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I had my credit union's car purchasing department handle my car purchase. Did everything over email - I told them what I wanted and in what color, they did the
by lflux 8y ago
I had my credit union's car purchasing department handle my car purchase. Did everything over email - I told them what I wanted and in what color, they did the legwork to find a dealer that had what I wanted. Emailed me a quote, then the dealer delivered it to my door.
No haggling, no visiting dealers, just email and signing some papers.
- miketery 8y agoWhat sort of credit union offers car purchasing service? what other services do they offer?
- lflux 8y agoA bunch in the bay area. I use San Francisco Federal, but they use PatelCo CU's service.
- Rebelgecko 8y agoMy bank and credit union both offer car buying services via TrueCar (which my bank actually owns around 10% of so they really encourage people to use it). In my case I paid around 5% less for my car than the "best" price I was able to get by visiting a dealer and going through the traditional song-and-dance routine. It seems like one of the big benefits is that they make it really easy to check the prices at a bunch of dealers. I don't remember if they actually offered any substantial saving at my local dealer compared to the price I "negotiated", but I was able to find a dealer that was willing to do a cheaper price around 70 miles away.
- throwaway98121 8y agoHow did you get a decent price? My employer offers a similar service as part of the benefits program. You print out a piece of paper, take it to the dealer, and get a prenegotiated price. Sounds amazing in theory until you do more research and realize you’re still paying $1000s more.
- lflux 8y agoI emailed a bunch of dealers before my CU told me this service existed and got quotes, and they were competitive. It differed like, $500-1000 from what area dealers were offering and i was willing to take it. So, some legwork with a throwaway email address, but still very sofa compatibile.
- throwaway98121 8y agoI emailed dealers and no one wanted to work over email. One even flat out wrote back saying they don’t send quotes over email because they know i will just shop around for a lower price.
- ghaff 8y agoI found the same thing. Everyone wanted you to come in so they could play their games. Still not that bad if you’re just making a cash on the barrel purchase but I did have to visit dealers.
- maxxxxx 8y agoI did that successfully in 2001 but in 2014 nobody would give me quotes over E-mail.
- joshfraser 8y agoThe only way I know to get a good deal is to walk into a dealership, know exactly which car & options you want & say you're paying cash & are willing to pay $100 over the manufacturer's invoice. They'll cut the nonsense and take the deal. 90% of the games begin when you finance the vehicle at the dealership. Don't want to put $2000 down? Let's just add another year to the term. Or how about we add $50 / month to the payment? I watched in shock as salesmen would come back with increasingly worse offers in terms of total cost and customers would leave happy thinking they were great negotiators. Americans are shockingly bad at math.
- gnicholas 8y ago
- ceejayoz 8y agoCostco has a similar arrangement.
- hueving 8y agoIf you're willing to pay the dealer's quote, then car salesmen will love you and you'll have a great time at a dealership anyway. The entire bullshit process begins when you try to get a price that doesn't have thousands of extra dollars in for the dealership.
- Jarbooski 8y agoAnd how is that different than paying full pin at Tesla?
- throwaway98121 8y agoTesla has a fixed price on all vehicles. With dealers, each dealer has their own price and will haggle the crap out of you, try to up sell you things you don’t want, and even be shady with the actual paperwork that you have to read and reread carefully to ensure there aren’t any surprises. Tesla doesn’t do that. It’s a fixed price. Although I wouldn’t drop 35-50k on a new vehicle for their base models, I respect Tesla for eliminating the hassle of working with dealers.
- lflux 8y agoSure, if the quote is out the door, but it never seems to be from what I've seen. This was "Here's the price excluding title transfer including delivery"
- csa 8y agoHere is what I do, and it works well: 1. Call the dealer and ask for the internet sales manager. 2. Tell the manager exactly what you want (many people are not able to do this accurately and consistently). 3. Ask for the out-the-door price. 4. Repeat for any number of dealers that you are willing to drive to. 5. Buy from the dealer you choose. I usually get several quotes within $100 or so of each other. At that point, I just pick the place with a low price and in a location that I prefer to pick up my car.
- 8y ago
- ghaff 8y agoIn all fairness that does assume you don’t care about test driving etc. but in general if you don’t have dealer financing needs, are happy to do a private sale or donation for your trade-in, and know what you want and will pay, the dealer experience is mostly just mildly annoying even if you buy a car from one.
- lflux 8y agoRight - I knew exactly what I wanted since I had driven the car as a rental.