8 ms·

Buying a car is such a horrible and archaic process still. I love this quote at the end... "For the vast majority of dealerships, in-store sales will continue

Buying a car is such a horrible and archaic process still. I love this quote at the end... "For the vast majority of dealerships, in-store sales will continue to be the main way they sell cars. Delivering cars to customers can get expensive, and dealers see a benefit in getting them in showrooms, where they can be induced to spend more for features and add-ons, like paint protection and extended warranties, " That word "induced" made me laugh.

johnchristopher 8y ago
> Buying a car is such a horrible and archaic process still. Tell me about it. I bought a used car today and my stress level is through the roof.
- lotsofpulp 8y ago
  If you can afford to, go buy a car before absolutely needed, get a Costco quote, go to the dealer and tell them that’s what your willing to pay, and keep saying no to whatever the financing person says. If they get annoying, walk out and find another dealership and hand them the Costco quote, and repeat. Should be done with whole process in 2 to 3 hours with minimal stress. This is if you don’t want to play the haggling game. But I feel like most sought after cars don’t really have much haggle room anyway since they are so in demand, might as well save a few hours of your life and just walk in with the Costco quote the dealer has agreed to. I avoid trading in and all that nonsense, that’s when dealers get to start playing games. I just prefer to run the car into the ground, give it away to family, or if I want a luxury car just lease it and return it.
  - hbosch 8y ago
    Also, or alternatively, make sure you have your loan approval in hand as well. I recently bought a car and thought I got an okay rate at the dealer through CapitalOne, but they “figured out” a way to get my interest rate a whole point lower (much better than anticipated) if I went with the dealer warranty. So the price of my purchase went up, but my monthly payments went down. That’s okay with me in the end, but I really would have preferred my “real” rate and no extra warranty of course. Having a hard price and a solid loan letter in hand before you even step on to the lot is really the only sane way to deal with auto purchasing.
    - lowercased 8y ago
      i went in with a 3.64% approval rate. car guy says "oh, we can beat that!". Come back with "how does 3.5 sound?". "well... fine, I guess... not a huge difference, but if it makes it any easier... whatever". Mind you this was... $9k loan. I get their paperwork... reviewing it - 3.59%. .05% difference. I mean, yes, it's lower, but ... "damn, we can beat that!". He was so excited! It's about 40 cents per month cheaper.
      - stevehawk 8y ago
        40 cents per month cheaper for you, but he made money on the deal. If a car dealership sells you an extended warranty or financing then they get a cut of it. Se he went from making $0 on your third party financing to making some level of money on you. It's a plus for both of you when it works out.
        lowercased 8y ago
        that's what I figured - they had to be making some sort of kickback or referral fee or piece of that action.
        shostack 8y ago
        Not only that, but for many people, you should probably try to negotiate for the lower net cost vs. lower monthly payments with a higher total cost. If you can float the money, why pay more?
      - bradknowles 8y ago
        The last time I bought a new car for myself, I had a pre-approved loan from my bank in hand. The dealership swore up and down they could beat that deal. Three hours later and they finally gave up and went ahead with our pre-approved loan. Pissed me off to no end that they made us wait that long before they gave up trying.
        lowercased 8y ago
        my deal only took about 10 minutes. for a late model used car, I wasn't seeing anything much out of the 3.6% range anywhere, so I didn't think they'd be able to do much better. had they surprised me with, say, 2.2%... great, but it's still not a huge savings anyway.
  - jimmaswell 8y ago
    If the Costco quote is so good then why not just get the car from them?
    - cjbprime 8y ago
      That's not how it works. "Costco Auto Program" is a system where dealers sell cars to customers at prices negotiated by Costco. Costco itself does not sell cars.
