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I had to get my car traded in from another lot since I was a bit picky on color and they ended up getting me a PVEZ model so I'm not going to complain too much on the price I paid.
Enjoy your new car!
What does everyone think? It seems that buying one without a vip discount would be cheaper.
1. There are options on the car you don't know about.
2. The invoice prices you see elsewhere do not include vehicle delivery costs (dealerships pay manufacturers for delivery costs, which are included on most online invoice summaries). But vehicle delivery does not cost $1,400, so this isn't the entire difference.
3. Your dealer is not being truthful about invoice.
Once you have these numbers, you'll have a pretty good idea of what you'll pay. Then, you have to factor in customer service, convenient location of the dealer, number of competing dealers in the area, etc. When I bought my Legacy back in '08, I got what I felt was an absolute rock bottom price and then was willing to add up to a couple hundred because the dealer is just two miles away and the service there on both my Subies has been simply outstanding. I have more than made that money back in dealer freebies and just the convenience of the whole arrangement.
Also, as evidenced by some recent posts, the fee enters the transaction fairly late in the game, when sales people know that customers have had enough and are too tired to argue over it. I say they should argue.
I went to Carr Subaru first in Oregon who quoted me for a limited model $25,800 VIP price. Which was higher than others.
Wentworth quoted me $25,400 for a limited model with no moon roof VIP price. But they had two Limited models with a moonroof for $25,075 in twilight blue and $25,575 in ice silver on sale. I wanted the silver but for the price of the twilight blue. He said no and it was a price error but he'll have to give it to me (blue one)mfor that price. Which is [non-permissible content removed] because they've had it posted at that price for two weeks and when I came back 5 days later. Which when I went back later I asked for a printed invoice price for the VIP and non VIP prices. He never gave it to me and I was not gonna keep asking after asking twice for it. Anyways I got tired of car shopping honestly so I thought I would just pay the $500 extra for the silver one, made an appointment to go in Saturday to buy it. Until....
Capitol Subaru offered me a better price ($219 cheaper) in the color I wanted, ice silver. I also saved $100 fees not buying in Portland and in Salem. So I ended up paying $25,356 + Fees for my 2013 Legacy Limited w/moonroof. I did not use the VIP because well it's December and they wanted to get rid of as many cars as possible. The salesman was incredibly honest with me and extremely helpful. Eric was the guy who helped us and I'd recommend him to anyone shopping around the area. My aunt who was there almost bought a car herself if she had not just bought a rav4 the month prior. Anyways I got 72 month at 2.9% financing ^_^
We are in state but had a better experience at their White Flint store. My dad and sister also bought cars from them with no complaints.
Thanks!
Just for reference.
Also check TrueCar.com, you can see what others are paying.
I think if you're including taxes, that does seem like a deal.
It does include taxes and all. I do have it in writing to confirm it is taxes, title, and dealer fees. This dealer is about 1.5 hours away. While I am willing to travel, I do hope to get my local dealer to beat, or the very least, match this price. Sounds like this is a good price.
Here is a cute experiment for you. Google, oh, "Honda head gasket". Note the search results. Now google "Subaru head gasket".
Oh the horror! I know it's difficult, but pay close attention to the personal accounts of leaking head gaskets! But wait - isn't Subaru supposed to be as reliable as Honda?
Are leaking head gaskets the only reliability issue? No. Google also, oh, "Subaru wheel bearing". Yeppers.
Let me tell you about my 2007 Subaru Legacy 2.5 Special Edition - the car the sales folks swore in 2006 would outlast any Honda.
At 135K miles, that car developed a leaking head gasket. Didn't quite have the funds ($2K) to fix it. Now the engine is dead.
...Then there are the three wheel bearings I had to replace during the life of that car. Was it just how I drove? Hm. I am quite the careful driver, but don't believe me. How many hundreds of complaints can you find in your Google searches of "Subaru head gasket" and "Subaru wheel bearing"?
The car does drive very nice for an affordable midsize sedan. In the winter, it is golden. But, unless you have patience, time and money to sink into this piece of metal, you might want to consider other brands too. And the 2003 model is smack in the middle of Subaru's reliability issues - that's why that car is selling for so little!
Just know that you are buying trouble. Fun trouble, but trouble nonetheless.
Every brand has its achilles heel.
For fun, though, let's Google:
subaru head gasket = 2.89 million hits
honda head gasket = 4.81 million hits
honda transmission problem = 6.93 million hits
honda a/c problem = 105 million hits (had to double check that one).
Hondas are perfect, totally fault-free. Go for it.
To to OP - I'd say it depends.
They have an alloy block, so what you don't want to buy is a car that overheated a lot and warped and won't mate up well to the heads.
Try to find out how long it's been leaking. If it just started, and that could be why they're selling, then the repair should meet your expectations.
If it's been neglected and driven that way for a while, I'd pass.
Engines and transmissions are sacred. I see evidence that Honda addressed its transmission problems. Two brothers and my mother drive Honda accords, two with high mileage. No transmission issues.
With Subarus, the story is different. I don't even know that many Subaru drivers, yet two of them have personal accounts of leaking head gaskets - as do I. The problem is that this issue first came to light nearly 15 years ago. Subaru claimed to have fixed the issue in models after 05 - yet that is not true. My 07 Legacy suffered from exactly the same issue 03 drivers complained about.
