Internet vs. Traditional Car Buying

jeffyscott

You are certainly generous. I would not be willing to give away $1000, like that...in fact because I wasn't we did drive about 1.5 hours to buy a car for about $800 less a few years ago. I felt $800 was pretty good pay for 3 hours of driving.

verdugo

You are certainly generous. I would not be willing to give away $1000, like that...

I thought so too, but he added that the cheaper car didn't have one option that he wanted. So it's not an apples to oragens comparison.

Kirstie_H

Excellent! Glad you had a good experience. In addition to giving a good score on the survey, you can rate your experience with that dealership in our ratings & reviews section here: http://www.edmunds.com/dealerships/drr/jump.html so that others will know it's a good place to purchase.

jungle_cat

One thing that I forgot to ask is as Billings said; between the article he mentioned along with other reading I did I knew not to take the extras that the dealer was going to come and sell me.

I did, however, take two items and I am curious what others thought of them:

1. Guide Point; is it worth it? I know it lowered my insurance but I am not sure by how much.
2. Some type of extended warranty to 5 years/50,000 miles. With all the features/electronics it seemd like a good idea. To be honest I would not have gotten it buy my wife thought it was a good idea and convinced me. I forget how much it was exactly but I think it was around $ 1,900.

JC

mikefm58

You paid "around" $1900 for "some type" of an ext. warranty that only takes you to 5yrs/50K miles? What vehicle did you buy? The manuf. warranty is 3yrs/36K and then the power train warranty kicks in until at least 5yrs/50K miles. So you paid $1900 for something besides the power train to break for 2yrs/14K miles. And then I'd bet it's some type of 3rd party warranty that isn't worth the paper it's printed on. Don't take this too bad but I bet the sales staff were high fiving each other after you left.

british_rover

It could be the kind of extended warranty that kicks in after the factory warranty expires.

Also not all new cars have extra powertrain warranties. Some cars only have a 3 year 36,000 and that is the end.

jungle_cat

It is a 2010 Honda Pilot Touring AWD w/NAV and RES.

And it is okay Mike I appreciate the feedback. We can all learn here from everyones experiences; including me. Is it worth it...I do not know. I assume it would be if something goes wrong with one of the systems in the 4th or 5th years. I really do not know how reliable these systems are and thus the likelihood of that happening.

My brother has a Ford Explorer and that has been one problem after another. An extended warranty on his car would definltely have been worth the money. But for Honda Pilot. I really do not know.

I do not have the paperwork in front of me so I can not remember everything but generally it is my wifes car and the idea was two more years under the warranty. It really was not for items such as the power train as I was not worried about that. What I was concerned about more was the electricl systems: NAV, RES, sensors, etc..

Are extended wrranties ever good? In my brother's case definitiely. In general...I am looking for feedback from this board so I will know next time.

JC

mikefm58

Are extended wrranties ever good? In my brother's case definitiely. In general...I am looking for feedback from this board so I will know next time.

There is a forum here just for this type of discussion. It's called "Extended Warranties". If your warranty is the Honda Care warranty then it's a good one and only you can say if the peace of mind it brings is worth the $1900. Many of us here have been burned by 3rd party warranties when the company went bankrupt or we didn't read the fine print and they wiggled out of paying a claim.

Me personally, I wouldn't buy an ext. warranty for a Honda, especially for the mileage limits on a Honda.

exb0

See if you can cancel your warranty. Generally you have 30 days to do so. If you go here http://www.bernardiwarranty.com, you will see that you can buy 8yr/120K mi w/ no deductible HondaCare warranty for $1235.

Good luck.

lrguy44

Be extra careful of warranties bought over the net. Over the years they have proven (in general) to not be reliable in paying and they come and go.

exb0

This place is selling manufacturer's HondaCare warranty. It is not a third party warranty.

lrguy44

Then that is a good thing

jeffyscott

At $1900 for 2 years of extra coverage it isn't a "good thing" (except for the salesman).

It woud be a rare car that would have $1900 in repairs in years 4 and 5, with less than 50K miles...whether it is a Ford or a Honda.

lrguy44

I said it was a good thing it cost less on the internet

jeffyscott

Ah, sorry...I misunderstood and did not catch the lower cost figure that was given. $1200 is certainly less bad than $1900, but I sure would not pay that much for 2 years of coverage on a car with less than 50K mi.

verdugo

I sure would not pay that much for 2 years of coverage on a car with less than 50K mi.

But maybe to the OP it was. Like somebody above said, only the OP can say whether it was worth it or not. He was worried about NAV and electronics.

My case is similar. I bought a Jeep Grand Cherokee with the lifetime powertrain warranty and 36k/3years for everything else. Before the warranty is up, I plan to buy a Jeep (no 3rd party) warranty to cover repairs for NAV, etc. Because it won't have to cover powertrain, it's pretty cheap -- about $800 for an extra 3 years/40k miles. :shades:

british_rover

about $800 for an extra 3 years/40k miles.

