In 2016, I built the EXACT Tacoma I wanted. I had them order it. Granted, I didn't have much choice because they had nearly zero stock.

Either way, if I'm paying thousands of dollars for a vehicle I'm going to be in nearly every day, I will be buying exactly what I want.

My wife did not have office hours yesterday, so we went car-looking. First stop, got a written offer from CarMax to buy her Ford Escape Hybrid. She tried an almost new Subaru Outback, it was nice, but she wanted something more fuel efficient for her commuting, which is almost always in heavy stop-and-go traffic, so she wanted to stick with a hybrid.

Next stop, one of our forum members has a family connection to a local Kia dealer, so we stopped there to check out the Niro hybrid. OK vehicle, but not what she wanted.

Lunch next, so that we would not be continuing the mission on an empty stomach. Saw a Red Robin, these places have been discussed on this forum, neither of us had ever eaten in one, so we tried it. VERY disappointed! $12.19 for a six ounce burger, around fifteen bucks by the time you add tax and tip, plus beverage etc. I asked for rare to medium rare, was informed that the rarest they would serve was slightly pink in the middle. OK, I'll take one as rare as you will serve it. The burger came with no trace of pink at all, very over-cooked, dried out, 100% flavor-free. Well, we tried the place once, not going back.

Lunch over, next stop a large Toyota dealer. Found a RAV4 Hybrid Limited that my wife liked. The color combination that she wanted, Blizzard Pearl exterior / Nutmeg interior. It had about $2,500 in add-on options that were unnecessary / unwanted, plus $800 "dealer fee." They did not want to move much on price, I said to my wife "Let's go, there are at least a half dozen or more Toyota dealers within 50 miles of home, I'll do some email shopping."

Sales guy heard me say this, ran to get a manager, who was amenable to a bit of price discussion when he saw that I was serious about walking out. Finally got him to knock off the cost of the unwanted stuff. This took a while and a lot of back-and-forth, during which my wife told me that she was tired of this and would just pay for the vehicle if we could just get out of there. I told her that was exactly the dealer's plan; wear us down, and I was not going to submit to that, I was ready to leave, but not ready to pay their price.

Continued discussions with the manager, while my wife's eyes glazed over, finally brought it down to a barely acceptable price. It turned out that the manager was a Navy vet, as I am, so after his offer, I hit him with a request for a veteran's discount on the 4th of July. He carved another $500 off, said it could have been better if I were active duty with Navy ID instead of the veteran's indicator on my driver license. I laughed, I'm 82 and hobbling around on a cane.

We negotiated on the basis of a simple cash deal. No financing, no trade. Once done with that, I told the manager that we had a Ford Escape Hybrid to dispose of, his bid for a trade was welcome, but was not necessary to do the RAV4 deal. They offered $2,000.00 less than CarMax. I looked at the offer, laughed, and told them "Nope, let's just do the cash deal on the RAV4." He looked at my face, asked the salesman who he had obtained the trade offer from in the used car department, walked out to look at my wife's Escape, and crossed out the low-ball bid and matched the CarMax offer, which was really worth 6% more on a trade, since a trade lowers the sales tax, so the whole thing turned into one-stop shopping.

Long story short, that was yesterday. Exhausting day! Right now, my wife is sitting in the car with the multi-hundred page manual, trying to figure out some of the high-tech stuff. I'll stay out of her way for a while, then when she's ready, I'll go set up the integration between her iPhone and the car's Apple Car Play stuff.

Glad she found something she wants and you guys got the deal you wanted. Good luck figuring out the car. It rained yesterday for the first time since I bought it. Couldn't figure out how to work the windshield wipers. Had to Google it. Apparently I have automatic wipers (what???). They sense the amount of rain on your windshield and go at whatever random pace they feel like. So I have three speeds - random speed, medium speed, and high, no intermittent setting. I am trying to figure out how to disable it or find the parts to put in standard controls. Stupid car drives itself, parks itself, turns on wipers by itself, brakes itself. Not sure why the car even needs me for anything?

