By accessing this website, you acknowledge that Edmunds and its third party business partners may use cookies, pixels, and similar technologies to collect information about you and your interactions with the website as described in our
Privacy Statement, and you agree that your use of the website is subject to our
Visitor Agreement.
Comments
If the amount of money is non-zero, give me a Yugo or a Daewoo instead.
I do not believe there are bad dealerships; only bad salespeople! A good salesperson does NOT work at a bad dealership.
The internet is a great source for "fair" pricing; but it is NOT the end all! I love internet shoppers actually; who come in armed with reams of data. If ALL they want is price w/o regard to the vehicle itself, then more power to them and good luck! All cars (used cars) are NOT the same. I love when they say 'I saw the same car down the road, same miles, color, options etc; for $5,000 less" Yeah; and I have some swamp land for sale in AZ. Please!
I think anyone who buys cars should be a salesman for a day! LOL To those of you who have never sold big ticket merchandise; you'd be amazed at what we hear, day after day after day.
"What's your bottom dollar?" "I have to think about it” “I need to pray” “You are the first place we stopped” “I only have 5 mins”
We as Americans LOVE to negotiate! Argue all you want and say you don’t like to negotiate. BULL! Yes you do! Ask any veteran salesperson to agree to a price before his/her customer drives the car, hears about the features, advantages and benefits. Guess what? The car will NOT be sold to that person! They will want more $$$ off!..if they buy it at all! “SALES” is derived from the latin word “To Persuade”..NOT pressure! Few salespeople understand this concept! Left to our own, including me; I will not make a big dollar purchase unless I am sold..I WANT to be sold..I WANT to see and understand the value. If all we had to do was look at vehicles, pick one and buy it, then what would we have? K-Mart! I doubt most people want a K-Mart atmosphere when buying a car.
I want a informed salesperson, a professional! Do you negotiate the fee with your doctor?
Do you want the amateur taking out your appendix? Did you see the same operation down the street for 5K less? LOL
If I TRUST my professional..In ANY service related industry, I WILL pay more for his/her services! TRUST does have value; monetary value!
I wish I were a better writer; I would write a book about how to buy a car, negotiations etc..It would NOT include how to beat up the salesperson to secure yourself a wholesale buy! If you want a wholesale buy, go to the auction.
The only place where I might quibble in your post is your statement that buyers want to be sold on a vehicle. In many, perhaps most cases, that is true. But, there are some of us who know exactly what we want and we simply want to work a deal ASAP.
My recent shopping excursions got tedious because each salesman went through a walk around of each car I looked at before I could test drive it. I understand that this is part of their job, and the salespeople were for the most part knowledgable, but it added a half hour to each visit.
In your situation, had you been my guest, (I refer to all my customers as guests) and had you communicated that you know which car you wanted, I would just get right to it with ya.
Tell me what you found, what you WILL pay. I will also assume you are NOT jerking me around and need to think about it. LOL
I hope you are talking about a used car, because if it is new, then there really are no reson for a test drive if you know what you want.
As far as used cars; they are NOT all the same, I;ve seen two cars.... the same model, year,options same miles etc..and the two are vastly different! Depends who owned them, how they were taken care of etc. The pre-owned cars in our dept really do stand tall. We don't put crap on the street. We also recondition them beyond just an oil change. You can probably buy the same pre-owned car I sell; down the street for $500-750 less, but that is because we average $500-750 in REAL reconditioning, inspection etc per car! That means YOU don't have too. So; you can pay the $750 higher now..or pay maybe $1,500 a yr from now when it breaks down..up to you.
regards,
kyfdx
Edmunds Price Checker
Edmunds Lease Calculator
Did you get a good deal? Be sure to come back and share!
Edmunds Moderator
That is how we like to do it, and since we are spending our money, we get to do things our way.
The main difference is the line at the cashier is longer at Kmart.
I see it in a very different light.
We as Americans LOVE to negotiate when buying a car - BECAUSE that is the only purchase that you can negotiate in the US.
When you go to Macy's to buy clothes, u cannot negotiate.
When you go to home depot to buy a carpet, u cannot negotiate.
when you go to toys-r-us to buy toys, u cannot negotiate.
when u go to the produce store to buy vegetables/fruits, u cannot negotiate.
when u go to circuit-city to buy an audio/video/home-theatre u cannot negotiate.
No wonder no American wants up to give up that ONE chance s/he gets to negotiate once in maybe 5 years.
In the rest of the world, especially India, u CAN negotiate for almost all of your purchases, save for gas and utilities.
Kmart sells business suits?
You don't have to put on a song and dance for all customers. Some of us are interested in the car, not the sales person. Your main purpose is to carry our offer to the sales manager without losing it.