All it takes is the nav screen to short out one time to pay for that 800 bucks too.

verdugo

All it takes is the nav screen to short out one time to pay for that 800 bucks too.

Exactly. Oh, and if I don't end up using the warranty, it's refundable. It's also transferable. And now it's back by the US Government and FIAT :P

exb0

The quote I posted was for 8 years 120K miles. That is additional 5 years 84K miles.

jeffyscott

That seems pretty reasonable then, I had thought the quote was for the same 2 years that the OP had posted about.

Wow...that dealer really screwed him with $1900 for the addition of 2 years and 14K mi.

jungle_cat

Just a little follow up. I paid a little over $ 1,800 for CostGuard; I think it was for five years or 60,000 miles--which also included a $ 100 deductible. Yesterday I contacted the dealer and informed them I wanted to cancel it. I am kind of amazed that a Honda Dealer is not selling a Honda warranty.

After looking around I can get a 7 or 8 year/120,000 mile Honda Cares warranty which seems quite good. Not sure on the difference between the two except the Honda cares warranty is about 1,200.

Just wanted to say thanks everyone for your help.

JC

verdugo

Great news. I'm glad you were able to cancel the 3rd party warranty.

mako1a

How much is the factory warranty?

I want to do away with that and shave say $5k off the price as I have an excellent mechanic. Besides we're going to put some Mustang performance mods on shortly.

Is that doable?

jeffyscott

I'm pretty sure the answer is "no", and even if it weren't I doubt that the value of the factory warranty is anywhere near $5000. It is probably closer to $500.

volvomax

Factory warranty has no cash value.

lrguy44

Correctamundo - the cost is figured into production cost and is not even listed on an invoice. Just like a windshield or steering wheel.

boomchek

Well there is a way.

Find a nearly new totalled Mustang car that someone can rebuild and sell to you for less than a new one.

It won't have factory warranty as no rebuilds or salvage title cars have. You'll save a ton of money compared to new. The problem is you'll be driving an unsellable car until it reaches the age of 10 or 20 years old.

thundertim

I've agreed to a final price over email with a dealership, but the model isn't coming until next week. They want a $500 deposit which we can arrange via CC over the phone, which seems reasonable to me, but how do I ensure that our deal over email is honored once the deposit is made? I suppose I could dispute it the deposit on my CC if it came to that, but Is there proper paperwork I should be asking for as part of the deposit?

lrguy44

Have them fax a signed buyer's order to you prior to giving the deposit. Sign it, keep a copy and fax it back. Use a credit card so you could dispute the charge if things change. Make sure the Buyer's order includes all fees and taxes.

6789

In other words, to what extent has the Internet made extinct traditional methods for purchasing a new car? "Traditional methods" = bargaining in person with a salesperson at a bricks and mortar dealership over the price.

And is a Honda/Toyota/Nissan salesperson soon to become a dinosaur because of autobytel.com or carsdirect.com and the like?

What are your thoughts?

Thanks.

jipster

Internet buying is like getting ahold of a greased pig.... very difficult. Most dealerships just run their internet departments as an advertisment, something to bring in more foot traffic. You'll get a better deal walking in the dealership. The carsdirect probably works a bit better than dealerships internet sales dept.

boomchek

Internet car buying is just another option for the customer to shop for a car, just like debit and visa are extra ways of paying for an item and online personal sites are extra ways of meeting new people.

Sure you can purchase a car online and have it delivered to your door as we do once in a while, but most folks still need to come in, drive it, and touch and feel the vehicle before making the buying decision. This is because a vehicle is such a huge purchase that cannot be returned or reversed in most cases should it not fit the buyer. And it's not a product that can be returned with a full refund so most buyers will come in and try it out before making the decision.

Internet car buying will not make a salesperson obsolete, at least not anytime soon.

graphicguy

boom....interesting note about online buying of anything. I remember hearing all of the stories about how the internet would make grocery stores go away. There was a tremendous dot com bust of a company trying to cash in with on line grovery buying.

I remember hearing the same about cars. Everybody was going to be buying their cars online, relegating the showroom as a dinosaur. Didn't happen. People want to touch, feel, sit in, drive what they're getting ready to plunk down $20K of their hard earned greenbacks for.

Carsdirect and autobytel have been around for awhile. They serve a purpose....that is, giving a price to someone who doesn't like negotiating. Eventually, you have to go into the showroom to see, feel, drive the car you want, though.

Now, if you want a dealership to deliver the car to your home, I'd be willing to bet they will. However, not until you make a deal and money changes hands. Personally, I'm not handing over any money for a large purchase until I've thoroughly driven and tested any car. Only do that by walking into the showroom.

boomchek

I've sold cars through email before but I bet you that those folks have been out somewhere test driving them and looking at them before sending out quote requests.

lrguy44

In essence what the internet has done for us is become just another method of communication. Instead of calling or coming in to ask initial questions we will get an e-lead. In fact, since the vast majority of e-leads are "tire kickers" it actually saves us time. Except for a small majority (usually repeat buyers of the brand) they still come in to drive and negotiate. One of the biggest advantage is keeping in touch with customers after the sale.

jeffyscott

The internet makes it much easier to get competing offers from many dealers.

