"Chairman Kaga" (mike-mckinnon)
11/09/2015 at 12:10 • Filed to: None
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"Chairman Kaga" (mike-mckinnon)
11/09/2015 at 12:10 • Filed to: None | 1
| 13 |
What’s up with this? The number of times I’ve email, called, or in person made an offer on a car that seemed reasonable to me based on Edmunds, KBB, and just what feels like a good deal, only to have them respond nope, the price is the price, no haggling, no negotiating.
For example, I offered $13,000 OTD on a 2010 Mazda6 S Touring with 85k miles. It was in good condition but needed a little love. Clean Carfax, no accidents, maintenance covered. That’s still about $500 over book, but the salesman seemed to get upset and respond that the OTD price on the car was $14,500, no wiggle room. I could take it or leave it. I left it, of course.
I encountered the same with a 2010 Altima 3.5 SR, a 2011 Accord EX-L V6 and a 2012 Mazda3 S Grand Touring. All Texas franchise dealers, but of the 6 “big” dealers I’ve shopped, only one was willing to negotiate. And of course they sold the car, a 2013 Mazda3 S Touring, whileI was still in that process.
Is the used car market that lively here inTexas, or is this just the newest trend in used car sales? The only dealers actually willing to deal are your typical somewhat shady used car lots.
Stapleface-Now Hyphenated!
> Chairman Kaga
11/09/2015 at 12:16 |
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I think they’re probably doing that in hopes that you’ll be some dumb schmuck and say okay, at least I tried. Trust me, they’ll work on the price, particularly if this is something that's been on the lot for a while.
Lumpy44, Proprietor Of Fine Gif
> Chairman Kaga
11/09/2015 at 12:19 |
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A couple of the dealers here have gone to the this is the price, no moving on that in the last few months.
Most of them are calling it like cost plus 2% or something like that. I don’t mind haggling but if the price on the sticker was what you payed out the door I wouldn’t hate it.
Aaron M - MasoFiST
> Chairman Kaga
11/09/2015 at 12:21 |
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One nice site I’ve been using to counter this is called CarGurus. They have the same basic stuff that all the bigger sites have (their data was originally bought from cars.com I believe), with a couple interesting additions:
1. Days active. The ad tells you how long the car has been listed.
2. Price drops. A full list of when the dealer dropped the price over the history of the ad.
3. Transaction price and “deal rating”: The site will attempt to use its database to assign every car a deal rating, based on what their data says it should sell for. “Fair deal” is within about $1,000 of average either way, “Good deal” $1-2k under, “Great deal” more than $2k under, etc. Their averages seem to be roughly in line with what you’d expect from other appraisal sites like KBB, so it’s a great way to, at a glance, figure out if the price is OK or needs to be negotiated down.
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Chairman Kaga
> Aaron M - MasoFiST
11/09/2015 at 12:23 |
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Good to know! I’ve just been relying on Edmunds, Autotrader and Cars.com. Need this.
jariten1781
> Chairman Kaga
11/09/2015 at 12:24 |
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Since CarMax has been doing extremely well, I'd not be surprised if other guys with large inventories took the model on.
DrScientist
> Chairman Kaga
11/09/2015 at 12:30 |
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i’m thinking (hoping?) this is in fact a new trend in franchise car sales.
here is what i think is important.
- microeconomics: the big dealers are much more easily able to forecast a steady and predicatable profit margin, if they use a standard calculation to determine price on used inventory. (whatever they paid for the car + some percentage markup)
- customer relationships: as a franchise there is much more opportunity in establishing repeat customers across their different brands, than there is opportunity in making one sale today and hood-winking an uninformed customer.
- Internets and Reputation: social media can be the death of you. especially when you open yourself up to massive numbers of interactions across many huge dealerships. this is much more of a concern, than for a small lot dealer who may make 0-1 sales per day.
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DrScientist
> Stapleface-Now Hyphenated!
11/09/2015 at 13:16 |
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to the best of my understanding, big dealerships dont keep anything on the lot “for a while.” almost all of their used inventory is trade in or lease return.
if the cars are viable CPO sales, they’ll go that route. if not they’ll keep them on the lot 2 weeks max, and then ship them off to auction (not counting something special or a true unicorn).
they already know what the car will sell for at auction, so they’d rather get their money out of the car with that (likely small but regular) profit, than sit on it and wait for that one buyer in a million looking for a saab at a toyota dealer.
shop-teacher
> Chairman Kaga
11/09/2015 at 13:53 |
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When I was shopping for late model used cars a couple years ago, I found very little willingness to negotiate from franchised car dealerships. To be fair, I only called or visited those who already had a pretty good price. They all more or less said the same thing, “If this wasn’t a good price already, would we even be talking?”
smobgirl
> Chairman Kaga
11/09/2015 at 14:10 |
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Test drove a used Impreza at a Subaru dealership last year that had been sitting so long the battery was dead and the interior was dusty. They wouldn’t budge on the price.
petebmwm
> Chairman Kaga
11/09/2015 at 16:32 |
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priced to market. manual trans cars cost more because there’s a smaller sample and, well, hell, go find the other one... internet was the death of used car profit at large, and now everyone wants kbb for theirs trading in, but a dealer cant ask for kbb selling it..it has to be cheaper or it sits..these places aren’t museums, they all have to go. buy or don’t, if it sits long enough they’ll just ship it to the auction.
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Chairman Kaga
> petebmwm
11/09/2015 at 16:44 |
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I had one dealer with a 2008 Acura TL who wouldn’t budge from $14k for about 8 weeks. Went to auction. A week later it ended up at a local used lot. VIN matched and everything. They listed it for $12800 and I had them down to $12000 even. If my wife had approved I would have bought it.
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petebmwm
> Chairman Kaga
11/09/2015 at 20:39 |
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its a gamble, send to auction hope you get out clean... he probably had more than 14k into it... with big stores, and more increasingly, corporate stores, it’s market share that drives, not a win or loss on the car.. it just gets to a point that you have to get rid of it so it’s not taking up space on the floor plan.
JQJ213- Now With An Extra Cylinder!
> Chairman Kaga
11/09/2015 at 23:35 |
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Most all the dealers by me started this too. And its really annoying. I see a price online and email askimg about the best price. “The online price you see is our absolute rock botom.” No more negotiations or anything. What you see is what you pay. Even if its a good deal it no longer seems like one