Yeah, Kmart has some cute business suits. When I find one I like, I sit there until the blue light comes on so I can save $4.99.
Seriously, You bring up some good points but I unfortunately believe at the greenpea factory stores they do teach them the pressure sale not the persuasion style which I am much more amenable to. So there are bad dealers ( as some of the other pros can attest to).
I also believe that you need to test drive even a new car to see if it meets your physical wants & needs but overall I'd say you were right on.
Bobst- I just can't believe that you wait for the blue light at Kmart. I just figured you'd say I'm not paying anymore then X for this product and if they don't take your offer you go to the Kmart down the road... :-)
Duncan
Main Entry: sale
Pronunciation: 'sA(&)l
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English sala, from Old Norse -- more at SELL
1 : the act of selling; specifically : the transfer of ownership of and title to property from one person to another for a price
It can be loads of fun to negotiate just about anything, once people let themselves do it. Heck, I'll try to find a discount on just about anything, I just have to ask. Most folks assume the price on some merchandise is set in stone, except for car buying. That assumption costs most of us lots of extra cash that we could save just by asking "What's the best price you can give?" You'd be surprised at the kinds of things that can be negotiated just by asking.
-Dan-
I ended up selling my fiance's 2000 Alero GLS Coupe, 20,800 miles but a TON of problems (already had a whole new steering unit), it was creaking and rattling, rough idle, etc, to CarMax for $7,100, which I thought was a pretty decent price.
After much (and I do mean much) shopping, I purchased a 2004 Chevrolet Malibu Maxx LS with the 1sb package (adding head airbags, power seat, rear audio and some floor mats) for $16997, not including my $912 GM car discount. I found a dealer over the internet who was willing to give me the car for Invoice minus the holdback, so it went for $675 under invoice, per the factory paper which he sent to me. It was also the only blue Maxx optioned that way in VA and Maryland.
So far, we're very pleased with the car (I can't believe this thing is not selling, you wouldn't believe what a great car it is, especially the multi-flex seating which is downright revolutionary) and with the deal I got. I think I might have been able to do a tad bit better elsewhere, but I wanted this particular car so it was worth it to stop shopping. So that's it for me.
And in the process, I found a nice, honest, straightfoward dealer (Anderson in Baltimore, MD) that gave me their price and didn't screw around, didn't even charge me a doc fee. So it can be done!
Depends on the market. I was talking to a GM Regional Manager in Milwaukee who was telling me that they were moving quite well.
Personally, from first glance, I prefer the Impala which are not that much more if you shop around.
Thanks!
I know he had a Taurus from hell as many of the earlier ones were.
Fleets buy them because Ford caters to the fleet buyers. a lot of companies insist on "American" cars for their fleets.
Motor Trend also gave the Chevy Vega the Car of the Year award one time too along with a couple other duds.
Still, I agree the newer ones are much better and they can be a lot of car for the money when bought used.
Born and raised in San Pedro but left CA in 1986. Live in a Seattle suburb now.
Even so...NO WAY should a dealer take 20 days to send paperwork! This should be done within a couple of business days.
If the truth be known, the buying public lie 10 times more than salespeople! Yet another reason I do NOT work the lot looking for fresh ups..as far as you never asking for your sales person..well; I guess he/she does not keep in contact with you; or; you have no loyalty. My customers depend on me to handle any problems that arise after a sale..and I do go to bat for them..They ARE inportant to me!
If you wanna' go at it with the "machine" i.e the dealership to handle a problem, more power to ya..My customers don't need or want the head ache.
I actually like the Impala, its often overlooked but with a 3.8 its a nice car. We just were not looking for another sedan, the Maxx offers quite a bit more in terms of flexibility. Its a little big for my fiance too.
Wife and I are shopping around for minivans, and we may buy one of the new GM vans when they come out in Sept/Oct. We're also looking at the current models, since they are screaming bargains, my guess is we could get one for invoice minus rebates.
The dilemma comes in that I have about $2,200 saved up in GM card points, but have since married into a GM family who can get the (very deep) employee discount. Naturally, you cannot use the GM card points on an employee purchase.
So, what to do. Do I negotiate with the salesperson and use the GM points, or just take the discount and blow my $2,200 into the wind?
Thanks!
Just an idea.
1) The GM employee discount is around 3-4 percent less than the invoice price. So the deep-discount employee price that you refer to isn't all that deep. So for a van with an MSRP of say $25000 the price to you would be around $1000 (4 percent of $25k) under the invoice price (less any rebates). If you can negotiate the price down to invoice in a regular (non-employee) deal then the credit card points that you have would be worth more in a normal non-employee sale.
