New car buying saga

[fullsizeaggie]

I got lucky buying a used truck. The salesman really wanted to buy it for himself but he already had a reliable car in his driveway. I got a steal!


I swear people get dumber each day. It seems the vast majority don't even look at prices anymore. When I ask about prices on this new house I'm building I get a stupid stare a lot of the time. I'm thinking...How in the bleep bleep do other people not even ask what stuff costs? Sorry I'm bothering you asking if these cabinets will be $3,000 or $30,000 LOL

Everything you see now is payments, payments. Can you make the payment? I want to know the total cost and then I will decide if I want to make a payment.

[Heath]

My favorite method is to email every dealership in a 100 mile radius on the same email and tell me to send their best offer for "X" truck. Typically you will get a few answers back and that is the guys I know need or are willing to deal, then start from there.

Once you figure out, you "don't need to buy that day" and you can walk out on your terms its good. With that said when you have a guy you trust, like Jerry Black at Tom Light Chevy in Bryan for me, it makes the world of difference.

[deerplanter]

My wife has good results at Baytown community Honda, she deals with a guy named Tracy I believe. She has bought several cars from him and she has been happy with the deal.

[txpitdog]

Well, just when I thought we were done shopping, it fires right back up. I have one Houston dealer emailing frequently and has offered 40,500 drive out. Not good enough but when I pressed him on it he said “yes, please do your due diligence, and then let me know if we can sell you a vehicle”. I take that to mean he ain’t budging.

But then it turns out that other dealers outside of Houston are a tad more motivated. Now we’re down to less than 40k drive out with extended warranty included. Not good enough, but I share it with the Houston crowd to give them a chance to match or beat it.

I was perplexed by the hardball game we got after the beginning of the month. I mean, not even a call back to see if we would budge on price on our end. But now I see how this all works.

This is the first time I’ve ever shopped for a car the hard way, always had a Ford X plan or some other automatic deal that I felt was good enough. But it’s clear to me now. The game is rigged to make it feel like the dealership holds the power, but what feels like the final battle is really just the first skirmish. I’m convinced now that we will get the price we want.

[cj_sandman]

I called around separately from TrueCar offers, and I also quickly realized that anyone calling or walking in to a Honda dealership was offered the TrueCar price. Therefore, TrueCar wasn’t anything special, but just another advertising method...and it certainly wasn’t going to be the price I accepted.

I wasn't able to tell from your posts, but -- did you actually walk into any dealerships and talk to a live salesperson?

[cj_sandman]

I called around separately from TrueCar offers, and I also quickly realized that anyone calling or walking in to a Honda dealership was offered the TrueCar price. Therefore, TrueCar wasn’t anything special, but just another advertising method...and it certainly wasn’t going to be the price I accepted.

I wasn't able to tell from your posts, but -- did you actually walk into any dealerships and talk to a live salesperson?

[txpitdog]

I wasn't able to tell from your posts, but -- did you actually walk into any dealerships and talk to a live salesperson?

Three. One poor guy was new and couldn’t find his own butt with two hands and a map, the second guy was your typical liar, and the third attempt quickly put us in front of the sales mgr who said he didn’t need to sell the car that cheap yet.

[Maxlab]

It may not be close but call Gunn Honda in San Antonio and ask for Kieth Keller internet Manager.
They have a bunch of 2019 EX-L for $37,850
The Price You see is what you pay, They were the first dealer ship to start one simple price.
I worked for them about 20 years ago, they don’t play any games. You just pay the advertise price. They are a very high volume Honda Dealership 800-1000 units a month.

[BJ DUPLECHAIN]

Dang. I've accepted a new job and my commute is more than doubling. I am about to buy a civic within the month or so and leave the F150 parked in the shop. I've looked online, but haven't been to a dealership yet.

[BlackoutRam2500]

For the people talking about % of profit and car dealerships don't forget that the dealerships get these cars on loan from the manufacturers. If they can't sell them they just send them back. And they also make the majority of their money off of service departments.

I think of it kind of like the movie theaters.... they don't make their money off of ticket sales. They make all their money off of the popcorn. Now that might have something to do with why Honda doesn't want to come off of their prices too much since the cars are supposed to be trouble free.

[TxDispatcher]

I'm not even walking into a dealer to "deal" these days. I'll spend a few free moments in the afternoons after work on websites finding what I want. Then email the dealers who have what I'm interested in and do my "haggling" thru emails. I'll either have a deal I'm happy with and they'll start all of the paperwork before I even go in, or I won't buy from them.

We bought 2 vehicles last year and spent about an hour total in finance signing papers. I've talked to a few folks who have bought the same vehicles who didn't get anywhere near as good of deals that we did, most paid over $10k more (combined prices between the 2 vehicles) than we paid. I feel like we did pretty dang well and I didn't have to play the "let me go see if they'll go any lower" game for hours

A former boss of mine bought a used Ford from a Chevy dealer 7-8 years ago, haggled them down over the course of a week from the low 20's to $18k, and it came down to paperwork time. He stopped before signing and said "I noticed that there's only 1/4 tank of gas in the truck, y'all are gonna fill the tank up, correct?" The finance guy said that they weren't, and my boss stood up to walk out. The finance guy said "you're telling me that you're gonna walk on this deal over 15 gallons of gas?" My boss said "no, I'm telling you that you're going to let me walk over less than $50 for the tank of gas" as he walked out the door. The finance guy hollered for him to come back, and told the salesman to go fill the tank up I just don't have the patience for that, so I do all of my prep work/looking online and the deal thru emails...it's just easier these days

[Maxlab]

For the people talking about % of profit and car dealerships don't forget that the dealerships get these cars on loan from the manufacturers. If they can't sell them they just send them back. And they also make the majority of their money off of service departments.

I think of it kind of like the movie theaters.... they don't make their money off of ticket sales. They make all their money off of the popcorn. Now that might have something to do with why Honda doesn't want to come off of their prices too much since the cars are supposed to be trouble free.

I’m sorry but this is not true. Dealers start paying interest on these vehicles as soon as they hit Dealership it’s part of there Floor Plan. They also don’t send them back if they can’t move them. They are stuck with them until it’s sold.
They do make money with the Service Department, but make more on the Sales Floor. Even after the the vehicle is sold, they get a rebate check from the manufacturer called Hold Back. Hold Back can range from $600.00 to over $2500.00 depending on how much the vehicle cost. Add in the F&I where they make a ton of money on the interest rate plus all the other add on’s they try to sell. It becomes very profitable. I know a few dealerships that actually will give up most of the Hold Back to move a unit at certain times of the year.

[topduarte]

Buy American. Issue solved

[Mike D]

Because you’d rather haggle with a used car guy???



Lmao!!

Don’t be silly Jeff.

I usually buy from an individual OR I call up my buddy who owns a car buying service, tell him what vehicles and I’m interested in and what my budget is and then pick up the vehicle after he finds it, negotiates the price and reconditions it.

Easy peasy.


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[txpitdog]

Received an email this afternoon. I’m in striking distance. Last opportunity unapologetic offer to dealers that have em in stock tomorrow and then I’m buying. Nothing is guaranteed until the car is in my driveway, but I’ve got the deal where I want it.