I hate buying a new car. I like owning a new car, but not buying one. Why? Because I hate dealing with those sleazy, greasy car-salesmen. I end up spending an entire day at the car dealership because I always end up going back and forth with these people, and when it's all over, I still feel like I got shafted in some way.
We bought a new car last weekend. My mom's 1999 Toyota Corolla was falling apart. Although it didn't have a huge amount of miles on it, it wasn't in the best condition. The car was also beginning to show signs of problems to come. The last straw came when I went to open the door, and the door handle literally broke off in my hand.
I checked the Blue Book value of the car, and in "Fair" condition, I should have expected to receive about $3200 for a trade-in. In poor condition, maybe $2700.
The car salesman at Austin Toyota offered me $1,000 for my mom's Corolla. A car that I paid $1500 to my brother for, thinking I was getting a good deal. (my brother was handling all my mom's financial business)
I was livid. There was no way in hell I was going to accept less than what I paid my brother for it. This was a Toyota Corolla after all. This is a good car with a very good reputation. The salesman came back again, now offering $1500. He kept telling me he "called his boss" and got this new offer.
You know, these car salesmen really need to stop with the "call my boss" routine. It's ridiculous. We've all seen "Fargo" so we know you're not really going to talk to your boss. Most likely you're going into another room to eat a donut or talk some gossip with co-workers. So please, give it up.
I rejected the $1500. Then he came back with $1750. I rejected that, too. I was almost about to leave. I told the salesman that the value of the car, according to Kelly's Blue Book, is at least $2700. He didn't believe it, so I told him to let me use a computer, which (surprisingly) he did. So I finally got him to raise my old car to $2500. This was maybe after about 5 hours of back and forth, back and forth, and test driving different cars. I accepted the last offer of $2500, and about $200 off the sticker price. This is where I think I got screwed, because I believe I could have gotten far more off the sticker price. The "owner" said that because of the car I was getting, a 2010 Corolla (yes, I like Corolla's), the most he could give me off the sticker price was $500. And since I was already getting more than my old car was worth (so he said), I got less off the sticker price. I probably could have gotten more, but I was too tired to continue haggling. The whole ordeal took about 8 hours.
So now we own a 2010 Toyota Corolla. Just a bare-bones version with no power windows or power locks (it does have A/C and a CD player, thankfully.) Had we gotten the power windows/doors, it would have been another $3,000, and we were already paying way too much just for the "unloaded" version.
Christy, of course, got a nice lesson in dealing with car salesmen in America. She told me it was quite different from Taiwan. In Taiwan, you tell them the price you want to pay, and that's what you pay. No hidden taxes or playing games with salesmen. It's all very simple. Here, it's quite different, and I'm glad it's something I only have to do about once a decade.
(picture: the new 2010 Toyota Corolla)
We bought a new car last weekend. My mom's 1999 Toyota Corolla was falling apart. Although it didn't have a huge amount of miles on it, it wasn't in the best condition. The car was also beginning to show signs of problems to come. The last straw came when I went to open the door, and the door handle literally broke off in my hand.
I checked the Blue Book value of the car, and in "Fair" condition, I should have expected to receive about $3200 for a trade-in. In poor condition, maybe $2700.
The car salesman at Austin Toyota offered me $1,000 for my mom's Corolla. A car that I paid $1500 to my brother for, thinking I was getting a good deal. (my brother was handling all my mom's financial business)
I was livid. There was no way in hell I was going to accept less than what I paid my brother for it. This was a Toyota Corolla after all. This is a good car with a very good reputation. The salesman came back again, now offering $1500. He kept telling me he "called his boss" and got this new offer.
You know, these car salesmen really need to stop with the "call my boss" routine. It's ridiculous. We've all seen "Fargo" so we know you're not really going to talk to your boss. Most likely you're going into another room to eat a donut or talk some gossip with co-workers. So please, give it up.
I rejected the $1500. Then he came back with $1750. I rejected that, too. I was almost about to leave. I told the salesman that the value of the car, according to Kelly's Blue Book, is at least $2700. He didn't believe it, so I told him to let me use a computer, which (surprisingly) he did. So I finally got him to raise my old car to $2500. This was maybe after about 5 hours of back and forth, back and forth, and test driving different cars. I accepted the last offer of $2500, and about $200 off the sticker price. This is where I think I got screwed, because I believe I could have gotten far more off the sticker price. The "owner" said that because of the car I was getting, a 2010 Corolla (yes, I like Corolla's), the most he could give me off the sticker price was $500. And since I was already getting more than my old car was worth (so he said), I got less off the sticker price. I probably could have gotten more, but I was too tired to continue haggling. The whole ordeal took about 8 hours.
