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Comments
Greg
PS My first post, sorry it is so long.
There is response from landrau that may helpful to you.
I am too am amazed that dealers: PAY for leads from the internet car markeitng sites, PAY for internet access to their stores, PAY for an internet manager and then REFUSE to take my money becuase it LESS than some other dealer will accept.
Call me crazy but as long as even one dealer & one seller can come together that is BUSINESS that the 'refusnik' dealers are throwing away...
If that's the case, I'd expand my search area. Pestering the non-negotiaters is pointless, IMO. Also, have you checked for a Forester "What did you pay?" thread?
I just checked the Subaru national site, and there's a great dealer locator search function. I'd use that to get to the dealer's sites and request quotes from there.
Step 2: Like River says, do your research to determine a reasonable price.
Step 3: Go to a dealer and offer that price and see if they accept.
If they say No, then come back here for some more advice.
Nothing special about using the internet!
If I can get the vehicle for XXXXX dollars and spend YYY dollars trucking it to my door, why wouldn't another dealer be MORE THAN HAPPY accepting XXXXX+YYY from me?
Sure seems like they are refusing my money...
The thing is the dealers can not get as many popular cars as they want. I am sure Isellhondas would love to receive every Pilot he could. But his shop gets a certain number. And maybe, in Indianna, the Pilot is not as popular...so, they discount them. I assume Isell will not sell a car for invoice if he KNEW the next person would be willing to pay MSRP.
The market will ALWAYS determine pricing!
Not the internet, not some "book", not the opinion of some "expert".
Just the prevailing market.
Same thing applies to houses, stocks etc...
Sure not rocket science.
They just do not seem to "get it".
I have the paperwork all set to fax to the dealer 800 miles who will take my money and sell me the car, while others have not even checked in.
I guess this is the equivlent of standing in the showroom with your checkbook for half an hour "waiting for a salesmen". bah.
Not rocket science...
the phone does work both ways. It's possible they never got the e-mail.
From my experience it seems dealers prefer to meet their customers (in order):
1) In person - if they've gone to the trouble of coming down, they must be semi-serious
2) Through a phone call - not as good, but at least you talk to a real live person
3) Through email - which could be from any yahoo with an email account and time to kill, possibly kids
Every time I made a follow-up phone call, the dealer then took me seriously.
I dunno, I probably will break down and call some of 'em. Man oh man, I thought the internet would knock out a lot of this time wasting...
When I was shopping for my Dodge Ram in December of 1995, I sent letters to the 5 closest dealers (almost no dealers had web presence 7 1/2 years ago) - and only one of them answered. I replied to the one dealer by asking the hours of the salesman who responded, came in, handed over a $1000 deposit (it was a special order, and I wanted them to know I was serious), and the truck was delivered in May of 1996. Over the last 7 years, I hacve sent several referrals there (and yes, I get bird-dogs, so I don't reveal their name in the forums), the service department has been outstanding, and you know what? Next year, I will order another Ram from the same salesman. He's still there, and in fact, is now the dealer's ISM. And this is where you have to draw the line when it comes to the convenience of internet/fax/similar shopping. You're better off shopping for the dealer as well, in order to create a relationship that works. When myt dad was in the market for a minivan two years ago, I took him to my salesman, and my dad was given an up-front price of INVOICE minus a $2000 rebate. All because they knew me, knew what kind of customer I had been, and knew that I wouldn't bring them customers who weren't serious.
And it's when you establish those kinds of long-term relationships that you will ALWAYS get the best price without having to shop all over, or even bother with another dealer.
kcram
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Smart Shopper and FWI Message Boards
If you want the car go buy from the place that will sell it for the price you want. Imagine that all the internet guys that have been "ignoring" you were to read your posts here. Every one of them would be saying, "See, I knew he wasn't buying anything." And you know what? They'd all be right. If you want to prove them wrong, go buy something.
