the trade-in value for your car? You can always sell it yourself if they won't give you what it's worth.

Also realize that the deal they are offering you is actually $1400 under invoice--but still close to what you are looking for.

m6user

All dealers charge some kind of doc fee. If you use an average of $150, it's more like $1550 under invoice.

Also, $9000 for a three yr old GLS I4 is prob not a bad trade-in value these days. I'd probably try to get at least another $500 more for my trade or less for the new one.

[Deleted User]

Okay, I'm looking at purchasing an '09 Sonata Limited with the Nav in the next week or so. I found a dealership that is offering about $1,500 below invoice before the current rebate. Thus, their cars on the lot with other PIO options on the car run from about $20,600 to $20,800 before taxes, tags, fees ($350), and in their words "freight". The MSRP they are listing for these vehicles includes the destination charge, so it appears this "freight" would be their markup.

I was thinking of going in an trying the OTD cost approach. If I offered $21,000, that works out to about $19,500 for the car itself. A $21,500 OTD offer works out to $20,000 and a $22,000 offer works out to $20,428.

I was thinking about trying to go no higher than the $22,000 OTD price. That way if they wanted to try to add in the "freight", it wouldn't affect me as it would just mean that they would be effectively lowering the price of the car in order to "add" it in.

Any thoughts on this?

Thanks,
Merg

backy

$50 is the norm in my area for doc fees. They are quite variable by location. They are capped in some states, to prevent what this particular dealer is doing.

KBB has a trade-in value for a 2006 GLS with power seat (a common option) ranging from $9,780 for Good condition to $10,500 for Excellent condition, with 36k miles. But Private Party sale values are $11,470 to $12,250. So $11k for a trade-in seems a little high, unless the car is a real cream puff, but it should be pretty easy to get over $11k in a private party sale if the car is in good condition with reasonable miles.

queenfairy

We got our new Sonata 09 GLS from Bob Dunn Hyundai, in Greensboro NC.
We drove all the way from Raleigh to Greensboro (70 miles) - as we found the Internet sales person Lee to be very easy to deal with compared with many local dealers who would insist on coming in for a test drive or laughed at our reference price (thanks to members of this forum). Settled on a price over the phone for the base model, and went to pick up after a few hours. Looked at several colors available in the lot and picked the one we liked. No bait and switch or pressure tactics - OTD price exactly as quoted.

We paid 16.5k OTD for a base 09 I4 Auto GLS model. This includes Tax(3%), Tag and Title. I realize we could have done a little better if traveled to NJ to get it from Towne or Stateline - but when we added time value for money, we found it worth it to just get the best price we could from a local dealer.

nhphd

If you go to any dealership and show yourself interested, and give your contact info, they will call you with a better deal. When I bought my Sonata Limited, I did the deal on the phone, I was praying God that please please don't accept my offer because I really was not sure that I wanted to buy a car but the dealer accepted my low offer and I was forced to buy the car !!

backy

...I really was not sure that I wanted to buy a car but the dealer accepted my low offer and I was forced to buy the car !!

LOL! That's how I got a job in Houston many years ago, but in the reverse--made a ridiculous salary counter-offer, which they accepted with, "And if you DON'T accept this offer, we will come up there and kill you." I think they were kidding. Hopefully the dealer in your case didn't say something like that.

stockmanjoe

Thanks everyone for your input/advice!

I plan on going down to St Augustine today. Their offer is $1K below invoice but he said he would give me $11K for my car. That is about $1500 better than North Florida's offer.

The Internet Sales Manager Moe at North Florida was really straight forward and good to work with. If St Aug doesn't come thru I will probably go back there and try to get $500 more off some way.

carbuyersguru

To all you mooches out there. If you buy a Sonata for $2000.00 below real dealer invoice, less the $2000.00 rebate chances are the dealer will not be there to service your car. All the dealer has left is the factory rebate. The dealer does not pay anyone on the dealer fees or whatever they call them. New Jersey is not a good place to shop on the internet. All they want to do is get you to the dealership. Whatever they said they MIGHT give you for your trade will evaporate. Remember, even though the dealer is not supposed to favor their own customers, you might find it difficult to receive decent service at your local dealer. All the complaining in the world will not get you any satisfaction. let the poor dealer make a fair profit. Go to a reputable retailer and ask them to sell one of their products for less than they paid and they will tell you to pound sand......I would..., and I am sure a mooch like you would do the same....

backy

No one is forcing any dealer to sell Sonata for, say, $2000 under invoice. If that is the price they want to advertise, and sell at, they must be making a profit at it overall or they wouldn't do it.

