"LJ909" (lj909)
01/05/2016 at 03:31 • Filed to: None
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"LJ909" (lj909)
01/05/2016 at 03:31 • Filed to: None | 1
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Was shopping for a Miata last night online. All I want is a base Miata Sport with a manual. I found one and its basically 60 miles away. ONE . The damn dealerships that do have Miata’s fall into 3 categories: they stock loaded, over 30k Miata’s, they only have 3-5 in stock or they only have 3-5 in stock and they are all loaded. Is it that hard to have a few basic Miata’s?
atfsgeoff
> LJ909
01/05/2016 at 03:42 |
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All the base Miatas are probably spoken-for before they hit the lots.
RiceRocketeer Extraordinaire
> LJ909
01/05/2016 at 03:45 |
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Ooh, ooh! Time to pile on the dealer!
I tried getting a Miata test drive from a nearby Mazda dealership and the salesman said it wasn’t possible, and tried to steer me toward a CX5.
I get that this is the only one you have, but something is seriously wrong with your sales process or business model when you have someone who smack in your target demographic — obviously interested, has some disposable income, and you won’t let him anywhere near the car .
I swear, I take frequent showers and brush my teeth, but dealers have not let me anywhere near a Scion FR-S or the new Miata, even when I was actually car shopping .
Holy shit.
Svend
> LJ909
01/05/2016 at 04:07 |
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Can you not just order one be made? I don’t know what the lead time is for manufacture to delivery but worth it to get what you want. Though I’ve seen and heard U.S. dealerships are very different to U.K., European and lets face it, the rest of the world.
We ordered a new Skoda Superb to be made and hopefully pick it’s licence plate next month and pick it up on the 1st of March. Yay.
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LJ909
> RiceRocketeer Extraordinaire
01/05/2016 at 04:19 |
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I think it’s because these makes never really have anything special. So they treat these models like they are Corvettes or some other higher end model. Mazda dealer I was at today had a Miata for sale, but it was behind a locked door on one side and a glass door on the other, and inside it shared a fence with the children’s play area so there was no getting to it. I’ve encountered the same problem when looking at a 500 Abarth and a Genesis Coupe at Hyundai.
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LJ909
> Svend
01/05/2016 at 04:21 |
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Depending on the make it takes way longer here. Not only that, you have to go through the hassle of the dealers pricing. Ive heard there’s been instances of factory orders and then the price being totally different once the car gets to the dealer.
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Svend
> LJ909
01/05/2016 at 04:50 |
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Ye’, I’ve heard that a lot.
Initial lead time was about 6-8 weeks, now 3-4 months for the new Superb.
When we ordered our new car we went to the dealership, parked up, went in,
Us: we want the new hatchback Superb in SE spec, what offers do you have?
Skoda: we could do an SE L Exec for the price of an SE (lower spec), would that be okay?
Us: what does the SE L Exec had over the SE?
Us: okay, we’ll take it.
Us: we don’t like those alloys that else do you have?
Us: we like those but they are £450.
Skoda: we can do them as a no cost option.
Us: right, we’ll take them.
We chose the colour and interior. We then put down our deposit and signed. We were out of there inside of thirty minutes.
From what I’ve seen and heard of the U.S. system. It’s a case of how to get out with a car the price the company says from how ridiculous the dealership has hyped the price up to.
In the U.K. you can submit on a few websites what make and spec of car you want and dealerships compete for how low they can do it for or for what they can offer with the car for your custom which is nice but a little time consuming waiting for replies and such.
DasWauto
> LJ909
01/05/2016 at 06:13 |
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This is not a Mazda3 or CX5, they’re not big sellers so you can’t expect dealers to have lots in stock in the spec you want. They’re likely going to have higher trimmed cars with more options to increase the profit margin on a car that may sit on the lot for some time, as you’ve seen. If you want to drive one, find one with the important things you want (manual, sport suspension, I guess) and ignore things that are not relevant (leather seats, if equipped, etc). If you then decide to make a move, have the dealer order or look for the car in the spec you want to figure out a deal.
qbeezy
> LJ909
01/05/2016 at 08:46 |
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Niche car is niche. Like my car, it was hard finding a base track package with a manual. I had to wait it out till over happened to come in as a trade in. Only other option is 1. Drive far, 2. Order from dealer.
Snuze: Needs another Swede
> RiceRocketeer Extraordinaire
01/05/2016 at 08:55 |
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That’s crazy to me, I’ve never seen a dealer treat those cars like that. Do you live in a really sparsely populated area, where dealers are few and far between, or something like that? I’m in the DC area and most of the larger dealers have multiples of those cars on the lot. Heck, I got to take a very extended test drive of an FR-S, after I made it abundantly clear I wasn’t going to buy one because I didn’t have a full time job, just because the salesman was bored.