      - jimmaswell 8y ago
        Hm, I'd heard lately of people buying cars from some supermarket chain but that must have been something different.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - ENOTTY 8y ago
    The Costco Auto Purchase program won't give you a quote online or over the phone. You have to set foot in the pre-selected dealership to receive the price. Costco negotiates the price once a year so there's no guarantee that price is market competitive, especially late in the model year.
    - WaxProlix 8y ago
      That's not true, I received a detailed price breakdown over email.
    - realdlee 8y ago
      This definitely doesn't reflect my recent experience in the last year. Got several quotes online from different brands. Costco pricing is a good benchmark; you can probably do better if you're willing to put in the time.
      - ENOTTY 8y ago
        I also purchased a car in the last year, but the Costco approved dealer did not give me a quote online.
- moonka 8y ago
  Not wanted to deal with a dealership is the biggest reason I haven't bought a new car in a long time. Last time was such an awful experience.
  - PaulHoule 8y ago
    I bought a car recently, I was in a hurry and I got stuck with the extended service contract. When I got home I read the contract carefully and found that I could cancel it within 15 days, so I did.
- notyourday 8y ago
  If you want to buy a car without much ( if any ) haggling and you do not want a specific car with specific options you should (strangely it applies to both used and new cars in larger dealerships i.e. non Buy here/Pay here shops) 1. Only talk to someone at the dealership who does the fleet sales. Simply ask for "Feet sales" 2. Only buy a car that is already on the floor 3. Do it in the last 27-29th day of the month -- dealerships pay monthly floor plan financing fees and you want to take something off their hand at the last moment they can replace it with a new car and still have the entire 30 days clock to sell it. If you are buying the car on 30th or 31st, the replacement car probably won't be there before 2nd or 3rd of the month, meaning the dealership would pay for 2 or 3 days of a floor plan financing when there is no car that they can immediately sell. That in turn means they would attempt to either bake higher price into the car you are buying or kick the sale to the next month giving themselves another 30 days to sell it.
  - ec109685 8y ago
    Why would a dealer go through all this rigmarole about being worried about which day of the month the car was being purchased? Wouldn’t it be far more sane for the delay to just average things out and know that every day will eventually have a similar number of cars sold, so they should be priced accordingly?
    - notyourday 8y ago
      Because anyone who is not purchasing it on the worst day would overpay by a few bucks. The margins are very tight, if any.
christophilus 8y ago
Carmax feels a lot like dealing with Saturn dealerships. No haggling. Fairly simple process. Low pressure. I’m never buying from a dealership again.
- amyjess 8y ago
  Carmax still only sells used cars, don't they? I want a no-haggle dealer for new cars, especially if they sell economy cars like the Nissan Versa and Chevrolet Spark.
  - PaulHoule 8y ago
    I had the hardest time getting a Honda Fit when I wanted one this summer. Everybody wanted to push me to buy an S.U.V. though... I'm not sure if drivers really want S.U.V.'s or if carmakers really want to sell them.
    - christophilus 8y ago
      It’s the latter, I think. SUVs are more profitable than cars.
      - crooked-v 8y ago
        From what I understand, SUVs generally count as "trucks" rather than "cars" for regulation purposes, so they don't need to meet the same efficiency standards. I'm sure that's a big part of it.
        PaulHoule 8y ago
        See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax
        argonaut 8y ago
        That's not necessarily true anymore, and is pretty inconsistent. Most crossover "SUVs" (which are the best selling segment of cars in America), for example, are classified as cars.
kazinator 8y ago
This must be all about new cars; I wouldn't buy a second hand car without seeing it first.

