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Why must I call for a price? It seems stupid when a dealer can't price a car.
Why can't anyone and I mean anyone in the dealership industry take a decent photo of a car? The sure can take great pictures of semi bald tires with a gallon and half of salad oil on them.
last car i bought was a brand new toyota from carmax( yes, they do sell new cars). best prices AND those fees were half than those at toyota dealers. didnt have to haggle as it was a good deal (plus mfg rebates).im talking about 3,000 difference between dealers and before any rebates deals. i think i bought it 7,000 under MSRP and when i applied my insurance check to it, that 41,000 car just turned into a 21,000 car. i asked if local dealers would match but non could (or find one like my car). i dont get why the carmax attitude has been adoped across the board.
i tried working at a bmw dealership once, but i found out im not good at negotiating and would give them a really godd at the expense of big profits for myself. i figured smaller $$ but more sales would balance itself out.
i remember hearing about a guy who wanted a 7 series and how he wanted it. we had one in the lot that was sitting for almost a year and my boss literally let me offer him at loss just to ditch it (color was hidious). i wasnt trying to BS but i did tell him that i honestly felt that since it was end of the month and we doubt it would ever sell aside to him, to get it because they might just reneg on that "one time" deal and send it off elsewhere.
the only difference between our model vs the other dealers( aside from a few K difference) was rear entertainment. he said no thanks im going to see elsewhere. anyways days later he contacts me again and asks about that "deal". i told him i wasnt kidding when i said it was a one time deal and it has passed and yet he gets mad at me (the internet sales guy).
Why must I call for a price? It seems stupid when a dealer can't price a car.
This I hate. I almost took a job at a small dealer last month, but they had a policy of not advertising prices. "Just tell them to come in and test drive". Right. People want to waste time test driving cars they can't afford. Gotcha. Needless to say, I'm still at my old job.
Location: In a little house on the prairie - literally
10,202 posts, read 7,926,708 times
Reputation: 4561
Quote:
Originally Posted by BarqCider
last car i bought was a brand new toyota from carmax( yes, they do sell new cars). best prices AND those fees were half than those at toyota dealers. didnt have to haggle as it was a good deal (plus mfg rebates).im talking about 3,000 difference between dealers and before any rebates deals. i think i bought it 7,000 under MSRP and when i applied my insurance check to it, that 41,000 car just turned into a 21,000 car. i asked if local dealers would match but non could (or find one like my car). i dont get why the carmax attitude has been adoped across the board.
i tried working at a bmw dealership once, but i found out im not good at negotiating and would give them a really godd at the expense of big profits for myself. i figured smaller $$ but more sales would balance itself out.
i remember hearing about a guy who wanted a 7 series and how he wanted it. we had one in the lot that was sitting for almost a year and my boss literally let me offer him at loss just to ditch it (color was hidious). i wasnt trying to BS but i did tell him that i honestly felt that since it was end of the month and we doubt it would ever sell aside to him, to get it because they might just reneg on that "one time" deal and send it off elsewhere.
the only difference between our model vs the other dealers( aside from a few K difference) was rear entertainment. he said no thanks im going to see elsewhere. anyways days later he contacts me again and asks about that "deal". i told him i wasnt kidding when i said it was a one time deal and it has passed and yet he gets mad at me (the internet sales guy).
Here's a few $$$ so you can buy yourself a Capital, and come across like you actually learned proper sentence presentation.
This I hate. I almost took a job at a small dealer last month, but they had a policy of not advertising prices. "Just tell them to come in and test drive". Right. People want to waste time test driving cars they can't afford. Gotcha. Needless to say, I'm still at my old job.
Wow, so the sales people there weren't allowed to tell people what the MSRP of the vehicle was at least?
That's just sorta shady, good thing you didn't take a job there.
Where I worked, customers would call & say "Hey I'm looking for a Camry with a V-6, leather, automatic, blah, blah, blah" & I'd check to see if we had anything in our inventory matching up with what they wanted & then quote them MSRP, let them know we're willing to work with them and give them a good deal and then invite them in to come test drive.
I know if I called a dealership looking for a vehicle & they refused to give me any info on pricing, I'd just hang up and check out another dealer.
This I hate. I almost took a job at a small dealer last month, but they had a policy of not advertising prices. "Just tell them to come in and test drive". Right. People want to waste time test driving cars they can't afford. Gotcha. Needless to say, I'm still at my old job.
I bet they've done studies/research and show that if you can get people into the dealer, then their salesmen have much better chance of getting a sale than over the phone. They rely on human to human contact to get the sale and so you're likely less obsessed about numbers.
A colleague of mine said he had a friend who was able to get inside dealer price/invoice number when he was shopping for a BMW 3 series and he said the dealers did NOT like that at all.
It;'s all about them trying to have more power over the consumer...which makes sense because the less information consumer has the less power they have to negotiate and the less likely consumer will get a great deal.