Of course, anyone sensible is still going to go and test drive first and decide what car(s) they might like to buy. I've never understood the point of negotiating before test driving, but I guess some do that.

lrguy44

I will not negotiate until a car has been decided on - that would only be a waste of time. To the few shotgun quote getters I will furnish a quote but the odds of success are so minimal that it will not be the lowest I can sell the car for.

alamocity

If I had to venture a guess your posts won't last as they appear to violate posting rules here.

cdnpinhead

longer than they should have.

lrguy44

He is proliferating several forums with his solicitation

verdugo

When you see spam, just email the hosts. Their mails are at the top. They prefer that to posts complaining that there's spam.

lrguy44

Thanks

Kirstie_H

Yup - thanks to several kind members emailing us, the posts came down a LOT faster than they would have if we'd have waited to find them (along with your notifications that spam was present) within the discussions. Email is always best, and helps avoid hitting on a major pet peeve of this host.

verdugo

Email is always best, and helps avoid hitting on a major pet peeve of this host.

You guys don't want to know how I found out that is one of her pet peeves.

biancar

This is a question for the sales guys who do internet marketing: do you make an effort to make sure that your inventory listings are correct, up to date, and explain which options are on the listed cars? Do you find it makes a difference to your business, one way or the other?

When I was shopping recently, I did a ton of research before I even started test-driving, and then after I had driven a few things, did more research looking for the particular model with the specific options that I wanted, at different dealers' sites.

It was really, really annoying to see maybe 3 or 4 listings of the car I wanted, at different prices (meaning different packages) and then the text would not explain exactly what was on the car. Often the text was the standard listing of basic equipment but didn't even mention the extra features that clearly had to be on the car, as the price indicated.

I loved those sites that made it easy by naming the specific options, as per the manufacturers' own sites, so I could quickly see "OK, this one is a possibility:" or "Nope, nothing here I want." As it was, all too often I had to go back and forth from the manufacturers "build your car" section to the dealer's site and play with adding and subtracting options to get to the same price as listed.

What a time-waster.

The point of listing your inventory is to bring in the right customer for the cars you actually have, right? So why not make it as easy as possible to let customers know what it is you actually have? Why make it harder than it has to be?

jwilliams2

That's more of a rant than a question.

I think most dealers would rather have some personal contact, and can then locate and swap in whatever car you want. Better chance of selling a car than having you go straight to another dealer. And most dealers don't have the manpower to keep up with hourly changing inventory, so they rely on the mfg's data which often includes only model, color, and price.

Of course, it's not going to work if the contact person turns you off or is misleading.

fezo

My experience with contact people has been dismal. It should not take four or more exchanges to determine if a car has a sunroof but in our recent experience it took just that.

If you are going to try and generate business through the Internet I would think that at minimum you should have a very good and complete descriptoin of the car and either have a price on it that is at least not an insult to the potential customer or be ready to disclose a price on first contact.

Answers of "oh, we can see about that when you come" only assure that I will not come.

Local Hyundai guy here would not discuss price unless we were physically present in the showroom or even nail down what a car had on it. The same guy owns the Subaru place that when we test drove a car and declined interest brought out three guys to try and intimidate us into staying to try something else.

biancar

Oy, I hate that.

I wasn't even trying to negotiate price online. I know a lot of people do, but once I narrowed down what car I wanted, it was more important to me to find one configured exactly how I wanted it.

Because this is a model that is going to be discontinued, I knew that a) there wouldn't be a whole lot to choose from, and b) once I found it, I'd have to jump on it.

Some dealers who didn't have what I wanted said "You will have to order it." They weren't even interested in looking for a dealer trade. One said he had the right car, but he was outright lying. Finally I found the right car, 45 miles away from me. Not bad, considering I was looking all up and down the East coast.

It was looking at dealer's inventories on line that even made that possible, but I wondered why some dealers did such a half-baked job of putting their information up there. It was very obvious which dealers had a good internet guy inputting data, and which did not. I was much more favorably disposed to the people who cared enough to get it right.

fezo

One place we were looking at is a used car lot up in Bethlehem, PA. Now, they have a huge selection and pretty good prices up front. My brother bought his son's car there and was very pleased with the result.

My issue with them was that their descriptions were not terribly accurate. They did provide enough pictures to at least give you a clue that you might want to check. The one car was listed as having a sunroof but in the pictures clearly didn't. To their credit when I asked that someone go physically check the car and report back they did, apologized for the listing error and corrected it. This will get them a look next time I'm looking.

jeffyscott

When I was looking for a Mazda a few years ago, if you went through the mazdausa.com site you could search for the trim level and color you wanted at all dealers with X miles of your zip code. Then when you looked at the individual cars that came up, you could see exactly what options they had. You could even look at the widow sticker on line, so you could definitely find out exactly what every vehicle had on it. So sometimes you can get better information by searching via the manufacturer site, rather than the dealer sites.