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Car shopping experiences

CJ2008

Ideal_Rock
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I know we have several PSers who recently bought cars or are looking right now as we speak.

And I'm curious as to what their shopping experiences have been.

Did you visit several dealerships or did you find your car right away?
Did you like the salesman/woman? Did anyone request a different person because you didn't like the original one "assigned" to you?
Did you have a hard time or an easy time picking the actual model you wanted?
Did you negotiate down to the last penny, and make sure that you were not being charged anything you shouldn't be, or are you more like if the price seems about right you just want it overwith?

I know @kenny a while back bought his car via the Internet/email. Did anyone else do that? And what was your experience? Was it easy, and were dealers willing to work with you in this way?

Just curious about your general experiences.
 

missy

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We went to a Lexus dealer not too far from us at the beach and found the perfect car for us at a fair price. We liked the salesperson (a senior salesperson and very nice and experienced and reasonable IOO) and were in and out of the dealership within 2.5 hours from start to finish. Went in looking for a CPO car and left after purchasing one.

Back in 2002 when we got our last car (haha yeah that long ago) Greg visited 2 dealerships as they didn't have the color and add ons that he wanted in the Lexus we ended up purchasing. So in 2002 visited 2 dealerships.

And last month the first day we went we purchased the car at the dealership we didn't purchase from in 2002 because they didn't have what we wanted. Again we knew what we wanted and knew the fair price so no haggling and no issues. It was an amazingly smooth transaction.

Are you in the market for a new car CJ?
 

Austina

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Our last 2 cars were bought from the same dealership. We’d not had any previous experience with them, but the moment we walked in, we really liked the guy we dealt with. He gave us a great deal on the car, and the trade in on our vehicle. When we decided to buy a new car this year, we visited a dealer near us, they offered us a price, then we went back to the other dealer.

We discussed what we wanted, he didn’t try and persuade us to buy top of the range, discussed all the options, arranged a test drive, looked at our trade in, then offered us the deal. It was slightly less than the other garage, so I told him and he then bettered his offer, so we did the deal.
 

baby monster

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I bought a car about 1.5yrs ago. Narrowed down choices by reading reviews online and looking at consumer reports ranking. Went to 4 dealerships (2 brands) to test drive the models and get a feel for dealers. Ended up buying from the dealer that was the easiest to deal with. The salesperson was a woman. She was less pushy and arrogant than male salespeople. Selling a car is not brain surgery but the men act as if performing life saving operation on me or showing me the way to Mount Everest.

As far as price goes, you are unlikely to get a massive discount from dealer without manufacturer's incentive. The car I bought has $2K difference between dealer invoice and sticker price. Not much room to negotiate. The only discount I got was Costco members.
 

Arcadian

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I've gone alone and with my husband. For the most part, if he goes with me, funny enough they look to him first. He will tell them talk to the boss....lol


I don't fall in love with cars. Its a tool. I like my current car but its now coming off lease. Technology moves fast so its time for something new. My search began the year before as I specifically want a hybrid. That means I want to know everything about it and do a hella lot of research prior to stepping into a dealership.

I have more than once walked away from a salesman. Don't treat me like I'm stupid, because more than one found out I know more about cars than they do (I worked in a car manufacturing plant). Don't ask me about what type of payment I want. I'll say 50 dollars. If I'm asking to see a spec sheet, just show it to me, don't be an ass about it. If I ask to see your invoice price its because I know by law you can show it to me. If you dont want to, no problem, next (I've gotten up and walked out the door). If I ask about the holdback its because I know its there, and 9 times out of 10, I already know what the entire amount is. Don't wanna disclose, no problem, next.

And I get very pissy if you show me a car I'm not interested in. if I'm looking for a hybrid or an EV, don't show me ICE.

But once I find that right dealership, right salesman, I'm loyal. The deal on my last car took an hour and that was because of the paperwork. If I were still in Massachusetts these would be my people still.