This is what I noticed from my dealings with several dealership car buying experiences. The uneven power balance between the buyer and the dealer. The buyer sits there waiting for the salesmen to go to the back and then come back and you never know the actual price the dealer paid for the car.
They then tout how they barely make a living today while making billions a year in profits.
Quote:
Originally Posted by zoomzoom3
I know if I called a dealership looking for a vehicle & they refused to give me any info on pricing, I'd just hang up and check out another dealer.
Yup. Just have to keep our emotions in check and not get bogged down too much on that ONE car at that ONE dealer.
Yeah, it ticked me off, and I wasn't even working there yet. I was going to be in charge of growing business online. Well, the problem is people want to know prices when they shop online. You can't throw ads on autotrader/cars.com without prices. I mean you can, but nobody is going to take the time to call. If they did, they wouldn't be online. It was basically "find out what their budget is and we'll make the payments fit". Every car on their existing website said "Call for pricing". 2/3 of the cars online had no picture, and the ones that did had crappy pictures. I was going to get all that garbage sorted out.
I love helping people get into cars, and I was looking forward to getting to work, but that was ridiculous.
I bet they've done studies/research and show that if you can get people into the dealer, then their salesmen have much better chance of getting a sale than over the phone. They rely on human to human contact to get the sale and so you're likely less obsessed about numbers.
A colleague of mine said he had a friend who was able to get inside dealer price/invoice number when he was shopping for a BMW 3 series and he said the dealers did NOT like that at all.
It;'s all about them trying to have more power over the consumer...which makes sense because the less information consumer has the less power they have to negotiate and the less likely consumer will get a great deal.
This is what I noticed from my dealings with several dealership car buying experiences. The uneven power balance between the buyer and the dealer. The buyer sits there waiting for the salesmen to go to the back and then come back and you never know the actual price the dealer paid for the car.
They then tout how they barely make a living today while making billions a year in profits.
Yup. Just have to keep our emotions in check and not get bogged down too much on that ONE car at that ONE dealer.
invoice is out there on the net these days. When i was working for a BMW dealership it was pretty much a given that folks knew the invoice and we never hid the price. I actually once told a guy the cheapest way to ever get a BMW( aside from the x5, being the only suv/cuv vehicle out at the time) was to go the european delivery way. basically a free "gimme" sale for dealers and it was(dont know if still is) a huge savings (well, unless you dont want to fly to germany and take the car for a spin and a vacation)
This is the best way to get a deal in my experience.
Walk in on the last day of the month, at the end of a model year (Sept 30th is when I bought). I came in with a USAA price which uses Truecar with an additional discount but you could come in with some other service's price like Costco. That sets the most that you will pay for the car which is the usual market price.
Then after the test drive in the sit down and talk phase act ambivalent and mention that you want to go drive a cheaper competitor. Despite all they say keep repeating that line. They will do some minor price drops but keep insisting.
Then finally as we were getting up to leave they offered a price $1000 off the USAA price($2,000 below the regular truecar target price) if I was willing to sign right now and not go test drive the other car, which I already had anyway.
I'm sure they made nothing on the individual deal. Just counted toward volume bonuses with it being end of month and model year. Ended up being $3500 below invoice according to edmunds. $1500 of which was a rebate.
Also, never, ever negotiate on the monthly payment like they like to do. And come in with your own credit union financing. Give them a chance to beat it of course but best to come in with something for them to compete against so they can't further nickel and dime you in finance. Also know what the registration fees are in your county.
Yeah, it ticked me off, and I wasn't even working there yet. I was going to be in charge of growing business online. Well, the problem is people want to know prices when they shop online. You can't throw ads on autotrader/cars.com without prices. I mean you can, but nobody is going to take the time to call. If they did, they wouldn't be online. It was basically "find out what their budget is and we'll make the payments fit". Every car on their existing website said "Call for pricing". 2/3 of the cars online had no picture, and the ones that did had crappy pictures. I was going to get all that garbage sorted out.
I love helping people get into cars, and I was looking forward to getting to work, but that was ridiculous.
Hey you can start your own business, bring new ideas/models into car selling. I think CarMax is one where they do away with all the haggling/hassle/headache...of course their prices are also a bit higher as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BarqCider
invoice is out there on the net these days. When i was working for a BMW dealership it was pretty much a given that folks knew the invoice and we never hid the price. I actually once told a guy the cheapest way to ever get a BMW( aside from the x5, being the only suv/cuv vehicle out at the time) was to go the european delivery way. basically a free "gimme" sale for dealers and it was(dont know if still is) a huge savings (well, unless you dont want to fly to germany and take the car for a spin and a vacation)
Interesting...certianly access to internet and the rise of user-generated forums.posts/info on can have great access to more information.
Though also has to be skeptical of accuracy of what you find on the internet. is there good website/source that actually has invoice numbers?
I wonder if these are the same across the board? I mean I guess the end of it is that the dealers buy the car from the manufacturer....and is that a same price for any dealer? Or I wonder if certain dealers can get discounts in some way...
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