QuestionQUESTION: Jeff,
As the internet and email has made getting offers on cars from dealers a resonable distance from the local market much easier, I am in a situation where your advise will certainly be helpful to me and most likely other users of this site.
This past week I contacted several dealers regarding a new car (a 2008 Toyota Avalon Limited) I would like to purchase. I've done considerable home work on the car and pricing. I'm down to three or four that are within a $100 of each other on, what I consider to be, a very reasonable price. However, these dealerships are in about a 50 mile radius of my home and the car likely will need to be ordered. So my question is how do I "seal the deal" on the price?
In the question from the gentleman ordering the Mazda with the sunroof, it seems I need two documents: an order confirmation and a purchase order; both to be signed by the dealership and me. Which document should I request to "lock in" the price? Or, should I ask for both at the same time? Since some of these dealerships are over an hour away, do I need to go into the dealership to receive and sign these documents. May I ask that these documents be faxed to me? Can these documents be emailed to me? If they are faxed or emailed, are they as binding as if I were to go into the dealership?
It may seem a bit crazy to drive for over an hour to save $300 or $400, but I can't think of a better way to spend time with my new car after I take delivery than a nice drive back home. Making a deposit from a distance is easy also, as dealers are willing to accept a credit card number over the phone. (I'm fully aware though that easy for me gives a big advantage to them.)
All in all though, the car likely needs to be ordered or brought in (All the dealers, and my own internet search of car inventories, shows that there is no vehicle, such as I want, in the state of Maryland. It has to do with interior color and limited number of 2008 just arriving on the market). So whether I go local or an hour away, order or take something from existing stock, what can I do to eliminate any last minute price surprises and have a "lock in" on the quote when I go in to pick up the car?
Thank you for your time and consideration!
ANSWER: The order confirmation establishes what you're getting (color, equipment, etc...); the buyer's order establishes how much you're paying for it, as well as all legal disclosures. As I said in the response to the Mazda purchaser, buyer's orders are worthless without a manager's signature, so make sure it's signed by an authorized individual. I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me that a faxed or e-mailed order is as legal as one signed in person, ASSUMING ALL OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL. I emphasize that because I can just picture a manager stating he never received the fax or the e-mail, as where one signed in person is pretty difficult to deny. When you go to pick up the car, MAKE SURE you have ANY paperwork you've already received from the dealer with you so they can't change the pricing. (If you do go the fax/ e-mail route, insist they send you front and back of every piece of paper involved, upfront. If you sign the front of the buyer's order, and you don't see the back until later, where it states they can change the terms at will, then you're in for an unpleasant experience.)
Please consider this: is it worth it to save $300-400 if the local dealer won't support you when you need it? When I was selling Ford trucks, I had buyers from 27 states, and they all came to my dealership to pick up there vehicles (yeah, my pricing and my treatment of the customer was THAT good). Before they agreed to purchase the truck, I urged them to contact the service manager of their local Ford dealer to make sure they wouldn't have a problem getting a truck serviced locally that was purchased out of the area (you're wasting your time if you ask the sales dept. that question). A lot of people are under the impression that the factory provides the service loaners, but it's the dealer that foots the bill on those. The smart dealers today, knowing consumers can use the Internet to buy a vehicle anywhere, are restricting loaners to customers that have purchased only at that dealership. The factory warranty is good at ANY Toyota dealer; each must honor a request for warranty work, regardless of where it was purchased. BUT- there's nothing that says that they can't take care of their own customers first. Locals that bought at ABC Toyota may get in immediately, as where those that bought from XYZ Toyota might have to wait a few weeks. If the dealer you need to use for service takes a dim view of vehicles purchased elsewhere, you may want to rethink buying out-of-town. Just some food for thought.
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: Jeff,
Thank you so much for your response.
I did purchase a new car over the weekend. I didn't get the exterior color I initially wanted, but I did get the interior color I wanted, which was more important the exterior color. I'd thought I had wanted a dark red and ended up in dark blue. The dealer called and told us about the dark blue model and we went in and actually liked it better than the red.
The information you provided is a help. We'll be looking to replace my wife's car next year and we'll know what to do as we get towards the end.
Thanks for the solid advise you provide at this site and your own site. The Edmunds page listed the invoice at about $32,500. We ended up at $32,875. From the sites I learned that maybe getting to $100 over invoice wasn't a must. Negotiating not for the "jugular" but for a fair price, made the process seem a bit easier. We stayed with the dealership just down the street. We had a offer of $32,800 from a dealership an hour and a half away. $75 off for 3 hours of driving didn't seem like such a good deal. We had known this, but the when we went into the "pre-sale" office, we knew we didn't need the undercoating, paint protection, leather lotion, lo-jack, etc. We listen politely but said, "No, thank you." When we went into the finance guy's office and he said, that despite what the salesman had said, they couldn't match the interest rate I could get a the bank, we knew to hold firm. We offered to do a "7 day loan" at their rate, so we could take the car and then work things out with our bank. We politely said "No" to taking the car and that we'd be back next week bank loan check in hand (our credit score is near perfect so getting a good rate on a loan isn't an issue). Since we had noticed all around the dealership that 0% financing was being offered on some 2007's, we figured that Toyota financing certainly had some wiggle room. Guess what, when we said we didn't want to take the car with their loan that afternoon, after a conference with the finance guy and the manager, the general manager said that they would make the "unprecedented" move of matching the financing and they would work it out with Toyota. There was a 0.5% difference in the rate. We also passed on what seemed like a very high extended warrenty. $2,000 to extend the "bumper to bumper" from 3 to 5 years. Somehow couldn't imagine $2,000 worth of repairs in year 4 or 5 of the car.
In all Jeff, it was a nerve wracking experience, but the knowledge you provided was a help and in the end we feel like we got a fair deal on a great car.
Thanks again,
Steve
(P.S. Taking our 4 year old twin sons and 6 year old daughter and letting them kinda run around the dealership because the office are so small really seemed to move the process along! Any thoughts as to using this as a regular tactic?)
AnswerLast question first:
It all depends on how many "little ones" the dealership employees themselves have. If they're like me, with no kids at all, it would certainly be effective. If they all have at least four "rug rats," then they may not even notice them. It's all relative...
I do think that $75.00 just may be the BEST $75.00 you could have spent. Smart move, and you kept your money local. And you MUST put a price on your time. Like you said, "negotiating for the jugular" is not only stressful, but you get to a point where you're worrying over pennies, relatively speaking. Getting a high-end Toyota for a few hundred over invoice is a good deal; declare victory and head home after a deal like that.
There are some vehicles I would not leave the dealership with unless it had an extended warranty, but an extra $2,000 on an Avalon is just plain crazy. Leave that money in the bank. My "litmus test" for extended warranties is this: if the transmission fell out of the car, do you have $2,500 in the bank to replace it? Not that you WANT to spend that money, but do you have it? Yes? Then you don't need the warranty. No? Then maybe it's worth looking at.