As I'm looking down here, it means going through all of the above again (and again). its exhausting.
 

canuk-gal

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HI:

I always check out the inventory online first as it is generally accurate. We've dealt with the same salesman at MB for our last 4 cars. It works out really well. And we do haggle over trade in value and other stuff.:P2

cheers--Sharon
 

lyra

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I will say this, all cars are at least $10K more in Canada than the US. So that sucks.

For my next car, maybe next year, I told my husband I wanted the big red bow experience. Just pick something, buy it and bring it home with a bow on it for me. I don't know if I can go through with this, but I want to try. I know what he wants, so it's not a big deal. It's just that I always choose silver, and he might choose something else. Lol. We go to one dealership. No point going to multiples, the prices are the same.
 

marcy

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We’ve bought our last 4 cars from the same dealership. We had a salesman we liked for the first 2 cars and then he moved so we now have another salesman we like as well.
We visited several dealers each time and test drove the cars we were interested in. We end up buying from the same dealer because they’ve been good to us and give us customer loyalty bonuses and extras.
My current car was custom ordered so they really didn’t cut us any deal on that but we talked them in to more on our trade in.
 

Dancing Fire

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The last two new Lexus we bought I haggled the price through Email exchanges. I knew the exact car I wanted and knew the exact out the door price before we drove 100 miles to pick it up. I told the SA I'm not going on a 100 mile wild goose chase unless I received an Email confirmation from their dealership.
The MSRP was 54,500 plus tax and license for our 2017 RX350 and I haggled down to 51K out the door. The full MSRP would have been over 60K.
 

missy

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The last two new Lexus we bought I haggled the price through Email exchanges. I knew the exact car I wanted and knew the exact out the door price before we drove 100 miles to pick it up. I told the SA I'm not going on a 100 mile wild goose chase unless I received an Email confirmation from their dealership.
The MSRP was 54,500 plus tax and license for our 2017 RX350 and I haggled down to 51K out the door. The full MSRP would have been over 60K.

Very sweet @Dancing Fire! You are a good negotiator.:appl:
 

tyty333

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Just bought a Toyota Highlander...
Did you visit several dealerships or did you find your car right away?
Did you like the salesman/woman? First one I worked with ...No. Heavy smoker and I could barely stand to be around him. I found myself
holding my breath and preparing myself for the next gulp of air. Decided I just could not work with the guy for the length of time it
takes to come to an agreement.

Did anyone request a different person because you didn't like the original one "assigned" to you? Well, not actually. The second time I showed up I just
acted like I had never been there before and got the "next" sales person in the line up.

Did you have a hard time or an easy time picking the actual model you wanted? Easy time.
Did you negotiate down to the last penny, and make sure that you were not being charged anything you shouldn't be, or are you more like if the price seems about right you just want it overwith? I guess we were somewhere in between. We know they have to make a profit we just didnt want to give
them more than we had too. We did a lot of comparison on-line. Its a real pain and I hate buying new cars. Sort of ruins the fun of getting
a new vehicle.
If you're bored and have nothing to do...read on!:lol-2:
Major annoyance we had...
We test drove a car that had everything in it that we wanted except for the leather package because that car was parked right outside (vs in the back lot).
We told out SA that we had to have leather. So after we test drove they started talking numbers going back and forth up to the sales manager and coming
back with different numbers. We weren't going to buy that day because we had to go home and do some more research but we left with the last number
they offered us on our mind. The next day the Sales Manager calls and offers us a new number higher than the number from the day before. When I told
him that his number was higher he said it couldnt be. Come to find out the number they had offered us the day before was on a car without the leather
package! We wasted about an hour and a half talking numbers on a car that we didnt want...totally the SAs fault. From then on my DH said we
are only going to talk about a car on the lot that we can put our hands on. So every time they came back with a number we said "Are we talking about
the white Toyota Highlander with number that ends in XXX? Just to be sure we were talking about the same vehicle.

