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The irony is that today's CRV (or Accord or Camry or Terrain) driver is not infrequently someone who went with something sensible last time for financial reasons and because of said financial reasons is now in a position to splurge on something less sensible.
The price you paid for what you drive is a larger determiner of how smart you are, rather than the car itself. I can just as easily over pay for a CRV or get a great deal on something else.
I purchased my last new car in 2018. There were none of the model that I wanted available near me so I had to buy from another state 1000mi away. I did the whole deal over text, I never even spoke to the salesperson. I was able to negotiate 15k off the sticker price. The only person I actually spoke with was the finance lady that explained how the paperwork was going to be signed. She also laid out the extended warranty options with no pressure.
They overnighted me the paperwork and I signed all the docs at my kitchen table, alone. Put a large check in the envelope and overnighted it back. A week or two later, my new car arrived at my house on a trailer. So easy.
A friend of mine is involved in many businesses and one is a larger lawn service (none of us actually know what he does, but his portfolio ownership is not small) He was actually mowing lawns one day and stopped off at Porsche dealer I use, he didn’t look like typical shopper, thus no sales people talked to him, other then at last second a new young guy did. Friend paid cash for a Panamera 4S for $125k. Went home and showered/changed. When he returned all sales people came to greet him, he ignored them all. All the can’t afford tire kickers at nicer brand car dealers cause this sales judging.
Friend who sold 225+ cars every year at Mercedes/Porsche dealer told me only makes $500 per new S class sold, where S class starts in $100k range. I would figure sales would be quantity not quality? So a higher volume brand like Toyota would net more income for him? He got out of the business after 30 years in it. Now is sales director for biggest trash company in Twin Cities, because he sold CEO S classes forever and he had a job offer to him for whenever he wanted out of car world.
My two BEST car buying experiences buying new cars.
1) In 1995, buying a mustang, negotiating over the telephone. They kept trying to get me to come into the dealership, and I kept responding "I'm in a floating pool chair; we can do everything over the phone & via fax." Eventually, they figured out I really was buying & I really refused to walk into the dealership, and we did the deal over the telephone.
2) In 2012, buying a Scion xB. Scion dealerships had "no dicker stickers." I again did the entire transaction on the telephone. But, with two dealerships in town, I eventually got one to allow me to charge $10,000 of the purchase price on my Costco credit card (cash back). Then the other, to be competitive, allowed me to charge the entire purchase amount on it - something in the low $20 thousands, IIRC. Furthermore, we agreed up front on the trade-in of an old beater (97 Corolla with about 300,000 miles on it). An employee drove the Scion to my house; I signed the paperwork & credit card transaction receipt, and he drove off in the beater.
When I came back to pick up the car, I asked and said, hey, you're not going to try to put on
undercoating or any of that stuff, are you? and the guy's boss heard and said hell no, it's your car, why would we do do that?
They asked me to go to some office for the next step. The guy said he was supposed to sell me the extended service contract, but he already knew I wasn't going to buy that, but it would be a big favor to him if I hung out in his office for 5 or 10 minutes while they setup the paperwork to make him look like he was trying to sell me. We talked about drag racing in our youth and how things have changed.
It was the best part of the whole experience.
There are 3 types of new car dealerships, ones that sell volume. One that sells experience and one that deal with subprime or bad credit borrowers.
The one that sells volume usually have a family oriented atmosphere they bring you in and make you feel comfortable. They aren't haggle friendly but they make the money selling cars at invoice and then make money on the service and warranties.
The ones that sells experience are usually luxury makes and they pamper you up and then sell you packages to make money. You're looking at a $35k car but ended up with a $48-50k car because they can make it easy to swallow by giving you an attractive lease or monthly payment plan.
Lastly are the bad credit dealership that usually have multiple car makes and are not the big ones. They get cars from repos and even buy from auctions that are slightly used. The price looks very attractive but when you sit down they pad them all with fees and then check our credit and then gives you like a low price payment plan that usually means you end up paying double for what the car cost.
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