As for service, I have my Hyundai serviced at the dealer nearest me, which is not the dealer where I bought it. They seemed glad to get my business and treat me very well, even give me free oil changes even though I didn't buy my car there. They actually treat me better than the selling dealer did--which is one reason I switched several years ago.

m6user

Backy, like Pat said...."not all posts deserve a comment" or something to that effect. You're wasting your breath on that one my good man.

backy

Probably. But I am surprised by how many people have made similar comments before, about questions on getting service if you don't service the car where you get it sold. Posts like that one continue to support that fallacy.

As for the moochers... maybe we could change the title of the discussion to "Prices Paid and Mooching Experiences." :P

nhphd

Are you one of those dealers who tend to rape the customers by selling 5000 above MSRP and telling that your dealership sends 5 angles above their cars so that they don't get into accident and no bird would poop on their cars and you also use specail oil when changing oil and .........

rhonas

I got my Sonata in NJ (Stateline) for exactly the internet advertised price and I am not taking it to service there (too far away). Not having any kind of problems servicing it at another dealership.

[Deleted User]

Okay, I was looking at the cars that a dealer nearby has of the Sonata I4 Limited with the Navigation system. It appears that this dealer and another one both have an MSRP that is different than what Edmunds calculates it to be. I called up the dealer and asked what additional options are on the car. Even after getting that information the MSRP is still off. I realize that MSRP is not the end all price I should worry about, but I was using it to figure out the invoice price of the cars (since most sites don't list all the options on a car, I was guesstimating what options were there that added up to the MSRP) so that I can compute a good asking price.

The one site in question is www.manassashyundai.com. They have a Sonata Limited I4 there with an MSRP (excluding destination) of $26,235. This vehicle has the Navigation System and Carpted Floor Mats. According to Edmunds, the MSRP should be $25,945 before destination. I've found another car with these options at FitzMall, and it lists the MSRP as $26,235 as well. As far as I know there are no other dealer installed options on these cars.

Am I missing something here? I'm hoping to get into the dealership within the next week, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Merg

kyfdx

LOL!!

Welcome to the forums!

Thanks for reinforcing all of the bad stereotypes about car dealers.. you've done your industry proud!!

Now.. back to our regularly scheduled programming...

backy

Could it be the cars at the 2 dealers have the recent price increase added, and the Edmunds' figures don't have that yet?

[Deleted User]

I didn't realize that there was a price increase. When did that happen? And where can I find out the new MSRP/invoice costs, if not at Edmunds?

Note: I went to the Hyundai site and went through building my own car. The price on the Hyundai site was the same as at Edmunds ($24,550 for the I4 Limited, $1,250 for the navigation, $95 for floor mats, and $50 for cargo net). The total there is the same I computed, but is different than both of these dealers.

- Merg

newowner10

Could someone in the know explain where the dealer would make their money if they sell for $2000 below invoice without a trade-in and the customer getting the rebates and resonable dealer added fees?

nhphd

Can you tell me whether Macys make money on selling pants at $20 whith MSRP of $60? Can you tell me whether ..........
The fact is that MSRP is a company made number. The dealer gets lower price from the company and sells lower. The company's price depends on the economy , competitions, old models,..... They don't change the MSRP everyday. They change the discount amount.

moocow1

That's not exactly like this scenario. The real thing is that the invoice number is fake. There's far more discounts and kickbacks to the dealer than just the invoice, but since most of these involve some sort of incentive rules, they are not shown to the customer. I believe there's a major incentive for selling a lot of vehicles as well. That's why they can still make money, even if it's a relatively small amount of money.

aspesisteve

regardless if the dealer makes anything off the sale of a vehicle, the service dept. is a different entity with different managers and profit structures.