Another annoyance...
So the car I was trading in was a Honda Odyssey that had just turned over 100k miles. The SA had asked how many miles on it and we told him
that it had just turned over 100K. He entered this in the computer. So 2 weeks later after we've agreed on numbers he brings up the computer
to enter the Honda car number and says 98K miles and I said no, 100k miles. He was like "Oh no." You told me it had 98k miles on it and I said
I had not. He said then your husband did and once again I said he had not. He said there was an issue because with 100k miles on it they had
to sell it outright vs selling it to a broker??? Nothing happened because of it but I basically felt like he was calling us liars.

Did I mention I hate buying new cars!
 

KaeKae

Ideal_Rock
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2,390
We visited two dealers this week!
The first had one car available that we knew we wanted. The sales person was the one DH spoke to on the phone and she knew a lot about the car. But financially, the dealership wasn't working hard to make the deal.
The next day we went to another dealer. DH wasn't able to connect on the phone, but had seen online that they had more vehicles of the kind we want, with the right kind of features. There, the salesperson was the first we saw, it took him 15 minutes to get to actually help us, and then was hit and miss, for as it turned out, he's new to the job and while he knew the vehicles fairly well, he didn't know what he was doing as a salesperson. (He never even introduced himself or learned out names.) Ultimately, his manager took control and we were able to make a deal.
We pick up our new vehicle tonight. :)
 

Dancing Fire

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the white Toyota Highlander with number that ends in XXX? Just to be sure we were talking about the same vehicle.
About 3 month ago DD#1 bought a white 2017 XLE for 40,700 out the door. I think her car was the last shipment of 2017's. She drove 100 miles to pick up the car after they finalized the prize over the Email.
 

Asscherhalo_lover

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My mom is in the business so I just tell her what I'm looking for. Then she reaches out to her dealers and finds me the best combination of pricing/financing. I always pay what the dealer pays for the car and then whatever incentives or cash back are being offered.
 

CJ2008

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Just wanted to say hi to everyone and say thank you so much for your contributions so far!

I'll be back to respond later on tonight or tomorrow.

Thank you :wavey:(@tyty333 I must have been bored because I read the whole thing LOL but no seriously I really enjoyed all the detail!)
 

Dancing Fire

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About 3 month ago DD#1 bought a white 2017 XLE for 40,700 out the door. I think her car was the last shipment of 2017's. She drove 100 miles to pick up the car after they finalized the prize over the Email.
Just spoke with my daughter she said she paid 39,700 OTD for her white 2017 XLE Toyota Highlander.
 

nala

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As with my jewelry, I'm really impulsive about my cars. I trade in every 3 years or so Bc I get bored. If I like a car, I look up the kbb fair purchase price and use it as a bargaining tool. I walk in preapproved by my credit union so all I haggle is the price and I show them my number and demand to pay in the lowest range. For some reason, the haggling takes only a few minutes which mAkes me wonder if The kbb fair price isn't accuarate? Lol. Except that when I comp my purchase price to exact used cars at carmax, I still pay under a used price!!!
 

CJ2008

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Guys, I'm so sorry I haven't been back to the thread...got sidetracked with a few things and just hardly checking PS or not long enough to respond properly. Thank you and I'll be back soon. (not that it matters that much LOL but I still feel compelled to let you guys know I appreciate the responses)
 

CJ2008

Ideal_Rock
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We went to a Lexus dealer not too far from us at the beach and found the perfect car for us at a fair price. We liked the salesperson (a senior salesperson and very nice and experienced and reasonable IOO) and were in and out of the dealership within 2.5 hours from start to finish. Went in looking for a CPO car and left after purchasing one.

Back in 2002 when we got our last car (haha yeah that long ago) Greg visited 2 dealerships as they didn't have the color and add ons that he wanted in the Lexus we ended up purchasing. So in 2002 visited 2 dealerships.