Tried COSTCO. Few dealers and most would not give me any pricing without coming in to "talk"
Be sure to offer less than the Costco price

Has anyone used Costco’s auto buying service?[/QUOTE]Click on Car Buying Service on the Costco website and you are transferred to a non-Costco site. [/QUOTE]

We have tried the Costco (non)service a few times and have found them to be something less than useless.

Glad it worked out.

I do it's Todd's way & do the majority of it via email after a test drive & shopping around online.

But, to an extent, I enjoy the 'game'.

I just did the same thing last week. Really liked the RAV4 hybrid but they wouldn’t move much on price. 1400 off sticker and I HAD to finance at least 7500 to get that. On the gas models they were much more amenable. I ended up with a RAV4 Adventure. Sticker was 36 something and after some back and forth I paid 30,942. A bit more than 5 k off sticker which I felt was reasonable. Hope so at least.

My backup plan was to get another Subaru but driving them back to back the Toyota just felt like a better choice.

quote:

Originally posted by pedropcola:

I just did the same thing last week. Really liked the RAV4 hybrid but they wouldn’t move much on price. 1400 off sticker and I HAD to finance at least 7500 to get that.

My backup plan was to get another Subaru but driving them back to back the Toyota just felt like a better choice.

My wife looked at a loaded Subaru Outback just across the street from the Toyota dealer. She liked the RAV4 better.

She was a cash buyer -- she had been putting future "car payments" into a money market account, month by month, so when it came time to actually buy, the money was there. We had discussed the possibility that there might be some sort of deal tied to financing, and decided that if that was the case, she would take the financing as long as there was no prepayment penalty, and just pay the complete balance when the first payment was due, unless it was 0% financing. As it turned out, there was no special deal with financing. However, this particular dealer does accept credit cards for up to $5,000.00, so instead of writing a check for the whole thing, she put $5,000.00 on a cash-back card, wrote a check for the remainder, and earmarked the credit card balance to be paid in full on the next due date, so she made a few bucks on the cash-back.

My dealer let me do the same thing. Hard to pass up an easy 125 bucks.

We too have had quite the experience with car dealerships lately.

We went to 2 Chrysler dealers (only two close by)told them what we wanted and said find it and give us the best price.

Dealer 1 gives us a price, tells us with friends & family discount prices are the same no matter where we go. We buy into that line and start the process with them.

They tell us they have exactly what we need, just need a deposit to go get it. Sure, go get it. Wife is all excited for exactly what she wants. Well, then I get the call saying I'm sorry, but I was mistaken we actually don't have exactly what you want, but will you take a different color instead? NO!

On to dealer 2, tell them our story and say what can you do. They tell us they can't find exactly what we want up front, but here's as close as we can (same thing dealer 1 found coincidentally)only they can do it for $2000 cheaper!

So we tell them to go ahead, and we'll come by to see it. Short while later they call to say "well actually that one is gone".

At this point I get a call from Dealer 1 saying hey, we went ahead and got "your" van for you. Turns out they had dealer traded with dealer 2 to get the one we were about to get for $2000 less...

At that point I informed dealer 1 that we were done with them as they tried to milk us for $2k extra, and we'd go with whatever dealer 2 could find rather than buy from them. They apologize and go down $2500 from their original price. I say sorry no deal I don't want your shady practice.

So dealer 2 finds one for us, and tells us its exactly the same as the other one, just a different color. OK, at this point no problem, they agree to the same price as the first one and we're rolling again. Then I get the window sticker for the 2nd one and see it's not the same, but is missing a $700 option the other one had. Now we didn't want this option, but still I'm not paying $700 more for a van with less.

So I tell dealer 2 this and they say "yeah your right, we'll knock $300 off". I say I'm going back to dealer 1 and buying their better priced, with more options van unless you take the full $700 off. they agreed....

So after a week of back and forth and realizing both dealerships are lying conniving bastards we're going with the lesser of 2 evils. I think...

quote:

Originally posted by ubelongoutside:

dealerships are lying conniving bastards

I like the old tried and trued method of finding the vehicle that I want on a lot. Then I research the price. I arrive at a value I'm willing to pay.