johnchristopher 8y ago

> Buying a car is such a horrible and archaic process still. Tell me about it. I bought a used car today and my stress level is through the roof.

lotsofpulp 8y ago
If you can afford to, go buy a car before absolutely needed, get a Costco quote, go to the dealer and tell them that’s what your willing to pay, and keep saying no to whatever the financing person says. If they get annoying, walk out and find another dealership and hand them the Costco quote, and repeat. Should be done with whole process in 2 to 3 hours with minimal stress. This is if you don’t want to play the haggling game. But I feel like most sought after cars don’t really have much haggle room anyway since they are so in demand, might as well save a few hours of your life and just walk in with the Costco quote the dealer has agreed to. I avoid trading in and all that nonsense, that’s when dealers get to start playing games. I just prefer to run the car into the ground, give it away to family, or if I want a luxury car just lease it and return it.
- hbosch 8y ago
  Also, or alternatively, make sure you have your loan approval in hand as well. I recently bought a car and thought I got an okay rate at the dealer through CapitalOne, but they “figured out” a way to get my interest rate a whole point lower (much better than anticipated) if I went with the dealer warranty. So the price of my purchase went up, but my monthly payments went down. That’s okay with me in the end, but I really would have preferred my “real” rate and no extra warranty of course. Having a hard price and a solid loan letter in hand before you even step on to the lot is really the only sane way to deal with auto purchasing.
  - lowercased 8y ago
    i went in with a 3.64% approval rate. car guy says "oh, we can beat that!". Come back with "how does 3.5 sound?". "well... fine, I guess... not a huge difference, but if it makes it any easier... whatever". Mind you this was... $9k loan. I get their paperwork... reviewing it - 3.59%. .05% difference. I mean, yes, it's lower, but ... "damn, we can beat that!". He was so excited! It's about 40 cents per month cheaper.
    - stevehawk 8y ago
      40 cents per month cheaper for you, but he made money on the deal. If a car dealership sells you an extended warranty or financing then they get a cut of it. Se he went from making $0 on your third party financing to making some level of money on you. It's a plus for both of you when it works out.
      - lowercased 8y ago
        that's what I figured - they had to be making some sort of kickback or referral fee or piece of that action.
      - shostack 8y ago
        Not only that, but for many people, you should probably try to negotiate for the lower net cost vs. lower monthly payments with a higher total cost. If you can float the money, why pay more?
    - bradknowles 8y ago
      The last time I bought a new car for myself, I had a pre-approved loan from my bank in hand. The dealership swore up and down they could beat that deal. Three hours later and they finally gave up and went ahead with our pre-approved loan. Pissed me off to no end that they made us wait that long before they gave up trying.
      - lowercased 8y ago
        my deal only took about 10 minutes. for a late model used car, I wasn't seeing anything much out of the 3.6% range anywhere, so I didn't think they'd be able to do much better. had they surprised me with, say, 2.2%... great, but it's still not a huge savings anyway.
- jimmaswell 8y ago
  If the Costco quote is so good then why not just get the car from them?
  - cjbprime 8y ago
    That's not how it works. "Costco Auto Program" is a system where dealers sell cars to customers at prices negotiated by Costco. Costco itself does not sell cars.
    - jimmaswell 8y ago
      Hm, I'd heard lately of people buying cars from some supermarket chain but that must have been something different.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- ENOTTY 8y ago
  The Costco Auto Purchase program won't give you a quote online or over the phone. You have to set foot in the pre-selected dealership to receive the price. Costco negotiates the price once a year so there's no guarantee that price is market competitive, especially late in the model year.
  - WaxProlix 8y ago
    That's not true, I received a detailed price breakdown over email.
  - realdlee 8y ago
    This definitely doesn't reflect my recent experience in the last year. Got several quotes online from different brands. Costco pricing is a good benchmark; you can probably do better if you're willing to put in the time.
    - ENOTTY 8y ago
      I also purchased a car in the last year, but the Costco approved dealer did not give me a quote online.
moonka 8y ago
Not wanted to deal with a dealership is the biggest reason I haven't bought a new car in a long time. Last time was such an awful experience.
- PaulHoule 8y ago
  I bought a car recently, I was in a hurry and I got stuck with the extended service contract. When I got home I read the contract carefully and found that I could cancel it within 15 days, so I did.
notyourday 8y ago
If you want to buy a car without much ( if any ) haggling and you do not want a specific car with specific options you should (strangely it applies to both used and new cars in larger dealerships i.e. non Buy here/Pay here shops) 1. Only talk to someone at the dealership who does the fleet sales. Simply ask for "Feet sales" 2. Only buy a car that is already on the floor 3. Do it in the last 27-29th day of the month -- dealerships pay monthly floor plan financing fees and you want to take something off their hand at the last moment they can replace it with a new car and still have the entire 30 days clock to sell it. If you are buying the car on 30th or 31st, the replacement car probably won't be there before 2nd or 3rd of the month, meaning the dealership would pay for 2 or 3 days of a floor plan financing when there is no car that they can immediately sell. That in turn means they would attempt to either bake higher price into the car you are buying or kick the sale to the next month giving themselves another 30 days to sell it.
- ec109685 8y ago
  Why would a dealer go through all this rigmarole about being worried about which day of the month the car was being purchased? Wouldn’t it be far more sane for the delay to just average things out and know that every day will eventually have a similar number of cars sold, so they should be priced accordingly?
  - notyourday 8y ago
    Because anyone who is not purchasing it on the worst day would overpay by a few bucks. The margins are very tight, if any.

christophilus 8y ago

Carmax feels a lot like dealing with Saturn dealerships. No haggling. Fairly simple process. Low pressure. I’m never buying from a dealership again.

amyjess 8y ago
Carmax still only sells used cars, don't they? I want a no-haggle dealer for new cars, especially if they sell economy cars like the Nissan Versa and Chevrolet Spark.
- PaulHoule 8y ago
  I had the hardest time getting a Honda Fit when I wanted one this summer. Everybody wanted to push me to buy an S.U.V. though... I'm not sure if drivers really want S.U.V.'s or if carmakers really want to sell them.
  - christophilus 8y ago
    It’s the latter, I think. SUVs are more profitable than cars.
    - crooked-v 8y ago
      From what I understand, SUVs generally count as "trucks" rather than "cars" for regulation purposes, so they don't need to meet the same efficiency standards. I'm sure that's a big part of it.
      - PaulHoule 8y ago
        See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax
      - argonaut 8y ago
        That's not necessarily true anymore, and is pretty inconsistent. Most crossover "SUVs" (which are the best selling segment of cars in America), for example, are classified as cars.

kazinator 8y ago

This must be all about new cars; I wouldn't buy a second hand car without seeing it first.