2) GM now seems to have many employee-only specials (eg. like GM employee cash) where they rebate additional $1000 or $2000 (or so) for employees to the deal on top of the other rebates and employee discounts. Check the GM family site "www.gmfamilyfirst.com" for the current deals. You can also check employee prices of cars at this site and compare them to Edmunds invoice prices. There may or may not be an employee promotion on right now - you'll have to check their website. For what it's worth - I have noticed that the promotions seem to pop up towards the later part of the month. If this is the case then you just have to work out which is the better deal including any GM employee offers.
3) I have also seen GM promotions where they add additional rebates to the GM credit card balance for a month or so. Usually they'll send you a letter telling you about this kind of promotion. As before for this kind of promotion you'll have to do a regular (non-employee) deal.
Mitsubishi Motors is about to say good-bye to the U. S. Market. Key shareholder Daimler/Chrysler is bailing out, and its very unlikely that a new investor will emerge to finance production and development. The Japanese firm's tiny 1% share of the U.S. market will be divvied up. Mitsubishi cars on the road will still get serviced, though.
Doesn't mean it won't happen, though.
regards,
kyfdx
Edmunds Price Checker
Edmunds Lease Calculator
Did you get a good deal? Be sure to come back and share!
Edmunds Moderator
IT sounds like old news and speculation. Chrysler bailed out over a month ago. There was additional capitol put in by others such as Mitsubishi heavy equipment, banks, investment groups and the like. However, Mitsubishi Heavy made it quite clear that they will furnish no more money after this. I think they will be around for the next 12 to 24 months in their present form. This is only my opinion. It should be noted that this did not stop me from purchasing a slightly used 2003 Galant ES!
The next 12 months will determine Mitsu fate. Unless there is a product and marketing miracle, they are doomed....My money says they are gone by the 2006 model year.
Maybe Honda will be retreating back to Japan just like they did after the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
"The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration investigated the situation and concluded July 1 that the cases were the fault of dealerships or others who improperly installed oil filters"
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1895&ncid- =1895&e=5&u=/nm/20040709/us_nm/autos_honda_fires_dc
Mitsubishi, though I love the EVO and Eclipse (mostly the EVO) has had its hands full here in the US - mainly from a class-action lawsuit involving the Galant from 1997-2001.
A few things are a little askew here -- Chuck1 .. your opinion that the majority of dealers are bad people, is just that, your opinion .. maybe how you conducted business with poor results might have something to do with, I can't say, I wasn't there .. but usually the person that cries the most is the person that has the Chip on their shoulder, but a good Doctor can have that surgically removed with no problem ...... actually the vast majority of dealers do a great job, work too many hours on a HUGE investment and get all the heat when the customer comes back 9 months later to show their seat has a burn hole from "before" they bought it, or the wheel has been kissing the curb in "their" driveway for a week and they want a new one, or maybe they want a 6 pack cd changer in their trunk for free or they will gag the CSI survey ~ 4 weeks later of course .. could it be any other way .?!?
I can't speak for Blackbelt, he's new to the board but "seems" to be ok, Damish003 makes some good points, but Isell, Drift, Audi and the rest have nothing to gain here, they don't get paid and they don't get a free T-shirt for their thoughts of what is going on in the business, their just trying to help ...
Perhaps you might spend a little time in a dealership and that might change your view a little ..
Bobst might a little on the weird side, but I think he's a straight shooter and thats a big difference from the vast majority of customers that say their pay-off is $9,000 when it's really $11,5 or perhaps the customer then says the dealer down the street just gave them $12,000 for their trade when they really said $8,500, it's especially sad when you own both stores and you were called on that same appraisal 2 hours ago .l.o.l. (oop's they hate when that happens) or maybe when the customer says he makes $7,500 a month and he's been on the job 5 years, when it's really the combined income between him and the Mrs and he's only been on the job for 13 months, I'm sure most folks would forget a small item like that, wouldn't they.? ...
My personal favorite: I want all the toys and If I don't get them-I'm not buying .. I can buy the same ABC vehicle down the street WITH the leather AND the sunroof AND the sport package AND the wheels AND the Nav for $5,500 less than your price - the funny part is, dealers all pay the same amount for identical vehicles .. or maybe I'm always at the wrong dealership, because 2 weeks later I will see them in that ABC vehicle with No leather, No sunroof, No sport package, No wheels and No nav --- *But, they did pay $5,500 less ~ I guess they showed me ........................ ;-)
Terry.
Some have caught fire however as a result of the guy changing the oil getting sloppy and forgetting to remove the old gasket to the mounting plate. It's in a location that's hard to see. You have to go by feel. Thye don't bother to look at the filter they removed to make sure the gasket is still on it.