I take that dollar value to the sales person written down with my contact number. Tell them to call me when they are ready to sell that vehicle. I'm not there to negotiate or play games. If they don't take the offer then - I walk and ask them to call when they are ready to sell it. And I tell them they have two chances and they just used up one of them.

The key …. don't get attached or emotional about the vehicle or the transaction.

My last 5 vehicles were done in this manner. I have no loyalty to a sales person or a dealership.

Andrew

edited to add: I couldn't find a better thread title to post under, so I resurrected this one. Sorry for any confusion this may cause.

I find myself at the KIA dealer getting a few minor things fixed just 5 days into ownership of our new Telluride. The gas door doesn't fit right and the stitching on the Nappa leather center console cover is coming undone on one side.

I have the great fortune to listen in on other people's negotiations. One woman got up to leave 55 minutes ago because her husband is at home in bed and needs help getting into his wheelchair. The sales woman said she could get an immediate answer if the woman would just hang tight for a few seconds. They are still going at it. The sales manager has been to the table twice and some other guy just showed up and shook the woman's hand, but the deal isn't done yet.

I'm only catching bits and pieces of the other negotiations, but they are entertaining. Dealer at $680 a month, buyer can only pay $500 a month. Buyer wants to finance $6,000, dealer says $7,500 is the minimum.

In the meantime, I'm wondering where the sales manager who wanted to have a relationship with me before we bought the vehicle is now.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: trapper189,

It is marketing crap. But they don't want to build custom orders, and don't want to sell relatively stripped down vehicles.

You'll just have to look to see what you can find that is closest to what she wants, and whether you want to pay that price. I doubt that in the current market they will custom build you one.

Take a deep breath. Tell yourself it sucks, and get on with it.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:

Long story short, that was yesterday. Exhausting day! Right now, my wife is sitting in the car with the multi-hundred page manual, trying to figure out some of the high-tech stuff. I'll stay out of her way for a while, then when she's ready, I'll go set up the integration between her iPhone and the car's Apple Car Play stuff.

I'm amazed the dealer didn't set up that stuff for you before you left the lot.

I bought a 2021 Ford Bronco Sport Outer Banks a few weeks ago and when it was all done, they sent an IT guy out and he sat in the passenger seat and set up absolutely everything for me without being asked to. Took around 20 or 30 minutes of his time so I was impressed.

^^^^ This. When I bought my Charger, out trotted an IT dude (who appeared to be 17 years old) and set up all the in car systems. He also showed me where to find the online tutorials if I needed more help. Took about 20 minutes.

My most recent vehicle purchase, and likely will be the last for many years, was done online just as the Covid stuff started to get crazy. Dealership was hurting for business. It wasn't a conventional dealership, it was a lot that specializes in rebuilds. I saved $3-4k buying that way. Family owned business that's been doing it for 40 years.

Car was listed at $15,900 and she knocked it down to $14,900 shipped to Orlando from central Alabama. I'll never buy a car from a traditional dealership again.

Japanese car companies build specific configurations and ship them over.

Honda almost always sells three trim levels and has no other options except color, and the outside color comes with a specific inside color. Dealers might add options to the car, and over price them though. My 2017 Civic Si was factory stock and the only option was summer tires which I didn't get.

All of the Civic Type-R's I've seen in the showroom had 5K+ of dealer installed accessories. The sales manager was honest - "We only get one or two of these a year and we have to maximize the profit on it. We don't price over sticker but you have to buy the accessories. And the typical buyer for this car will get the accessories anyway".

Toyota is the worst at this. My (now ex) wife liked the RAV4 back in the 90's but every single one was tarted up with a ton of overpriced dealer options so we gave up on Toyota. Sorry, don't need a $1K towing package (really just the hitch), or any of the other stupid stuff they added on.

When the Mini Cooper first came out it was advertised at $19,999, but every available one was $29,999 due to options.

I tried buying through Costco and every dealer said I had to come in and talk. I found a Honda that had $3k of add ons. I told them I will not come in and I won't pay for add ons. Later on that day a salesman called and said Costco members aren't charged for extras and they would negotiate without me coming to the dealership.
This happened after I called the Costco representative and told her that their service was a worthless waste of my time if I had to spend even 5 minutes at a dealership.