The value of net shopping is to cut out hassle and to expand your market access. You've got a deal you like? Take it. Cut out the hassle.
This is NOT just about getting the LOWEST price, it is about using my time efficiently. If dealers can't email or phone me, why in the heck would I go into their store?
I am more than happy to pay a SEVERAL HUNDRED more for the same vehicle from a local dealer. Unfortunately the offers from the few locals who've responded are still $1000 away from fair, even after I figure in the trucking cost.
I suppose that I am thinking somewhat of "hassles down the road", with regard to warranty work and such. OTOH that is probably EXACTLY what the locals are counting on. Is that worth a grand? Two? What value (if any) is reasonable to place on that??
They know the next shopper will buy the car with a minimum of fuss!
If you have several dealers nearby, I'd value that at no more than $.29. Service departments are businesses, too; and most businesses want business. As long you have several dealers close by, you won't be stuck dealing with a sorehead for service.
Greg
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Mackabee
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Mackabee
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Mackabee
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Mackabee
Seriously just curious did you do any research on that or did you just figure that having a face to go with the name would possibly increase your serious inquires with a higher comfort level?
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Mackabee
Interestingly enough...the FBI only puts pictures of folks they are closing in on up in the post office...It's more marketing for public opinion, so that when they nab the guy, joe public goes...Man, I saw his poster in the Post Office, I guess they really DO get their man.
This certificate entitles John Smith to a $50.00 credit towards the purchase or lease of a new Ford from ABC Motors.
Limit of 1 coupon per vehicle purchased or leased.
If the dealer named above will not honour this certificate, STOP! Do not buy or lease from this dealer. Call us at 1-800-xxx-xxxx and we'll either find a dealer who will honour this certificate or we'll refund your $50 subscription fee right away, guaranteed.
Comments?
I guess they are betting on that $50 not killing the deal. On other threads we have often discussed that dealers won't lose a deal over $50 or $100. Maybe they know that and are trying to exploit it. They get those $50 as a sort of broker. It would be interesting to see if this parasitic business model takes off.
Personally, I would never use a coupon like that. Heck why not just skip the middle man and make your own with powerpoint or something?
Duncan
I decided on a 2003 camry xle with a few options. One option in particular was never ordered on any of the camrys in my region by the regional distributor, so my car had to be ordered.
I researched prices using various internet sites. In particular I noticed Carsdirect.com was offering my vehicle for about $300 below edmunds invoice price (edmunds invoice does not include any regional fees or ad fees, as I did not want to pay these fees, I used edmunds as my starting invoice pricing model).
I emailed a few local dealers through their websites with the specifics of the camry I wanted and told them it would have to be ordered. I asked for their best price. I got a few responses that were in the ball park. I also had a local dealer in mind that i wanted to buy the car from that i had dealt with a year ago. He was a nice guy so i used him to test drive and start negotiations. He too was in the ball park on pricing.
During my intial emailing for price quotes I found a local dealer that had a feature on their website where you built you car and then offered a price. I went trough the steps to build my camry and was amazed that the invoice pricing tracked edmunds exactly. The invoice total came to like $22,315. I made an offer of $22,000. The offer page was kinda skimpy but you could make a comment so I added the comment "price offer is plus TTL and I get rebate if available when car is delivered." To my surprise a few days later I got an email saying that my bid was accepted. I emailed back with an exact break down of what I wanted to pay. The salesman emailed me back that I was correct except for a $20 tag fee. I went to my local guy that I wanted to buy from and told him of the price quote I just got and if he could beat it. He said that if I went there they would add in a big doc fee or say that they had included the rebate already in my price quote.
I went to the dealer with the offer your price website. He filled out a buyers order exactly like the email except that they had a $389 doc fee. i thought this would be a problem, but he also had lowered the price of the car by $389 so the OTD was the same. I took the signed buyers order back to my prefered dealer to one last time give him a chance for the sale. I did this because he had spent the time test driving with me and showing me all about the car so I thought he deserved first chance at the sale where as the other dealer had sent me two emails and spent 15 minutes filling out the buyers order.
