Experience with car dealers via edmunds internet site

Well, Ive used the tools on edmunds to look into a yaris toyota hatch back with manual tranny plus ac and a bmw mini with just ac, super charger and manual tranny.

I used the feature to get an internet quote from the dealers listed. THe bmw dealer just said they had one in stock, but it would take 4 months to order one.

The two of three local dealers have said nothing. The third one 70 miles from my has written quite a few times. First they said the ond I want was 13,010. Then showed a photo of the sedan. I asked if that was the price of the sedan or hatchback as the site showed 10-12 grand for the car. The person wrote back with specs for the fully loaded sedan, no photo and a price of 15,780.

I guess when I get to put my money on the table, I need to consider the first offer and not to leave expecting the offer to stand the next day?

A few months ago when I got my license I contacted a few dealers, vw and another. Both got back to me, but neither would give me a price. When I gave them my info to test my credit, they said they could work with me, but did not sound that serious.

If they don't give you a hard price, ignore them. And there's no such thing as an offer that won't stand until the next day unless it's a low-ball price that they're going to up you on.

First of all, you should never blindly give out credit information to any dealer, unless you're in the showroom and have settled on a price and are committed to buying the vehicle. "They could work with you" means that your credit doesn't qualify. "Work with you" means they'll secure a loan for you, with a second tier creditor at a high interest rate that is high enough to offset the less than desirable risk level for the loan. They'll play the numbers game with you to get you to a monthly payment that you can afford ... for a very long term, where the bulk of what you're paying is interest. If you decide that you want another vehicle in a short time after you acquire this one, you may find your self "upside down" where you the equity that you've paid into your loan is less than the value of the car, and you'll be putting out even more money

cobb said:

I guess when I get to put my money on the table, I need to consider the first offer and not to leave expecting the offer to stand the next day?

When I gave them my info to test my credit, they said they could work with me, but did not sound that serious.

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Another way to go about it is to just go to your bank or credit union to see what your credit looks like and what you can qualify for in the way of a car loan without the dealer hassle.

Then just go ahead and find the car you like and go ahead and test drive it.
Most dealers and even car factories prefer that you buy from inventory on hand to make sure you are in the right car for your own needs.
Which may be good if it happens to be a slower selling model that has sat on the lot for a while and the dealer wants to let you have it for a pretty good deal to make room for better selling models.
Dealers seem to like to sell cars turnkey.
When a style or model starts to run low, they can order more of it.

If they want to set you up with a better rate loan from one of thier partnered finance companies (credit union perhaps?) than your bank or credit union quoted,
That may be a win-win part of the deal too.

If they want to sell you an extended warranty, or service plan, you can opt for it and cancel it with a certified letter to the dealer within the "trial" period, or just keep it.
Just make sure it's provided by the factory.

Gap insurance?
Needed mainly if the deal is worth more than the car is by a substantial amount.

Large down payment asked for?
Needed if you have something close to bank robbery on your credit report, or again, the deal is worth much more than the car actually is.

High pressure sales tactics?
The sales staff somehow thinks they are going to win the lottery at your expense with only you in the way.
This is when you are late for the door.

They won't give you the key to your trade in back?
Where was the salesman when you had the key to one of his cars?
With you.
What did the salesman do when you were done trying out the new car?
Asked for the key back.

When it's time to show them your trade in, you are the salesman. :wow:
Be there for them and then get your key back when they are done looking.
It's fair.
Nobody knows your trade in car better than you do.


Good luck.

Oh yes, I have all of yalls advice on a pad and read the related articles.

I wont give them the only key to my benz if it still runs at time I do this and doubt they would be interested in apprasing a rental car, but Id let them take a look to see what they would say. Ive read quite a bit about the 240d benz I own and will give them a good sale pitch. Infact, I will offer to walk off if they insult my "classic" car with the wrong price.

I am looking up prices and really want a new car, entry level one without much upgrades. I hate to make a 10 grand car cost 20 with power crap as its not going to have much of a resale value at all in the end. I just want an econobox with a good name and or warranty behind it. From what I see, looks like the price on edmunds is about 2 grand off of a dealer price without haggling.

Id love a diesel car, but seems some say wait til 08 for the new ones, however the new ones will need the ultra low sulfur fuel, where as the current ones can use any of the diesel fuel on the market and may just need use of an addative that I already use for the ultra low stuff, a quart per tank of used engine oil or atf fluid.

I also would hate to pay a few grand in interest and was looking at a 36 month loan. I have roughly 900 bucks a month to spend and the longer I go, more of a down payment.