Unlike the sale of a car, the service department isn't where you hagle - they will be more than happy to have your business whether or not you bought the car at their dealership, regardless of what you paid for the car.

nhphd

This is the confirmed info that I got and I want share with you guys.
If you get the car over 2000 below invoice, the service department will spit in your oil in your oil change.
If you get your car between 1000 and 2000 below invoice, the service department will use old used oil in oil change
If you get your car between 0 to 1000 below invoice, the service depratment will not check your tires' pressure
If you get your car over invoice price, the service department will use high quality extra virgin olive oil in your oil change.

leonidas1

Wow! I see one dealer that has sour grapes about other dealers selling cars at a fair price. If you can't compete, take a seat. Don't make false accusations about others when you have never experienced it first hand. I had a great experience at (Stateline in Phillipsburg N.J.) for sales and service. They have banners in their dealership for being #1 in Customer Satisfaction for Sales and Service. My 09 Sonata is the best car I have ever owned. I've gotten as high as 36 MPG on the highway. Any one that has reservations about buying a Hyundai Sonata, don't.

rhonas

I had a great experience at Stateline too. Never regreted going for the 2.4 GLS Sonata after consideting the Camry LE and Accord

butlersingh

After researching for over a week and looking at everything from Corolla, Sentra and Civic to Accord and Camary....we finally picked our 09 Sonata GLS (base model) yesterday. Final price paid - 16,168. Price including Tax and Tags = 17,900 (Santa Clara county - California). Base model price was 15995, we added Mats and Trunk carpet which brought our price to 16168. 24 hours and 120 miles later...I am extremely happy with my car and the price I paid.

Anyone looking at pricey Accord/Camary must try Sonata before making a final decision.

moocow1

Hell, I got mine for like 1300 under invoice + $2k in rebates and don't even get service as the same dealer. Mostly because I know a freaking awesome service manager...and I'll stick to him. Awesome service managers and awesome internet salesmen are really the key to a satisfied hyundai customer. Hyundai needs to get more people like that and they'll get far better business. I'm glad we have a few here at least.

stockmanjoe

Carsbuyersguru:

Yes some dealers make their money on number of sales and some on profit per sale. They will not sell you the car if they are not profiting in some way and if the deal does not accomodate their particular startegy. Succesful GM's can make several hundred thousand a year and owners are some of the weathiest individuals in our communities no need to cry poor mouth for them. Lastly, for every car they sell at below invoice they sell many others at or slighly below MSRP.

Went down to St Augustine Hyundai. They are really great people and eager for my business. The deal is $11K for my 2006 Sonata I4 GLS and $1K below invoice for 2009 Sonata Lmtd w/Navi. I am entitled to $3.5K in rebates, there is a $600 doc fee and 7% sales tax. (I figure about $10.5K OTD) The problem is I want a Slate Blue one. They are trying to locate it now.

orientalqing

I bargained quite some time and here is what I got

MSRP $20,850
Invoice $19,500
Rebate $2,000
Price before tax/tag $16,500
Price after tax/tag (OTD) $17,625 (6% PA sales tax about $135 tag and dealer charge)

tried hard but the dealer wouldn't back anymore. So how is the deal?

backy

The one site in question is www.manassashyundai.com. They have a Sonata Limited I4 there with an MSRP (excluding destination) of $26,235. This vehicle has the Navigation System and Carpted Floor Mats. According to Edmunds, the MSRP should be $25,945 before destination. I've found another car with these options at FitzMall, and it lists the MSRP as $26,235 as well.

Ah, I think I've found the problem: FitzMall includes destination in their advertised "MSRP" prices. I don't know about Manassas Hyundai, but maybe they do too? And maybe these cars are at the OLD prices, and Edmunds already has the new (bigger) prices. That could account for the discrepancy you are seeing.

P.S. I noticed that the MSRP on the Sonata GLS has gone up AGAIN! That is the second time in a very short interval. The 2009 GLS 5AT with no options used to list at $19,995 including destination not long ago; now it's nearly $20.6k!

rats

anyone buy a sonata with rebates? Did you bargain down first? The $3000 rebates make the I4 cars very attractive as long as you aren't paying MSRP.

