FinEcon wrote:Example, say you wanted a Q7 diesel, same approach?
I don't see why not. Whether it's a Focus or a Rolls, it's just a car and (non-vintage) cars are commodities. The salesman is a salesman and wants to get the metal off the lot. He/she earns nothing if the cars -- no matter how fancy -- just sit there.
deaddog wrote:You’ll get the best deal at the dealers lot in person. If you commit to making a deal that day if you can come to a price, you’ll be surprised at how low they will go rather than see you leave the lot.
Maybe. 2 thoughts:
-- When I bought my car new I got a report from CarCost Canada and the dealer to whom they referred me offered an unbeatable price, all by email. That was because he knew that I had the CCC info including an unpublicized factory-dealer incentive and because I was dealing with the sales manager. When I went in to sign the contract, he told me that he loves CCC because the customer is essentially already qualified and committed so the whole process normally takes less than 30 minutes of his time.
-- When we recently bought a used car for DW, we agreed in advance to pull the same ploy on the salesman that they pull on customers. You know how they always have to walk away to consult their manager? We spoke to the guy at length, got his asking price with all components itemized and then told him we were going to a coffee shop to discuss it. At the coffee shop, we were able to calmly decide our opening counter-offer, how high we'd be willing to go, what else we wanted, and our bargaining strategy. All without feeling pressured. When we returned, he was very happy to see us and quite amenable to our terms. I obviously don't know if walking away for an hour really made a difference for him but it certainly did for us as our counter-offer was much better organized and presented than if we had done it on the fly in the showroom. (BTW in cities with large immigrant areas it's essential to compare dealer pricing through autotrader.ca. We checked cars at one dealership in a Chinese area and another in a suburb that's almost all Italian. In both cases, the posted asking price was higher than normal, probably because those cultures thrive on bargaining.)