New car buying hijinks

Rule #1: Have fun with the process.

Rule #2: Mess with their minds if at all possible. I am OK with buying. I don't like being sold! Capeesh? Not to mention mere order takers with no customer service clues or concerns. The dumbing down of the consumer. But I didn't just fall off the turnip truck.

Rule #3: Remember who the customer is. Then apply Burger King philosophy - Have it your way!

Latest:

5 dealer inquiries out:
1 back at MSRP
2 back at $75 off MSRP
1 back At $115 off MSRP
1 back at $3,024 off MSRP

Guess there is one serious dealer who wants to sell me a car. BTW, it's in AZ, so you can see the sales tax application is not a minor matter. Incidentally same dealer as 10 years ago. But I didn't bring that up.

May have a new car sooner than I thought.

Last vehicle i bought (wow 10 years ago.. sheesh time flies) I went in with the edmuns dealer invoice $$ amount (and yes I know that's not the whole story ), in the afternoon on the last day of the quarter adn said "I want the white 4x4" then set the dealer invoice copy on the table. The salesman walked back and got their actual invoice slid it across the table to me and said "I'll sell it to you for $100 over this". hHands were shook, a check was written and we were on our way.

Your way sounds like a pretty good one as well, you never know what weird mojo the dealers are going to try to pull so having all your irons in the fire is smart.

I can only hope my next adventure in that regard goes half as smooth (might be a while though unless I decide I need a bigger rig - possible - the ranger only has 50k miles on it ).

BTW, kudos to Glenn from the other thread. He confirmed that what I did 10 years ago works today but in a slightly different way. Back then there were a number of 'subscription' services (dealers paid for the leads). Now you can just go directly to the manufacturer's website and put a query out. You can select the dealers you want to query or simply leave it to respond to proximity to your zip code or both. I wanted the AZ dealer in the mix because it well the last time. So I simply added him. He is the lowest bid thus far. Makes the other guys sputter spit into their phones when I tell them what they are bidding against.

Thanks, Glenn. You helped me to get the ball rolling.

Carol Reed said:

Rule #1: Have fun with the process.

Rule #2: Mess with their minds if at all possible. I am OK with buying. I don't like being sold! Capeesh? Not to mention mere order takers with no customer service clues or concerns. The dumbing down of the consumer. But I didn't just fall off the turnip truck.

Rule #3: Remember who the customer is. Then apply Burger King philosophy - Have it your way!

Latest:

5 dealer inquiries out:
1 back at MSRP
2 back at $75 off MSRP
1 back At $115 off MSRP
1 back at $3,024 off MSRP

Guess there is one serious dealer who wants to sell me a car. BTW, it's in AZ, so you can see the sales tax application is not a minor matter. Incidentally same dealer as 10 years ago. But I didn't bring that up.

May have a new car sooner than I thought.

Click to expand...

Carol,
The biggest thing to remember about car dealerships.... they need you... you don't necessarily need them.... they have to sell cars to stay in business. but we as consumers... most of the time... don't really HAVE TO buys cars unless we choose to.

Amen, Chuck. I have not forgotten.

"Carol,
The biggest thing to remember about car dealerships.... they need you... you don't necessarily need them.... they have to sell cars to stay in business. but we as consumers... most of the time... don't really HAVE TO buys cars unless we choose to."

Occasionally when I am purchasing something I remind the clerk, "Sir/Madam you are overhead, I am profit." then we continue from there.

On the other hand I am not selling anything to Carol. Metaphor: I am still in the shallow end and Carol does summersaults off of the high board. summersolts ? Sumersaults ? OK How do you spell it?
Anyway, she is way out of my league.

Enjoy,
JimB