28 ms·
Where would they go instead?
by teirce 12y ago
Where would they go instead?
- boomzilla 12y agoDo some research, make a short list of cars that you want (and can afford), have some range of quotes from various websites (I used to check truecar and KBB, not sure if it's still a good source). Then make a few phone calls to the dealers, press for prices (with the exact base model and add-ons you need). Any dealer who doesn't want to give a quote, you can walk away, or rather, end the phone call. A few years back, it took me half a day researching and half a day visiting two dealers to get the car I wanted, at a reasonable price: I think it was in the 90% percentile cheaper in true car's range, even though I bought my car in SF bay area, which is supposedly more expensive than the average price.
- exelius 12y agoIt's not hard to find auto wholesale prices online. Most dealers these days you can call up and say, "hey, I know your wholesale price on this car is $x, can you give me the car for $100 more than that?" They're pretty used to this anymore; they don't expect to make anything on "internet orders". If nothing else, it adds revenue and sales volume to their aggregate numbers.
- boomzilla 12y agoOne of the people in the car dealing industry I talked to recently told me that the business model now is not based on selling new cars, but to sell services/insurances and a bit from used cars. This makes total sense because they got the first placement for the services, and people are probably not as prepared with service/insurance quotes compared with new car price quotes :) Maybe this is also why Tesla gets a hard time with the auto dealers when they want to do after sale services too.