And last month the first day we went we purchased the car at the dealership we didn't purchase from in 2002 because they didn't have what we wanted. Again we knew what we wanted and knew the fair price so no haggling and no issues. It was an amazingly smooth transaction.

Are you in the market for a new car CJ?

Missy OK so sounds like you / Greg did your research before going to the dealership. And I'm a little jealous that for one of those purchases Greg just went and got the car while you were nice and comfy at home. LOL I say that only because yes we're in the market for a new car and because I'm a good researcher and the car is more for me than anything I've taken on the process and I wish someone would just hand me a car. LOL Your car is gorgeous I love it, and it's smart that you didn't buy new.

Our last 2 cars were bought from the same dealership. We’d not had any previous experience with them, but the moment we walked in, we really liked the guy we dealt with. He gave us a great deal on the car, and the trade in on our vehicle. When we decided to buy a new car this year, we visited a dealer near us, they offered us a price, then we went back to the other dealer.

We discussed what we wanted, he didn’t try and persuade us to buy top of the range, discussed all the options, arranged a test drive, looked at our trade in, then offered us the deal. It was slightly less than the other garage, so I told him and he then bettered his offer, so we did the deal.

Sounds like it went pretty smoothly and with not too much work.

I bought a car about 1.5yrs ago. Narrowed down choices by reading reviews online and looking at consumer reports ranking. Went to 4 dealerships (2 brands) to test drive the models and get a feel for dealers. Ended up buying from the dealer that was the easiest to deal with. The salesperson was a woman. She was less pushy and arrogant than male salespeople. Selling a car is not brain surgery but the men act as if performing life saving operation on me or showing me the way to Mount Everest.

As far as price goes, you are unlikely to get a massive discount from dealer without manufacturer's incentive. The car I bought has $2K difference between dealer invoice and sticker price. Not much room to negotiate. The only discount I got was Costco members.

I've encountered some of what you said with the salespeople (who did happen to be all male). One of them told me a story about how a customer was so grateful that he was able to get him all the options he wanted in the car. He said the guy said "you'd do that for me?" LOL I mean, really? And he interjected the story with what was clearly some kind of sales strategy on his part. LOL

HI:

I always check out the inventory online first as it is generally accurate. We've dealt with the same salesman at MB for our last 4 cars. It works out really well. And we do haggle over trade in value and other stuff.:P2

cheers--Sharon

Nice having the same salesperson there's a level of comfort and ease I'm sure even with the haggling.

I will say this, all cars are at least $10K more in Canada than the US. So that sucks.

For my next car, maybe next year, I told my husband I wanted the big red bow experience. Just pick something, buy it and bring it home with a bow on it for me. I don't know if I can go through with this, but I want to try. I know what he wants, so it's not a big deal. It's just that I always choose silver, and he might choose something else. Lol. We go to one dealership. No point going to multiples, the prices are the same.

That sounds so good to me right now. Just have a car show up. LOL

We’ve bought our last 4 cars from the same dealership. We had a salesman we liked for the first 2 cars and then he moved so we now have another salesman we like as well.
We visited several dealers each time and test drove the cars we were interested in. We end up buying from the same dealer because they’ve been good to us and give us customer loyalty bonuses and extras.
My current car was custom ordered so they really didn’t cut us any deal on that but we talked them in to more on our trade in.

Right, it's always more difficult (maybe impossible) to get any breaks when you're ordering the car down to all the details rather than something that's sitting in the lot.

Just bought a Toyota Highlander...