So now we own a 2010 Toyota Corolla. Just a bare-bones version with no power windows or power locks (it does have A/C and a CD player, thankfully.) Had we gotten the power windows/doors, it would have been another $3,000, and we were already paying way too much just for the "unloaded" version.
Christy, of course, got a nice lesson in dealing with car salesmen in America. She told me it was quite different from Taiwan. In Taiwan, you tell them the price you want to pay, and that's what you pay. No hidden taxes or playing games with salesmen. It's all very simple. Here, it's quite different, and I'm glad it's something I only have to do about once a decade.
(picture: the new 2010 Toyota Corolla)
Hi Ken. Congratulations on getting a new vehicle. My grandfather was a mechanic, so our family has mostly bought used vehicles over the years.
ReplyDeleteI remember my grandparents finally bought their first new car in 1978. It was a white Chevrolet Caprice that cost about $5,500 new! My college friends (including my wife!) actually drove that car from Abilene, Texas to the Grand Canyon and back in the summer of 1992. It was a great trip!
Just wondering what sort of interest rate you got...if you don't mind saying. I have no idea how much of a discount you could have gotten off the sticker price. The Corolla has been the best-selling car in the Cash for Clunkers program, so I don't think you could have gotten a whole lot off.
Your wife was probably talking about the old days in Taiwan. Back then, people would walk into the dealership with a stack of cash (1000 NT bills) about two inches high. I guess some people still do that, but I figure everything is getting more Americanized over there now.
I do not know why they keep playing the very same games, over and over again, for decades, even after everyone knows what they are doing.
ReplyDeleteIt's idiocy and wastes their time and yours. While that guy was haggling with you, he may have missed another sale. He might have been better off closing a deal with you really fast and moving on to the next customer.
Maybe there aren't a lot of customers, and this is just a dumb game to play to kill time.
Go figure.
We bought a car in the Philippines (as we live in the Philippines) and you already know the price of the car, but then getting a discount is very hard to do. We bought a KIA Picanto a couple years ago and we only could bargain $21 from the sticker price. That was their limit, they said. We didn't believe it and they showed us a memo from management to the car salepeople, saying that customers are not allowed to bargain anymore. But we were able to do it anyways, but it was still very little discount. A saleperson here only gets a commission of about $21, too, for each car they sell. No wonder many folks are poor here.
ReplyDeleteRalph
You not only got the shaft, you invited it in and gave it tea and hot pot.
ReplyDeleteThe US economy is in the toilet. Car dealers are dying. This is a great time to buy a car (if you can afford it).
Congress just gave an extra $2 billion to car dealers to subsidize trade-ins. "Under the program, passenger car owners are eligible for a voucher worth $3,500 if they trade in a drivable vehicle that got a combined city/highway mileage of 18 mpg or less when it was new for a new car getting at least 22 mpg. Vouchers of $4,500 are available for owners who trade in a passenger car that got 18 mpg or less combined for a model that gets at least 28 mpg."
I went to the Cerritos Auto Square in 2000 to buy a Saturn. They offered me $50 (the actual Blue Book value) for my 1990 Geo Metro and almost nothing off the sticker price of an SL (the cheapest model). After arguing with the salesman, I demanded to see the manager. The manager offered me a slightly better deal (which I accepted) but it all fell to pot when we started talking about financing. I surprised all of them when I left the lot in my 1990 Geo. I was there all day.
Later I went to a Saturn dealer somehwere else (Huntington Beach, I think). They offered me $500 for the Geo and several thousand off the sticker price of an LS (a mid-size model). There were no problems with financing. I was there for two or three hours.
Sometimes it is better to shop around than to let salespeople walk all over you.
To Taylor:
ReplyDeleteI got a 3 year loan at 0% financing. Luckily my credit is pretty good so I was able to get the 0%. That was probably the best part of the deal.
To Jesuit Monkey Fan:
I had another Toyota Corolla, so it didn't qualify for the $4500 "Cash for Clunkers" program. I had already checked online to see if it qualified (and it didn't), so I didn't just take the car salesman's word for it.