Honda is not perfect. But it is more trustworthy. Every brand has its issues, but I have more confidence that Honda has made strides to address theirs. Subaru seems to be clueless.
Subaru's FB25 was a big improvement, but their CVT is also kinda new, so another risk.
The EJ was an open deck design and has a lot of passages through the gaskets. It took a full redesign to address that 100%. The gasket materials improved over the years so the issues became less frequent, but never completely disappeared.
To be fair Dodge Intrepid ate gaskets at a higher rate than Subarus did.
By the way, I also have a 2003 Camry and had to replace the catalytic converter. Cost of around $800; not of the magnitude of the trasnsmision or the head; but still an important part. It has been fine and now has 185000 miles and is going strong. But the head and the tranny are really important and I imagine can make your life miserable; thus the question if a repair job typically is effective. If the repair has a good possibility of being as successful as the repair of my Honda's trasnmission, with 68000 miles and a fair price (apparently not great but not bad either) it is my kind of car.
Hard to tell with just the information you posted.
But it sounds like about 3200 off MSRP. If you can buy at that price with just TTL and 199 doc fee and nothing else, it's a good deal.
Here's my options as I see them:
1) Contact my local Subaru dealer and have them do a nationwide inventory search for the vehicle I want. I fear that this may cost me some negotiating power as well as the expense of transporting the vehicle.
2) Contact the Subaru dealer in the next state that has the car I want. But how complicated is tax, title, etc. when doing this, especially if I'm offloading a trade?
3) Wait around a couple of months and see if the car I want appears in local inventory. Ideally I would do this and hope that I can find what I'm looking for at the end of the year when dealers want to move inventory and are eager to deal. But that's leaving a lot to chance.
Any thoughts?
1) It's impossible to say how much a dealer trade hurts your negotiating power, but it does take a bit of time and costs money to trade vehicles between dealers. The fact that the car is at a store located 200 miles away makes it worse, in that your local dealer probably does not regularly trade with this other dealer, so there is no business relationship. Plus, sending a guy or a couple of guys is not insignificant, in that the trip is probably 3-4 hours each way. One way or another, you will have to pay for all of that.
2) It's no problem to buy a car in another state. When you are doing the paperwork, you list your home address. You actually pay taxes and title the vehicle in your own state, not the state where you buy the car. I wouldn't worry about this factor. The trade-in is another story, in that you will have four hours invested in going to the dealership. What if they don't make an offer on your trade-in that you like? Will you still buy the new car and then sell your old one on your own? Drive home without the new car you like? I wouldn't drive four hours without firmly nailing down the price of the new car, and also getting a pretty darn good idea of the trade-in value. Final trade-in will, of course, depend on the dealer inspecting your car.
3) If you really are in no hurry, and can get to a price you like, have your local dealer order a car from the factory. I ordered a 2011 Legacy LTD just the way I wanted it, and got it in about 6 weeks, if I recall (back in late 2011). I didn't pay any more than what my dealer was willing to sell me one on the lot. Right now is probably not a great time to order a car, if Subaru closes their factories in July to switch model years. But I don't know that to be true regarding the Legacy. I don't know when they switch model year production.
I just went through a very similar scenario. I wanted a great deal on a Legacy Limited (preferably a 2013) but was pretty particular on options. Wanting the 6-cylinder model was probably the factor the affected things the most...there are not a lot of 6-cylinder Legacy models out there, which perplexes me a bit since they really make a difference here in the mountains of Colorado.
Anyway, I ended up buying a Legacy from a dealer out of state...Albuquerque, to be exact (I'm in Denver). What I did was get several email offers from various dealers (both in and out of state). I got offers for some Legacy models that I didn't necessarily want, but gave me a %-off-MSRP to use for negotiating. Once I found the car in Albuquerque that had all the options I wanted, I asked them for an offer, I then made a counter offer based on the other offers I received. Was able to to get a $31600 MSRP car for $27900 which is not bad.
My question is...how hard would it be for you to travel to get that car? 200 Miles (in my opinion) is not a very far distance to travel to get a car, especially if you really like it. As the other poster mentioned, the taxes are not hard at all...they'll just plug in your home state taxes and send all the info to your home state DMV where you will go and register your vehicle (they'll give you a temp tag for the interim period).
Having a car to trade in can complicate things because the dealer probably won't be able to guarantee a price for your trade until they actually see/drive it in person. I also had a trade-in and just decided to sell it privately. Otherwise, given the distance you have to travel (assuming you travel alone in the trade-in to get the new car), you are forced to accept whatever price they offer.
One last note...I live in Colorado, which is the #1 Subaru market. Therefore, dealers here do not need to negotiate much (if at all) to sell cars here. If you also live in Colorado (or probably Utah as well), a local dealer probably won't be too keen on going through the process of getting a car from out of state AND also giving you a great deal. Might be worth the bit of extra effort to do some of it yourself. It definitely was for me. I love my new Legacy!
In any event, good luck!
Just curious,
I'm in the market for a used Legacy and a dealer near me (around Pittsburgh, PA) has a 2013 Legacy 2.5i Premium with just over 5,000 miles on it (likely a sales man's old car or they bought it from corporate) for $20,987 sticker. This car has the CVT trans, cold weather pkg, bluetooth, power drivers seat (manual passeneger), cloth interior, no sunroof Obviously, this can come down with some negotiating, but I was just curious what everyone thinks of this deal...good or just ok? Please let me know as I am looking to buy before the end of the year.
Thanks!
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