TylerJ
> LJ909
01/05/2016 at 09:09 |
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60 miles. That’s funny. I don’t think there’s any Mazda dealer within 100 miles of me.
Dana
> atfsgeoff
01/05/2016 at 09:30 |
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Base Miatas equal little or no profit to the dealer so many will just not stock them. Add useless bells and whistles pushing the price up over $30,000 and the dealer makes some money on the sale. Most dealers never stock base models of anything.
FTTOHG Has Moved to https://opposite-lock.com
> Svend
01/05/2016 at 09:35 |
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In the US it varies from dealer to dealer, but some really are that bad. I was looking at a Jeep Renegade last year. The price tag from Jeep was $24k. I figured I would be able to get it for $22-23k since it was still a pretty new model. After a test drive, we started to talk price. The dealer had added their own worthless “preferred equipment package” that was basically refilling the tires with nitrogen, “paint protection” (wax), and some rust protection spray (we live in South Texas where cars don’t rust) for $3k. So now we are starting at $27k for a car Jeep says costs $24k on their website.
Salesman: “This Jeep is a great deal for $27k. Hot new model. But I can give it to you for $25k today. That’s a $2000 savings, it’s a great deal. How do you want to finance it?”
Me: “Hold on, $25k isn’t going to do it, that’s out of my budget, and I can get a Mazda CX-5 for that which I test drove already and liked better.”
Salesman: “OK, well we can go to $24,500. We hardly ever cut off more than $2,000 these days, the market is too competitive. But I don’t want you to buy a car somewhere else, so I’ll do this just for you. Let’s talk about what you need the monthly payment to be.”
Me: “I’m confused. Jeep says this is a $24k car, but you are telling me $500 more than that is somehow a good deal, what is going on?”
Salesman: “Oh, we added our protection package to it. It’s $7,000 of extras that we only charge $3,000 for on our new cars.”
Me: “OK, I don’t want that. I have nitrogen tanks at work and fill my own tires there. Let’s start at $24k and work down from there.”
Salesman: “Sorry sir, we don’t sell these without the protection package.”
Me: “You’re kidding, right?”
Salesman: “No, I’m sorry, but it is such a convenience and such good protection that our customers demand it and we don’t feel safe selling a car without it.”
Me: “Look, I’m sorry, but I’m not paying more than Jeep’s sticker price for that car no matter what you think you did to make it more special than it was directly from Jeep. What else can you do?”
Salesman: “Let me get my manager.”
Manager: “My salesman tells me he needs to help to get you into this car. What I can do is give you the protection package for free so we’re at $24k now. We’ve come down another $1,000 from our initial offer, which is enough for most people to sign, but I see that it isn’t quite enough for you. What else do we need to do to get you into this car today?”
Me: “Well Jeep says this model should be $24k, so I expect to come down several thousand from there. I’m not buying this car for Jeep’s price.”
Manager: “I’m sorry we can’t go any lower than $24k right now. Can we work something else? Maybe a longer loan will get your payments where they need to be? These new models hold their value well, so a 72 month loan won’t put you under water. Tell me what you need the monthly payment to be. Maybe I can get an extra $500 on your trade.”
Me: “Sorry, that’s just not going to do it.”
Then I went over to the Subaru dealer where I bought my previous Subaru and watched money start to fall off of the sticker prices before I even test drove the cars. Well except for the WRX, which seems to be selling well at sticker price. So yes, there are dealers in the US that will make you fight just to get the manufacturer price. But I think that is slowly changing as they realize the customers hate it and not all dealers work that way.
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LJ909
> Svend
01/05/2016 at 09:53 |
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That’s crazy. I wish it was that easy here. With car buying here, be prepared to be at the dealership for hours. The only time I’ve experienced fast dealership service was when my mother bought her BMW and that only took 2 hours.
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Svend
> FTTOHG Has Moved to https://opposite-lock.com
01/05/2016 at 09:54 |
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I’m not sure I would of stuck out the dealers whole conversation without laughing in his face but then I might od just to laugh in his face at the end and say “I’m going to tell me mates this whole conversation and they’ll piss themselves laughing at how ridiculous it’s been. Take care, I’m off over to Subaru, I’m sure they would love a laugh as I sign for a WRX. Bye”. Then walking out nodding to others and pointing back at the dealer saying “that guy there, he’s a funny guy, I swear”.
We had wanted to order our car in the December as originally planned but Skoda phoned and said they’d take some off the list price if we ordered a month earlier and when we turned up they gave us an SE L Exec for the price of an SE (£3,000 saving( sorry I thought they took £2,000, it was £3,000)) on top of the few hundred for ordering early and gave us the our colour at no charge (further £535 saving).