[Deleted User]

Manassas Hyundai does not include destination in their MSRP. I realize that FitzMall does, but even then I can't get a Sonata Limited I4 with options to equal $26,235.

It might be that the MSRP listed on the dealer sites is the old MSRP. Do you remember what the old MSRP for the Sonata Limited I4 was? According to Edmunds, none of the option prices have gone up, so I guess just the base price increased.

If that's the case, technically I'd be getting an even bigger deal below invoice as the dealer just dropped their price of the vehicle (although in actuality nothing really changes).

Edit: Okay, I think I figured it out. The old MSRP was $24,150 and is now $24,550. If I use the old MSRP and include destination charge plus options, I get the MSRP to work out. I find it a little suspect though that Manassas Hyundai doesn't include the destination charge in their price, but do in the MSRP, thus making their price look even better at first. However, since I'm looking at paying and OTD price that works out to $1,500 to $2,000 below invoice it doesn't really affect me if they include destination in their price or not. Currently, with destination, they are running about $1,200 below invoice right now.

- Merg

[Deleted User]

Even though the prices for the Sonata have increased, should I base my calculations on the old invoice prices if the car was on the lot before the increase? I would think I should since the dealership would have gotten the car at the old prices, right?

Does anyone have a list of the old MSRP/Invoice prices for the Sonata Limited I4? I think I might have been wrong about the options not going up in price. I think I remember what they were, but not exactly.

Thanks,
Merg

backy

Yes, you base your invoice calculations on the actual price of the car on the lot. Cars aren't like gasoline, where gas stations increase the price at the pumps when the price of oil at the wellhead goes up, long before that oil reaches the pumps. :sick:

[Deleted User]

Cool. Now if I can just get the old prices... I believe most of the options went up $5 ($4 invoice) and the MSRP went up $400, but I don't know about the old base invoice. It doesn't look like the Navigation System, Bluetooth, or the Cargo Net went up in price.

- Merg

newowner10

The dealer still has to sell you the car. Even if you think the car is worth less than the ones he has received since the price increase. It still is what the dealer thinks the car is worth versus what you think the car is worth versus what the next person will pay that looks at the car. You may offer $1000 under invoice the next guy may pay invoice someone else may pay MSRP. It all depends how desperate the dealer is to get the car sold. If the cars are in demand he would wait for the people that will give him the most profit. If you have 10 cars and 20 buyers who would you sell the cars to? The ones that pay $500 under MSRP and with the $2000 rebate and think the got a great deal? ($2500 under MSRP). I wonder what percentage of people take the dealers first offer?

moocow1

Not that good. I got $16.6 in a more expensive living area with package 2. I assume this is base package. You should be looking more at like $16.1 or so. Heck you should just head over to new jersey.

stockmanjoe

About a thousand below invoice - not too bad.

I can't prove it but I suspect some people's deals are self reported by them to be better than they really are.

bhmr59

Check townehyundai.com. Their internet price would have been $1700 under invoice and any oher rebates you would have qualified for including the general $2000 rebate.

But, if are far away from Denville, NJ, that wouldn't do you any good. Just enjoy the car. You didn't get a "bad deal."

[Deleted User]

Hoping someone can check my math on this. The prices used below are older prices as the vehicle is being advertised using the older prices since it has been on the lot for a bit.

Sonata Limited I4

MSRP: $26,360 (Invoice: $22,589)
Options:
Navigation Unit - $1,250 ($1,137)
Cargo Tray - $90 ($73)
Unknown Option - $90 ($73)
Unknown Option - $85 ($68)

Destination: $695
Total: $26,360 ($24,635)

Dealer Price: $20,450 + Destination = $21,145
Price Below Invoice = $1,490
Dealer price includes $2,000 rebate

I was thinking of offering an OTD price of $21,500 which would work out to about $2,200 under invoice. I would probably go up to about $21,750, which is just less $2,000 under invoice.

Any thoughts or corrections would be appreciated. I'm hoping to go on Sunday to get my new car (this one or another one on the lot that looks promising).

Thanks,
Merg