If you're bored and have nothing to do...read on!:lol-2:
Major annoyance we had...
We test drove a car that had everything in it that we wanted except for the leather package because that car was parked right outside (vs in the back lot).
We told out SA that we had to have leather. So after we test drove they started talking numbers going back and forth up to the sales manager and coming
back with different numbers. We weren't going to buy that day because we had to go home and do some more research but we left with the last number
they offered us on our mind. The next day the Sales Manager calls and offers us a new number higher than the number from the day before. When I told
him that his number was higher he said it couldnt be. Come to find out the number they had offered us the day before was on a car without the leather
package! We wasted about an hour and a half talking numbers on a car that we didnt want...totally the SAs fault. From then on my DH said we
are only going to talk about a car on the lot that we can put our hands on. So every time they came back with a number we said "Are we talking about
the white Toyota Highlander with number that ends in XXX? Just to be sure we were talking about the same vehicle.

Another annoyance...
So the car I was trading in was a Honda Odyssey that had just turned over 100k miles. The SA had asked how many miles on it and we told him
that it had just turned over 100K. He entered this in the computer. So 2 weeks later after we've agreed on numbers he brings up the computer
to enter the Honda car number and says 98K miles and I said no, 100k miles. He was like "Oh no." You told me it had 98k miles on it and I said
I had not. He said then your husband did and once again I said he had not. He said there was an issue because with 100k miles on it they had
to sell it outright vs selling it to a broker??? Nothing happened because of it but I basically felt like he was calling us liars.

Did I mention I hate buying new cars!

SUCH a pain to buy new cars. It really does put a damper on the excitement of getting a new car.

BTW thank you for answering all my questions exactly I really did appreciate it :) and the longer version too :)

And how annoying. But yes, I totally get what you're saying. When the car is in the lot, you know EXACTLY what's in it and don't have to rely on the salesperson to give you information. And yeah good point about using the VIN# or some kind of reference. And how crappy about the 98 v 100 miles thing. But I totally hear you on all this. I hate the games and the back and forth especially when you can't trust that they're not ACTIVELY trying to sneak something by.

We visited two dealers this week!
The first had one car available that we knew we wanted. The sales person was the one DH spoke to on the phone and she knew a lot about the car. But financially, the dealership wasn't working hard to make the deal.
The next day we went to another dealer. DH wasn't able to connect on the phone, but had seen online that they had more vehicles of the kind we want, with the right kind of features. There, the salesperson was the first we saw, it took him 15 minutes to get to actually help us, and then was hit and miss, for as it turned out, he's new to the job and while he knew the vehicles fairly well, he didn't know what he was doing as a salesperson. (He never even introduced himself or learned out names.) Ultimately, his manager took control and we were able to make a deal.
We pick up our new vehicle tonight. :)

So you started out with some annoying stuff but then the manager saved the day. Not too bad. Congratulations on your new car! Are you enjoying it?

As with my jewelry, I'm really impulsive about my cars. I trade in every 3 years or so Bc I get bored. If I like a car, I look up the kbb fair purchase price and use it as a bargaining tool. I walk in preapproved by my credit union so all I haggle is the price and I show them my number and demand to pay in the lowest range. For some reason, the haggling takes only a few minutes which mAkes me wonder if The kbb fair price isn't accuarate? Lol. Except that when I comp my purchase price to exact used cars at carmax, I still pay under a used price!!!

That would make me wonder too, if I throw out a # and they're like oh, OK sure, just sign here! LOL but if you're satisfied with what you pay don't overthink it. Not going crazy has value too.

I've gone alone and with my husband. For the most part, if he goes with me, funny enough they look to him first. He will tell them talk to the boss....lol


I don't fall in love with cars. Its a tool. I like my current car but its now coming off lease. Technology moves fast so its time for something new. My search began the year before as I specifically want a hybrid. That means I want to know everything about it and do a hella lot of research prior to stepping into a dealership.

I have more than once walked away from a salesman. Don't treat me like I'm stupid, because more than one found out I know more about cars than they do (I worked in a car manufacturing plant). Don't ask me about what type of payment I want. I'll say 50 dollars. If I'm asking to see a spec sheet, just show it to me, don't be an ass about it. If I ask to see your invoice price its because I know by law you can show it to me. If you dont want to, no problem, next (I've gotten up and walked out the door). If I ask about the holdback its because I know its there, and 9 times out of 10, I already know what the entire amount is. Don't wanna disclose, no problem, next.