Ive checked my credit, I have no late payments to any bills, I pay on time and have managed to pay off all debt. I have limited credit cards with no balances on them and even closed a few I no longer use.

I am working a second job related to the banking industry, so according to the benefits, I get sometype of preference in loans and what not, including for cars.

Well, 1800 miles since last oil change and the engine in the benz is rattling again, used a quart already and puffs a blue cloud after idle when I accelerate. Going to see about changing the oil to 20w50, has 10w40 in it already.

I plan to park it when it dies and just call a rent a car place. Look for the new car, go back get my crap out of the benz and donate it to the kidney foundation and have it towed to them from that spot or towed to work and sell/give it to one of the mechanics that has an interest in it.

cobb said:

a quart per tank of used engine oil or atf fluid.

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You might try 2 cycle oil. It's specifically designed to properly lubricate in low quantities and to burn cleanly, where as engine oil and ATF are not.

Good luck! :buddies:

My wife bought her last four cars from carsdirect.com and never once a bad experience.

I have a friend that works as a salesman at a Toyota stealership. After the stories he's told me it will be a long time after hell freezes over before I set foot into one.

I have always used nationwide auto brokers to get a price on the car I am interested in. They give you the dealer cost like many services will, but they will usually sell for very little over that cost. It may well be different with a Yaris since it is in such demand, but you can call and ask. I have been able to walk into a local dealer with a QUOTE, not just a dealer quote and they have always matched it. It is definitely worth a phone call to find out how they are dealing on the Yaris.

As for the credit, you sound like you have done well. Get pre aproved though where you work, and through a couple of credit unions. I have worked for banks for many years and hate to do business with the bank I work for. I don't want people I work with knowing my income, bills, house payment, anything about my financial info. But, it may not bother you. But never, ever, let anyone run a credit check on you unless you are ready to sign right then. Every inquiry against your credit report gets listed and can count AGAINST you and lower your credit score. Score is what most companies go by now, not just how you have paid your bills.

Way back in 1999 I used Autobytel.com to help me purchase my car. Autobytel also had financing partners to help with the financing. I already had settled with going with my credit union but I gave Autobytel my credit info along with amount I wanted to finance, amount I was looking to pay, etc. I wanted to see if they could give me a better rate, they didn't so I didn't go with them. I assumed that was the end of it.

When I went to one of the dealerships referred to me by Autobytel, the Autobytel "special price" turned out to be much more than I was looking to pay, the salesman and I went into the standard locking of horns over price. On a second visit, at about the second round of negotiations I noticed something unusual on the salesman's desk.

It was the financing information I gave to Autobytel! They released what I thought was privileged information I was giving to Autobytel to the dealership! It had information like the amount I wanted to pay for the car and amount I wanted to finance! The salesman looked a little embarrassed and he quickly covered the paperwork up.

To reiterate the above poster, NEVER GIVE OUT YOUR CREDIT INFO TO ANYONE! And if you do so, make 100% sure that the institutions you are working with have ZERO affiliation with the dealerships. In my case it wasn't that damaging because I deliberately overestimated how much I wanted to finance and pay for the car in my application.

Dealer invoice is not dealer cost. The dealer invoice price is what most people think a dealer pays for a vehicle and also the figure that the salesperson's commission is based upon (a percentage of the amount over the invoice price that the sales person can close the sale at.) In reality, the dealer generally has a holdback of about 3% of the MSRP that is not reflected in the invoice price, in addition to any manufacturer's incentives that may currently be in effect or may have been in effect when the vehicle was shipped. All of those factors have to be taken into account in determining an actual selling figure.

Getting a car at or a few hundred dollars over invoice, may seem like a good deal, but it may not be if there are dealer incentives in place, and especially if there is retail rebate in place at the same time. The amount of the publically known retail rebate will often factor in as a manipulation tool for the sales person to increase the actual sales price of the car.

At the same time, the dealer does have to make a profit on every unit sold, though that may not be readily apparent to the buyer (a dealer's average gross margin may be in the $1000-3000 over "dead" or actual cost.) On some less desireable models, the dealer's targeted sales price may actually be below invoice, and if they manage to sell it above invoice, they've hit a home run (some high fuel consumption models, like base model pick-ups would fall into this category.)

Bright Scouter said:

They give you the dealer cost like many services will, but they will usually sell for very little over that cost.

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Very true! They almost always get end of year kickbacks and pay less than invoice. My only point was that dealer cost is easy to find out for almost any vehicle. From sites like Edmunds. But, it's nice to have a place like Nationwide Auto Brokers that will sell at cost on most vehicles as a starting point. Much easier to get dealers to actually deal when you already have a dealer willing to sell for XXXXXX dollars and it is in writing in front of them. I've had many come down quite a bit.

