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#131
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After our last car buying experience I think late, tired and cranky are the
things you need for a good deal. The guy gave a price, we gave a counter, he came back with another counter, I said, "let's go and see if we can get our price at another dealer tomorrow" and magically our price became ok. It was only 10 minutes after closing when the bargaining began! Margy Jay Honeck wrote: Well, if a dealer will not give me a price for a straight purchase, he won't sell me a vehicle. So far, I've bought only two new vehicles, and I have never traded another one in. This past June Mary and I decided we needed a "knock around" car, mostly because she was sick of driving "The Mighty Grape" around town. (It's our ugly purple pickup truck that hauls 55 gallons of gas to the plane, and only seats two people...I love it!) Over the course of a few days this idea slowly transformed from "Let's buy a beater" to "Let's buy a sports car!" (Don't ask me how -- it just did.) So, Mary, the kids and I were up in Cedar Rapids on our days off, when we decided to drive around and look at car lots. Driving aimlessly, we stumbled across a pristine red-orange Mustang Cobra convertible sitting on the lot of a used car dealership that specializes in selling only cherry sports cars. I didn't look twice at it, because the Mustangs we had already test driven didn't have enough rear seat headroom for the kids. Mary, however, instantly fell in love with the looks of the thing, so I stopped to take a look... It was ten minutes before closing when we walked in looking like something straight out of the Beverly Hillbillies. I hadn't shaved in two days, and was wearing a baseball cap and torn up jeans. Mary didn't look much better, and the kids were cranky and hungry. The salesman took one look at me, looked at his watch, and reluctantly agreed to let us take the car for a test drive. He kept exchanging knowing glances with his office manager, and you could just tell that they were really, REALLY ****ed about being late for supper. Well, we test drove the car, and instantly fell for it. Being a convertible, the back seat headroom (with the top up, natch) was dramatically better than in the hard-top -- so the kids actually fit back there comfortably -- and the thing handled like a danged Formula 1 race car. Besides that, it felt great to have the wind blowing in my (rapidly diminishing) hair! We drove back to the lot, and painfully extricated ourselves from the little car. The salesman didn't even meet us at the car, instead waiting inside for us to come in, completely convinced that we would be shortly on our way. Imagine his look of utter incredulity when I asked him "How much?" This look of surprise was only topped by the look of disbelief when I told him that, no, we didn't want to trade anything in -- and that we were ready to pay cash on the barrel-head for the car! After a few minutes of dickering we wrote him a check, he gave us the keys, and we had our car. That guy is probably STILL shaking his head... -- Jay Honeck Iowa City, IA Pathfinder N56993 www.AlexisParkInn.com "Your Aviation Destination" |
#132
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"Margy Natalie" wrote in message ... After our last car buying experience I think late, tired and cranky are the things you need for a good deal. Even better is late, tired, cranky and the last day of the month. Especially if the last day of the month is a weekday when the dealer knows that hardly anyone shops for a car late on a weekday. -Trent |
#133
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The best deal I ever got on a new car was after I'd already "bought" the
same basic car used from Hertz. I stopped into the dealer to get an extra key made, and realized that the price I'd paid was not too far off sticker price for the same car with manual transmission, which is what I really wanted anyway. I had three days to back out of the Hertz deal, and they had "rented" it to me in the interim so that I could drive it away. So I started negotiating with the dealer for a new car at the same price I'd paid for the 12,000 mile Hertz car. It was near the end of the model year, and late in the month. Eventually I moved up a few hundred $$'s, but stopped after talking to series of increasingly skilled "closers". Finally I just said, "Look, I've been here two hours now. I have a car out there in the parking lot. I'm happy with it. In about five minutes I'm going to drive away in it, and I'll be very happy. I have a nearly new car with an automatic transmission. But you won't be happy, because you won't have sold a car." The "closer" tried one more time to move me off my offer, and when I refused to budge, he finally agreed and we bought the car. The next day I returned the Hertz car and cancelled the sale. IIRC, I ended up paying $800 more than I'd almost paid for the used Hertz car. We finally got rid of it (Toyota Corolla) when it hit 250,000 miles. It has occurred to me that you could use this same ploy by just renting a car like the one you want, and driving into the dealer's and giving them the same story. Wouldn't cost you much, and it puts you in a very strong negotiating position. Maybe I'll try it someday, but I usually don't buy new cars. It's nice to have an edge when talking to these sharks. -- Bob (Chief Pilot, White Knuckle Airways) I don't have to like Bush and Cheney (Or Kerry, for that matter) to love America "Trent Moorehead" wrote in message ... "Margy Natalie" wrote in message ... After our last car buying experience I think late, tired and cranky are the things you need for a good deal. Even better is late, tired, cranky and the last day of the month. Especially if the last day of the month is a weekday when the dealer knows that hardly anyone shops for a car late on a weekday. -Trent |
#134
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It has occurred to me that you could use this same ploy by just renting a car like the one you want, and driving into the dealer's and giving them the same story. Wouldn't cost you much, and it puts you in a very strong negotiating position. Maybe I'll try it someday, but I usually don't buy new cars. It's nice to have an edge when talking to these sharks. A friend of mine actually drove a new car from a dealers lot to his competition on the test drive (they let him go alone). He asked them if they could beat the deal he had negotiated already. They took about 10 minutes to say no, he drove back and bought it. |
#135
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Even better is late, tired, cranky and the last day of the month. Especially
if the last day of the month is a weekday when the dealer knows that hardly anyone shops for a car late on a weekday. -Trent I've been through that before. Although the last car I bought, my Corvette, I bought from an internet dealer that sponsors the Corvette forum. Got a great price, got the 0% on top of that, everything down to the penney, no shenanigans of any kind. I bought it out of state and brought it into California, they even handled all the correct tax payments into my county. I had swing by the DMV so they could verify it was a California legal car on the smog tag, but other than that, it was a smooth deal. It mystifies me that some industries, airlines, car dealerships and PC vendors in particular, have come to make it a standard business practice to torture their customers. It is just wrong to do business that way. -- Dr. Nuketopia Sorry, no e-Mail. Spam forgeries have resulted in thousands of faked bounces to my address. |
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