And I get very pissy if you show me a car I'm not interested in. if I'm looking for a hybrid or an EV, don't show me ICE.

But once I find that right dealership, right salesman, I'm loyal. The deal on my last car took an hour and that was because of the paperwork. If I were still in Massachusetts these would be my people still.

As I'm looking down here, it means going through all of the above again (and again). its exhausting.

Arcadian that is exactly what has happened to me when my DH goes with me. Most salespeople ignore me - or try to - completely.

The way you shop for cars is very much the way I do. And I too find it completely exhausting. And I think more exhausting than I used to when I was younger.

I can fall in love with cars for sure - but I would for the most part not let looks matter more than reliability for example.

I too also do tons of research before stepping foot into the dealership, which in a way makes it frustrating to deal with salespeople who most of the time know a lot less than I do. Some of them hardly even know the basic trim levels and what they come with or not.

I feel the same way you do about being straightforward - if I ask to see something show it to me or tell me straight out that you don't want to. Don't give me the runaround or worse show me something fake.

I take the edge off by being warm and friendly but they soon realize that does not equal me being uninformed or that I won't negotiate.

Do you find that they admit to the holdbacks? And - if you don't mind me asking - is there a way to find out what it is (I am not recalling if I know that right this second, if there's a way to do that).

I usually walk in also knowing exact color, trim, and other details and they always look at me so funny.

So I get the job done, but yeah, it's exhausting internally.

The last two new Lexus we bought I haggled the price through Email exchanges. I knew the exact car I wanted and knew the exact out the door price before we drove 100 miles to pick it up. I told the SA I'm not going on a 100 mile wild goose chase unless I received an Email confirmation from their dealership.
The MSRP was 54,500 plus tax and license for our 2017 RX350 and I haggled down to 51K out the door. The full MSRP would have been over 60K.
About 3 month ago DD#1 bought a white 2017 XLE for 40,700 out the door. I think her car was the last shipment of 2017's. She drove 100 miles to pick up the car after they finalized the prize over the Email.
Just spoke with my daughter she said she paid 39,700 OTD for her white 2017 XLE Toyota Highlander.

Wow that is a nice deal DF good for you. Yeah, the "out the door" price is the key. Thanks for all the info.

When you say you finalized over the email - did they try to sneak in any fees at all once you got there.

Did you find that dealerships easily provided you pricing over email or was it a hassle to get them to do it.

My mom is in the business so I just tell her what I'm looking for. Then she reaches out to her dealers and finds me the best combination of pricing/financing. I always pay what the dealer pays for the car and then whatever incentives or cash back are being offered.

That is so awesome I wish I had someone in the business!

Thank you all so much again for your feedback.
 

Bron357

Ideal_Rock
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I remember years ago looking at a PT Cruiser convertible. I went with hubby. The sales guy didn’t even speak to me, he spoke to hubby. When we went for a test drive, he sat “me” in the back seat. I was livid. Got back to the showroom and this guy is negotiating with hubby. I said in a very loud voice “I’m going” and walked, hubby dutifully came after me with the sales guy following him. “Is there a problem? ” Mr Smarmy asks. “Yeah, you, so f@@@ off”.
A few days later I saw a Citroen Plurial online ad for another dealer. Brand new with all the options and a very very “drive away” good price. So off I trot to the showroom. See said car in pride of place on the showroom floor and start talking to the sales guy. Quickly it becomes apparent that the listed price in the ad was for only for the base model, all those extras and registration adds another $7,000 grand. Huh?
The ad was a mistake he says.
Hang on, I thought, I know how this works.
“Oh I said, that’s not very fair, you know you can’t advertise a car for one price and then say it costs more when I get here. It’s called “Bait and Switch” and that’s actually illegal you know. You could lose your trading license in fact. It’s a serious offense actually.
Stunned look on sales guys face. Off he goes to make a few phone calls.
Comes back, dejected, he brightens, “do you have a copy of the ad?
Big smile, yes of course, I screen shot the listing ad, see here, so I can prove it!.(his sad face returns)
Ok he says, well, if you buy it right now we can honor the price even though it was a listing mistake but obviously you will need to organize finance or speak to your husband so.....
Actually, I’m a cash buyer, so what’s the deposit and when can I take delivery.
Yay.
 