I did have one dealer just say "No, we can't match that" and walked out of his own office and left me sitting there. Needless to say, I bought it from someone else locally.

Brighteyes: Where did you get all your information?

I must admit, it can be tough trying to buy a car and you just never know how it will turn out. You can even have different experiences from the same place, good and bad. It's a crap shoot.

If you're looking to find a specific model or exact options on a car it will obviously make it more challenging. I say challenging because some people look at buying a car as a sport. The thing is, the sales people at the dealership train, drill and rehearse to do it every day. Most of the time they are better at it than the customer. Unfortunately, they have to deal with the lack of respect given to them by the many rude people who come to their home/place of business and treat it like a sport but don't like it when they get treated the same way in return.

So it's understandable why the process is the way it is. Imagine if you were working on your circuit board or software code and some guy walks in your office without any skill in negotiation and starts haggling with you about making it better, faster or for less, just because he read a book or some advice on a forum or from a brother-in-law etc. etc.

I have helped a few friends purchase their cars as I get asked now and then since I was a Sales Manager at one of the top 50 Chevrolet dealership in the country. (Top Ten usually) Funny thing is a fellow CPF'r didn't ask for my help on their last purchase which I could have helped a lot since I am friends with the GM. :shrug:

Maybe a story of how I purchased my last car might give some food for thought. The way I bought my last car, (which was pretty rare at the time and still is in most parts, especially the color I wanted) was I search the interent for all the used car and new car websites, large and small, local and national. I found about a dozen. Then I searched for my specific car with the specific option I wanted. Then I made a few calls to see if they were still available.

In the end I was able to choose from a fully loaded version from a local California dealer/friend or get the cheaper one that was closer to my option criteria. I chose the used one in Virginia which with 4000 miles which I got in the same model year for a LOT less money. I leased it with new car rates and got a fantastic low payment, relatively speaking. My purchase included a factory extended warranty for the full 48-months as well.

To my knowledge this is the absolute cheapest way to buy a late model car. The phone calls take some skill but you could get lucky there.

The car has performed phenomenally to date and has almost 30k happy grinning ear-to-ear miles

Paying off a depreciating asset in 3-years in another matter all together. I could think of a lot better things to do with all that money.

Just my 2-cents

One of my siblings married into a family in the business. Also one of the those things that you acquire with maturity (there's got to be some advantage to getting old! ) I'll save the backroom talk for some time when we get a chance to meet

But barring that, the last time I bought a vehicle, the price was already nailed down with the dealership's sales manager before we even met. (The family dealership that lost their franchise about 6 mos. ago, down the street from you.) Turned out that they knew me (I didn't know them); and my wife had grown up with their fleet guy. I think I may know the dealership that you worked at ; they're pretty diversified these days with quite a few stores.

CroMAGnet said:

Brighteyes: Where did you get all your information?

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Actually holdbacks are paid at different intervals depending upon the manufacturer, it has nothing to do with the end of the model year. I think one of the sites (Edmunds maybe?) does post the intervals for holdback payments. The EOY incentives (both dealer and consumer) that you may be thinking of are different promotions.

Also the invoice price that you get from a website may be accurate for the components, but it seldom includes a few other costs that are also on the invoice, like marketing costs that are passed on to the dealer, fluctuating shipping costs that may differ, and the cost of the fuel in the tank (yup, they charge the dealer for that!) And there are costs that may be credited to the dealer or included in the holdback, like PDI. So the invoice price that you get from a website is seldom going to match the dealer's actual invoice, though it will probably be in the ballpark.

The last time I bought a vehicle, the fleet manager wanted to show me the invoice, and I told him it wasn't necessary and spouted out the exact invoice price to the penny. He caught on when I let a few internal 'terms' slip as we later chatted.

Bright Scouter said:

Very true! They almost always get end of year kickbacks and pay less than invoice.

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I gave the info to a VW dealer when I was talking to someone about a diesek golf. It did no good as they did not have any diesel golfs, wont have any and once I gave them the info expecting a rough monthly payment, lease term, maybe interest rate and a down payment required, they jsut said they could work with me and I had to come in.

Thanks, checking out those other websites and going to do some printing and put that in the glove box.

That means they're going to have their F&I guy work you over to get a huge commission for qualifying you for some sort of loan.

