New Car Deal Thread of Frustration

[Jerry Callo 8727]

On 2/26/2019 at 8:31 PM, HRSchenker said:

How are you guys getting sub 2% interest rates on car loans? I bought my car in November and the lowest rate I could find was 2.9% through RBFCU.

I got a car loan from RBFCU in May for 1.9%, they're advertising 3.7% today.

[Lat22 4017]

On 3/13/2019 at 2:21 PM, Smax said:

Nope, parts and service and its not even close

This, and they make the most off of warranty repairs.

[elfenix 34332]

20 minutes ago, Lat22 said:

This, and they make the most off of warranty repairs.

they make most of their new car profit off of parts and service and warranty repairs?

 

wut?

[Godzillatron 292]

Well, finalizing the purchase strategy finally. I wanted to use Costco to get a baseline price then negotiate off of that but they will tell the dealer who you are and there are only two Lexus dealers in Austin both owned by the same company. That will send me to Houston or Dallas for a purchase.

You can beat the Costco price. You can get a better deal in Dallas or Houston due to dealer competition. Depends on how much you want to work at it and how much time you want to invest. I used Costco and stayed local because, to me, the hassle outweighed the savings.


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[Lat22 4017]

4 hours ago, elfenix said:

they make most of their new car profit off of parts and service and warranty repairs?

 

wut?

I misread the question.  My humblest apologies.

[Dbeasy 15092]

Bought two cars today. Worked my ass off over the last few days and I’m pretty sure I reached the best available price points. I will detail the experience here once I’ve picked up the cars next week.

[Gil Bang 26020]

now that's a humblebrag. 

[NeverMarryAStripper 21921]

Nothing humble about it

[BearSchlong 8114]

Let's see what he bought before determining if it's a humblebrag.

[Longhorn Fever 267]

On 3/15/2019 at 9:05 PM, Dbeasy said:

Bought two cars today. Worked my ass off over the last few days and I’m pretty sure I reached the best available price points. I will detail the experience here once I’ve picked up the cars next week.

[Gravy Train 974]

On 3/16/2019 at 4:00 PM, BearSchlong said:

Let's see what he bought before determining if it's a humblebrag.

 

Quote

We are in the market for a Lexus or possibly Toyota.

TM doesn't make a single interesting car so that's gonna be a no from me, dawg.  Enjoy the appliances tho.

[NBMisha 224]

On 2/20/2019 at 4:22 PM, Dbeasy said:

Having owned both for over 20 years, there are differences.

No one "needs" the Lexus.  But I sure love it.

[Dbeasy 15092]

Ok sorry for the delay. To start, both cars weren’t for me. One was for our family and the other for a relative. I just negotiated both together. No humblebrag.

Also, one never really knows whether you got the best deal possible because there are so many variables for any given dealership. However, by cross comparing dealer notes, I’m pretty sure I was at or near the bottom.

I decided to use the same approach I’d used over the years to buy cars, over phone/email, but I knew they had to know I was serious or I’d get bullshit quotes. That was one of the reasons I decided to buy two at a time.

I spent a few weeks becoming intimately familiar with every single package and option available on our target Lexus vehicles. I got to the point where I knew every difference, better than the sales guys.

Next I built versions on the Lexus web site and other car sites to get familiar with the groupings of packages and options. Along the way, I noted the invoice and msrp prices of every option. I created spreadsheets of every option and priced/costed out cars with various options. I knew every number.

At this point I felt pretty knowledgeable of the differences between the different models available. We also outlined must have and nice to have features.

Then I contacted 7 dealers in Texas and told them I was buying two cars in the next day. I dealt with a manager, not an associate, except for two dealers, who had no one available but sales associates. I started the process the second to last week of the quarter, in order to hopefully run into a dealer or two that was up against it for the quarter quota for additional holdbacks and incentives.

I sent them all emails outlining that I was buying and attached the configurations of what I was looking for. I noted that we understood inventory may not match exactly so I encouraged them to quote the closest inventory units. I asked for out the door price.

In parallel I researched online price forums to figure out what other people were paying. This helped a lot.

Then the offers started coming in via email and some accompanied with phone calls. I also held 3 dealers in reserve in case something went weird and I needed to bring another dealer into the mix.

The offers were all over the map. It took several hours of looking at every car in complete detail, feature by feature, to figure out the real differences between the bids.

It soon became clear that there were three “standard” models that most of the dealers were quoting Note that here I started finding “mistakes” by some dealers who said a feature was on a vehicle when in fact it wasn’t. I figured this out by knowing the models down to the freaking cargo nets. When I started calling them on it, they changed their approach to being more professional.

