The Goat Pen

wow, not even trying to hide it

http://skipthegames.com/

In english dammit

[bullshit deleted, user banned]

Great links, I clicked on all of them...

why choose the MIT thread to do that on?

I made the mistake of mentioning I wasn't opposed to buying a new car for my wife. I was thinking of a car in a price range with our trade in that wouldn't majorly alter our lives so I worked out a budget and got an idea how much of a loan we can take, how much of a down payment I'll need to make and what our trade in is worth.

There is nothing unique about what happened to me but its an example of what not to do if you are a salesman

So we decide on a car and we spend Saturday looking at 4 models in our area. Of course we get there and they have a model loaded with every bell and whistle which is about $3K more than what I wanted to spend.And now my wife is locked in on that so the model I wanted to look at - without the panoramic sunroof and navigation (who uses that anymore? everyone uses waze now) isn't something she'd lower herself to drive - so anyway we do the test drive, tell the guy we'll talk, look at our car for trade in, blah , blah, blah

so they offer a pretty decent price on our car, within $1K of what I'd planned on selling it for - ultimately we couldn't agree on a price, so we go on to the one. Good salesman, good dealership - just wasn't enough compromise between us to get a deal done.

Car dealers #2 and #3 didn't have a bells and whistle car so my sweet little ball of personal sacrifice and eternal gratitude refused to even look at them, car dealer #4 was in Columbus 98 miles away. By now its 2:30pm so we make the drive and show up. They have a model for $1K less than the other place, same car essentially and since I was about $2K off with the first guy, I'm thinking we'll probably do the deal here.

So they come in and offer $5K less for my trade in than the other dealership. I calmly told them they weren't even in the ball park with the previous offer I was working so my salesman brings in their "car" guy to explain to me why my trade in is a piece of shit with a smile on his face so that I agree with him. I tell him calmly that I did my homework and NADA says the cars trade in is worth "X" and you're lowballing me for a few thousand which he assures me that isn't right.

At any rate, I told him I had a 90 mile drive ahead of me and this conversation wasn't going anywhere.

Today the salesman calls me and tells me they have come up in value on my trade to the deal the other dealership offered me. this less than 48 hours since I was assured by their "car" guy that I didn't know wtf I was talking about by using NADA as a guideline (which they are now offering $800 more than).

So I asked him - the salesman that called me if he thought this was an effective way to sell cars given that I am not in the slightest interested in driving 90 whatever miles again to get the car for anything close to the deal I was interested in pursuing. The time to make me an offer was when I made the goodwill effort to drive 1.5 hours to their office in an effort to give them my money. I can understand throwing it out there, but then revising when you were sensing I was going to walk.

I wasn't a dick about it but I guess if you're a car salesman, a deal is a deal so you just push ahead with whatever you got on the table at the moment. In that regard, I made an offer on the phone that was $2500 less than what I would have paid had I been there in person on Saturday when I was ready to spend some cash - knowing 99 times out of a 100 he is going to reject that offer, but that's what its going to take to get me to drive up tonight or any time in the near future. Even then I won't be excited about it - taking on debt for 36 months is depressing, not exciting

He told me he'd go talk to his "car" guy - the same sales genius that is advising his salesman to call me 48 hours after I walked out thinking they were morons.

Keep looking. Once you get all the way up there they will change their tune knowing you just drove an hour and a half.

A buddy of mine who is in the business said it's always best to buy a car at the end of the month. They've got to move the inventory...

after all that , they came within $680 of my offer so I bought the car. We pick it up tomorrow

dammit

I hope she is happy

Everybody has that same friend.

I don't know why car dealerships still work this way. They must get enough shmucks to take the crappy deal that its worth it to them to alienate guys like us.

And don't get me started about shopping for your wife's car. It was easier when we had three small kids. Only a few choices. Now they are grown and the whole car universe is at her disposal.

So what did you get?

Mazda 6 because it had the right shade of blue and the blind spot warning light was on the frame of the mirror rather than the mirror itself.

I was actually asking eCat, but thanks for the info...

hedge wrote:A buddy of mine who is in the business said it's always best to buy a car at the end of the month. They've got to move the inventory...

I thought I was slick one day buying a car about 2 hours before the superbowl, thinking they all wanted to get out of there and would just take whatever I offered, especially in the post Xmas slowdown.

They sold me a truck with a blown head gasket.

Slick got slicked!

Somebody should start a website called mybottomline.com or myfinaloffer.com that let's perspective buyers put in what kind of car they're looking for and exactly how much they're willing to pay for it, taxes, titles, the whole nine yards. Let the sellers come to the buyers instead of vice-versa. Make those motherfuckers work for it!

Makehedgedie.com

I tried using Carvana, but their cars , without exception of what I've seen have at least a $1K or 15% markup at a minimum.

The same with Carmax - you may get the exact car you want - color, options, etc but you'll pay a premium for it.

fuck it, I want this car as cheap as I can get it - if its turd brown with a neon red seats, well that's car I'm getting.

that's why I was down in the mouth about her and that panoramic sunroof. Found a great car, great price - had a couple of things I could fix on my own and I might have been able to pay cash for it

but nooooo

pano fucking ramic sunroof

What kind of car (with panoramic roof) did you get your sweetie?? Panoramic roof had to be worth a rim job at least...

hedge wrote:What kind of car (with panoramic roof) did you get your sweetie?? Panoramic roof had to be worth a rim job at least...

its a mercedes

but that's not who I am at all - and its not new, its used.

That's her car. I'm driving my Toyota