As others have said, get your financing elsewhere first before you even consider buying the car. If you go into a bank or credit union, they'll also give you your FICO score so that you'll know where you actually stand insofar as qualifying for financing. A bad FICO could not only result in higher interest rates, but also a higher price on the car itself. There's a lot of numbers games that the car stores like to play to maximize their margins. If your credit worthiness is not steller, you'll probably be better off arranging financing from an established financial institution (not a finance company) before hand. The same goes for car insurance, make sure you have all of that arranged with your current insurance carrier first, otherwise you may get scammed into one of those very high priced "bridge" policies to cover the financing until your own insurance provides the coverage that you need.

cobb said:

they jsut said they could work with me and I had to come in.

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I too used Autobytel back in 1999/2000. Two dealerships, two totally different experiences.

First dealer (Chevy):
Did not have what I wanted.
Was insistant on selling me something that was not what I specified.
Would NOT give a hard set price that was as good as my research had determined it should be.
Would not give me even a ball-park amount on my trade-in.
Insisted I "swing by" when I was in the neighborhood. Yeah right, 1 1/2 hour drive to a place I never go.

Second Dealer (Dodge):
Did not have what I wanted, and could not locate one in my state. BUT would factory order one free of any obligation. Could have it on his lot within 45 days. Turned out to be less than 30 days.
Spec'd out exactly what I wanted.
Agreed upon a price that WAS within $100.00 dollars of what my research indicated I could get it for.
Asked about my trade-in and agreed to a price provided it was as I had described it.
Prior to ordering from factory he mailed me the spec sheet and waited for my call to confirm.
At NO time was I ever asked for a down payment, cash or credit card number as a "good faith" gesture.
Was again assured that if I decided I didn't want it, I was not financially obligated in any way.

I went with Dealer #2. Had my own financing arranged and was in and out of the dealership well within in 40 minutes. My wife even commented that it was waaaay too easy. That time was spent having my insurance company fax over new insurance cards for the new truck, removing the old one off my insurance, signing the necessary paperwork and having the salesman run through the features of my new truck and pointing out the full gas tank.

Same Autobytel, different dealerships, obviously different ways of handling Internet sales. The salesman at dealer #2 only handled Internet sales. Was funny to see the regular sales guys faces when they approached my wife and I and we told them we were there to see Terry (name of our sales guy). So, seems it's a crap shoot out there and you just have to keep trying if you have the patience.

And that's the way it was for me when I got my F350 in 2004, and also when I got my 2006 Dodge Sprinter last april.
I went in knowing where I stood financially and knowing what I wanted.
Not too many dealership sales and business staffs want to second guess, or get strange with someone who appear to understand what's going on.
They just want to make a sale of some kind.

Also, think about this;
If you are a hard working salesman working 6 days a week 12+ hours a day for a living, what would you be thinking of someone who appears lazy and incompetent, but who think that they can afford a nice new car?

#1 be angry and jealous of them.

#2 See an opportunity. :devil:

#3 Find another line of work. :wave:


Idunno.
I never have been a car salesman.

An experienced car salesperson would

See an opportunity. :devil:

smiling all the way to the bank.

There are many who make a annual salaries that are well into 6 figures (not starting with a 1 or zero) who are more than glad to "assist" people in that situation.

I never sold cars either, but did hold license for a while.

3rd_shift said:

If you are a hard working salesman working 6 days a week 12+ hours a day for a living, what would you be thinking of someone who appears lazy and incompetent, but who think that they can afford a nice new car?

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Yeah, I am just trying to get an idea of the total fair car cost including reasonible commission ,etc for the salesman. I hate to walk in thinking the car I want is ten grand, when regardless of the car, there is a roughly 2 grand charge for destination, taxes, title, license and other "fees".

I hate to see a dealer right now for fear of getting pressured into and wanting a new car then, vs later.

So far just that one dealer wrote me and they went from 13010 for the sedan with basic setup to 15800 for the fully loaded hatchback.

Many Saturn "stores" have a take it or leave it price.
That is, if one wants a Saturn.
Most people reportedly get the same price for that car regardless.
However, it still comes down to how to pay for it.

Does one have the money on hand, or do they need to "buy" some money to get the car through a finance company?
For many dealers of any kind, the car sale itself is not the only source of revenue.
It's the Finance and Insurance area where there is a more professional individual to be found to finish the deal and try to squeeze out some more money.
Some of the services and products offered there are fine and useful if they are in line, or close to, with what your own bank, or credit union can offer them for.

Look in your local newspaper employment ads section to see how some salesmen get thier humble beginnings.
Some of these ads have been running for weeks, months, or even years from the same dealerships.
Evidence that many car salesman went with option #3.

Think of it another way;
If a customer comes in not knowing what a good deal really is, probably is not going to be satisfied regardless, right?
So why not err on the side of squeezing as much money out of that customer as possible instead?


Anyways, just hang in there, you will get the car you want at a fair price if you work at it.