My prefered dealer could not believe they had put that price in writing. He went to his manager just in case, but came back and said they could not beat it and the other guy was losing more money on the deal than they were willing to just to get the sell.
So back to other dealer to place the order. Left a $1000 deposit on a CC that they never did run through. Spent 7 weeks waiting for car and hoping that the rebate held or went up. It stayed the same at $1000. About three weeks out the car showed up in my dealers online inventory with an expected arrival date. I went to my CU to get a loan at 3.9% for 48 months. I was approved and all set when the car arrived. Called the dealer to get buyers order sent to CU and he said he should be able to get me $2.9% for 48 or 60 months. I said sure. He called back about an hour later and I was approved for that.
Delivery day. Went to the dealership, test drove the car. It had 6 miles on it when i first test drove it. I signed the typed buyers order with the correct VIN, etc. and a few more papers with the salesman. Then he took the paperwork to F&I and came back and went over the warranty info and some sections of the manual. By this time F&I was ready. Went there and completed loan paperwork. The only surprise was a $100 loan fee that the saleman did not mention. I acted like I did not want to pay it and that I would go back to my CU. He said fine, they could not wave the fee. I decided that the rate was so much better and I would be done right then, to go ahead and pay the $100. The F&I guy did not try to sell me any other products at all. When I asked why not, he said he had heard me and my family members in the salesmans office saying I was not going to take any of them anyway and that it would save us both time. Funny thing is I do not remember talking about that in the salesman office.
I have to mention that I took delivery about an hour before the dealership closed. But what was so surreal about this whole experience was that everything went right even though I was looking for surprises around every turn and the way the delivery went. This was the first time I had bought from this saleman, yet he acted like it was my tenth car buy from him. He did not show me anything about the car (product demo), he did not introduce me to his manager, service dept, etc. It was basically sign here, here, and here. You know what lemon law is, right? The tires aren't covered under the car warranty. He took me to finance, that went quick with like 4 signatures and then I was off in my new car with a handshake.
I ended up with a deal that was $300 below edmunds invoice price, I got a $1000 rebate too, and I got the equivalent of toyota's non rebate financing program (2.9% for 60 months financing was through Bank of America). Basically if I had only used this dealer, the time I spent was three emails (10 miuntes each), 20 minute dealership visit to confirm vehicle specs, 20 minute dealership visit to place order, 40 minute dealeship visit to pick up car. The only other wasted times was like a total of an hour negotiating at the prefered dealer. Other time there was doing test drives and product demos which is legit time that had to be spent somewhere.
So in my case the internet worked great. Some dealers did not respond to my email price requests, others reaponded positively with ball park figures. I loved the build your vehicle feature and make an offer since my car was not available on any lot so it was probably harder for dealers to give me an accurate price quote. The internet saved me time and hassle when doing reasearch and getting pricing info.
Sorry for the long post, hope this info is helpfull to others.
Sometimes it's so smooth that it seems weird, huh?
Skillfully done!
But that's me...nevermind...
rivertown- not sure how much he made, but you are right, this is a perfect example of how offering an intial low price saved time and hassle for everyone involved. He seemed very confident of his price and always spoke positively about finishing the deal. I am sure he Knew I was shopping his price, but he did not seem to mind and never mentioned it. As far as profit goes, i was told by a Fl dealer that the LE had $1500 factory to dealer money, not sure if there is any on the XLE, or maybe some kind of volume bonus.
BTW, i intend to give all top marks on CSI. I was a little concerned about the way the delivery went, but knowing that if I do not giver all top marks my salesman will suffer, I will give all 5's. He offered the best price right away, let me take my time deciding when to buy, used no pressure at all and was knowledgeable and reliable.
Mack, if you are reading these boards, I hope you read my post above. Thanks for all of your help.