All in all we got a £25,055 car for £21,195. No hassle or “come on, you can do a bit cheaper than that”.
jariten1781
> Svend
01/05/2016 at 09:54 |
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Ordering process is the same in the US pretty much. There’s some difficulty getting full line guys (Ford, Chevy, Honda, VW) to take orders because customers wanting to do it are pretty rare and some dealers have literally no experience doing it. I’ve heard tell of some dealers not accepting orders, but I’ve never actually seen it (and I’ve lived in 7 states; rural to urban). Get into the luxury car range and they’re fully set up to take orders and the process is very simple. I’ve also never ran into switched pricing at delivery, it’s really really rare...not that it’d be a huge deal, the sale isn’t binding then so it’d just be a bit of disappointment and a bit more waiting if they pulled that and I had to go to another dealer.
Lead times I’ve seen have been as low as a little less than a month to nearly a year for an in-demand, low-production model.
When you hear about it being different it’s true; but not in the way most comments/articles portray it. The vast majority of the buyers can find something really close to what they want on our massive car lots so they trade something minor that they would have gotten if they’d ordered for the ability to drive it home that day. If they don’t have one close they’ll trade with another dealer and you can drive home tomorrow. It’s not a big deal for people who buy big seller appliance cars, there’s tons to choose from, but people act like it’s a big deal when they’re used to buying generic appliance cars and decide to switch to a more niche lower production car.
Dealers have inventory here around 20-50x (lots of excess land, yo) what I ran into in my short times in Europe and Asia. Just changes the dynamic a bit.
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LJ909
> TylerJ
01/05/2016 at 09:55 |
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Yea they are pretty spread out even here.
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Svend
> LJ909
01/05/2016 at 10:07 |
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Ouch. With a used car dealership or franchise dealership that has used cars you do need to haggle to a degree but if you don’t like what they say, you go to another and tell them what the other told you and they’ll bend over backwards to help.
Neighbour was looking for a VW Eos, asked VW and they said there was one in Edinburgh (100 miles away for us), they contacted him, sent him a video of the car detailing everything from scratches to scuffs, history. Was told if he wanted to go up via train they’ll meet him and even if he didn’t buy it they would take him back to the train and see if there was another car suitable.
He’s now the very happy owner of this VW Eos Bluemotion.
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Svend
> jariten1781
01/05/2016 at 10:13 |
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Cheers fella. I guess the horror and scare stories are louder than some of the great ones where things went as expected.
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FTTOHG Has Moved to https://opposite-lock.com
> jariten1781
01/05/2016 at 10:43 |
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Unless it has changed in the last year or two, Toyota will not do build-to-order in the US. They will let you request a configuration and if it is in the build queue somewhere they can earmark it for you. But if it isn’t something they were going to build anyway, you can’t get it. A friend of mine bought a Tacoma 2 years ago wanted a 2WD, V6, Crew Cab in a specific exterior color. He didn’t find that combo on any lots, but a dealer found it in Toyota’s build queue for production to be complete 40 days later. So he was able to get it that way, but if it hadn’t been in the factory queue anyway, he would have had to settle for another color.
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jariten1781
> FTTOHG Has Moved to https://opposite-lock.com
01/05/2016 at 10:56 |
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I’ve heard that. While I’ve never tried to order one myself apparently Toyota is inflexible in their LEAN process and doesn’t take orders. I was under the impression that was world-wide though. I do have a cousin who ordered an IS350 so Lexus either has a different production plan or he got lucky and just happened to pick one in a pre-planned queue (his wait time was 5 months, not sure what that says either way).
The Opponaut formerly known as MattP123
> LJ909
01/05/2016 at 15:52 |
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I’m sort of in the same boat, except replace Miata with Wrangler. It is near impossible to find bare bones Wranglers. The lowest trim dealers seem to keep on the lot are Wrangler Sport S and of course auto, but mostly Saharas and Rubicons. It would be nice to test drive what I would actually get rather than a higher end one so I don’t end up disappointed by a base model.
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RiceRocketeer Extraordinaire
> Snuze: Needs another Swede
01/05/2016 at 18:43 |
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Somewhere in the middle of Los Angeles. Probably a lot of tire kickers, or just plain bad salespeople.
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Snuze: Needs another Swede
> RiceRocketeer Extraordinaire
01/06/2016 at 09:40 |
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Ahh, that makes some sense. I’ve seen dealers around here do it with higher horsepower/performance cars like Corvettes and such. And I do kind of understand that logic. But not an FR-S or Miata.
Though as I said, I would have guessed like middle of nowhere Nebraska. But that would be because I suspect a dealer like that one gets 1 FR-S or Miata.