I also learned which options could be added later, were dealer add-ons, or came from the factory.

As I looked at the bids it became clear that the Austin dealers were running a huge racket. Both Lexus dealers in Austin are run by the same company. They coordinate and would not come down off their higher prices. There was also other very shady behavior. Not good.

Fortunately, dealers from other cities were better. During the day some would contact me and I would simply say they weren’t the lowest. Some would then lob in lower bids. After most of the day, I contacted every dealer and let them know that I was going to provide an opportunity for a last and final bid because multiple dealers requested it. I stressed I was buying that day. I made every dealer feel like they were in it but if they were higher I’d let them know. If they were pretty low I’d tell them they weren’t the lowest.

I then gave them the lowest bid to beat, which already was pretty aggressive, but I knew was not at the lowest level. I told every dealer to quote their best and final, except the one that was lowest. I kept that one dealer in reserve.

I then got bids from the other 6 and they all came on within about ~$200 of each other, except the Austin bids which remained ~$1,500-2,000 higher. I got on the phone with a few dealers, and they explained that I’d blown thru the holdbacks and they were now down to where they only had room for maybe a $100 bucks or so.

To test this, I went back to the original low cost bidder with a request to beat the new lower price. He called me and asked me what was up. I said what do you mean. He said it was obvious I was putting in a ton of effort. He said no one really did that. He said that I’d found his absolute floor at the new price. He would match it but that was all he could do. This dealer had said from the outset they would not get beat on price no matter what.

At this point I was pretty sure there was still $100 I could squeeze out of him or two other dealers. I’m pretty sure there wasn’t $500 on the table because the dealer bids were all consistent.

At this point, I decided to choose based on criteria other than price. It turned out one dealer had a color the others did not. He also happened to be the most responsive and professional of all the dealers. I closed the deal with him and was happy to leave $100 or thereabouts on the table to get the color we wanted.

When I called back the other dealer who previously had the low price he asked me who got the business. I didn’t name the dealer but told him it was a competitor close by. We then had an interesting conversation. He let down his guard a bit.

He said his market was highly competitive because both dealers were large and the owners of the two were really going at each other in the marketplace. He contrasted that with the Austin market which was, in his words “a joke”. He said most people just can’t or won’t put in the effort to properly compare bids from dealers and that as a result they could usually get better pricing. He said pitting him against their nemesis and knowing the specs was key to driving the price down.

[Gil Bang 26020]

"I also learned which options could be added later, were dealer add-ons, or came from the factory. "

 

Yeah, that tru-cote...they put that on at the factory

 

[BearSchlong 8114]

Good post, dbeasy. would read again. Makes me wonder how much $$ I left on the table.

[Longhorn Fever 267]

Good job, @Dbeasy! Can you share how you did on the vehicle compared to, say, Edmunds True Market Value?

[Longhorn Fever 267]

So, we already have a suburban and were shopping for a wagon for some time. I’ve been looking at Edmunds, KBB, Cars.com to get an idea of pricing.

Since there aren’t a lot of wagons out there we fairly easily narrowed down the search between a VW Golf Sportwagen and Subaru Outback. The best deals I could find on the VW were a 4-hr drive away. 

Most Subaru dealers did not seem initially willing to bargain much outside of the $1750 dealer cash incentive since Subaru is offering 0% financing on the cars.

I finally pulled the plug and tried the Costco referral service. It listed one of our local three Subaru dealers. I spent the afternoon emailing back and forth with the associate to let him know what I was looking for.

After some back and forth, he finally said since it was end of month and quarter, he might be able to do better than Costco pricing. The car we agreed upon had a Sticker MSRP of $32,814.  I requested to add an OEM trailer hitch and accessories that listed out at $707. This put me at a list of $33,521.

I then checked with the 2 other local dealers. I ruled one out right away because they play the game of dealer add-ons  on all their cars with highly overpriced nitrogen fills, wheel locks, window tint, etc.

I ended up with the second dealership because I liked the salesman. Final deal for $27,292 plus TTL and BS doc fees that N.C. allows.

Ended up with about 18.5% discount off MSRP and 0% financing. I feel like I got a pretty good deal considering Edmunds True Market Value of $29,916 not including a couple hundred of added accessories.

TL,DR: got 18% discount off MSRP and 0% financing of 2019 Subaru Outback

Edited March 31, 2019 by Longhorn Fever
Added TL, DR summary