Dancing Fire

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33,852
When you say you finalized over the email - did they try to sneak in any fees at all once you got there.

Did you find that dealerships easily provided you pricing over email or was it a hassle to get them to do it.
No, we agreed on the OTD price before we drove to the dealership. I asked for a price confirmation via Email which many dealership are willing to do nowadays. Don't go to the dealership and waste 3 hrs BSing with them w/o a price confirmation via Email.
 

luv2sparkle

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In the last couple years we have bought three subaru's from the same dealership, and in October we purchased a Ram 3500 that we special ordered. We have had great experiences with these cars. Two were paid totally in cash, one we co-signed for my daughter and the truck we put a little more than half down. We also had financing with our credit union and had a check to hand them when the truck came in. The truck was particularly easy because we special ordered it and it was loaded. We tried to put money down and they wouldn't take it because they said if we changed our minds they could sell that truck in a heartbeat. We also dealt with a guy who works with the firefighters and sell them a lot of trucks as you can imagine. I was really happy that all these purchases went so well.

Our last few cars before that were Honda's. When we bought the first one we had a obnoxious sales man who made the whole experience awful. He was a blow hard and I didn't trust him for a second. We came in to buy a couple more cars from that dealership and he insisted on helping us. Every time after that we told someone we didn't want him to help us and they gave us someone else. We didn't need help, we knew what we wanted and how much we were going to pay. I can't even tell you how much I despised that man. He made my skin crawl.

If you have everything lined up and know what you are going to pay I think the process goes more smoothly. That is what we have done the last 20 years or so. Before that, we went in with our hands out so to speak. While it ended up ok, we didn't do as well as we could have. If you get a bad feeling about a dealership, walk away. It's not going to get any better. We had to do that when we bought our Subaru's. We went about 10 miles further to get them but we liked the people so much better.
 

doberman

Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Mar 2, 2012
Messages
2,417
My last car was a 9 year old range rover sport and I got a new one in 2016. I also looked at the BMW. What I didn't like was the BMW salesman wouldn't talk price at all until my husband got there. Boo, no sale for you. On the other hand the range rover dealer knew me and my old car (we bought it there) and had no problem discussing prices and availability with me. (Apparently some people have to wait a while to get exactly what they want. I was pretty flexible.)
 

LJsapphire

Brilliant_Rock
Premium
Joined
Apr 24, 2016
Messages
883
I used to have a 2000 Honda that previously belonged to my parents. When the clutch died in 2014 I needed to replace it and we started looking at getting one on lease. (I'm in the UK) and we originally looked at a Ford Focus that I really really liked. It was an outgoing model and was on a special offer before the new model came in. I just missed out and the new model was quite a bit more. We kept looking, I went to Lexus and test drove a very nice IS300H but then we found a Mercedes C Class for £25 p/m more than the Focus. The dealerships couldn't get anywhere near the prices we were getting from online offers.
I had that for 2 years and then I upgraded to the coupe version with extras. I've had it for just over a year, with 2 more years to run.

Both times we've done our research. I had a spreadsheet detailing different offers. We had a look at the cars "in the flesh" but then done the paperwork part online. We did get quotes from the dealerships, I also looked at Jaguars this time. Actually, I didn't even test drive the first one but it was so much of a step up from my old Honda. I switched from manual to auto too, so that was fun. :lol:
 
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