tranceglass said:
Bourmb,
That's an impressive price. Makes me want to change my focus from the CX to the CXL.
I've been lurking here for the last month or so. Trying to decide if now is the right time and if this is the right vehicle. I've driven several Enclave flavors and have visited probably six dealers. All are surprisingly unwilling to budge on price. Any thoughts on getting the most bang for the buck would be most appreciated.
Thanks!
Heck, if it's thoughts you want, even *I've* got thoughts... Whether they're any good or not is a different question.
When I started researching cars, I went to Edmunds.com and used their pricing tool to get an idea of what to expect. If you click on the New Cars link
http://www.edmunds.com/zipcode/new/index.html, you can enter your zip code and choose the vehicle you want (say, an 09 Buick Enclave FWD CXL trim level.) It then shows you a list of available options, from which you can pick and choose. Hit the final pricing button and it shows sticker (MSRP) and dealer invoice price. [1] It will even show you paint adders, if appropriate. It then shows you "True Market Value", which is the price they calculate people are actually paying for that vehicle in
your area.
[1] A note about fees and holdbacks.
http://www.edmunds.com/about/feepopup.html
I then chose three local dealers and sent each of them the same email:
1) I didn't want to screw anybody (technical term) and would appreciate the same courtesy from them.
2) I then told them the vehicle and options I wanted and said I wanted their first, last and best price quote. No "I'll beat any price" or "revised offer" if someone offers a better price (see step 3.)
3) I then said the dealer which offered the best
combination of
vehicle, cost, trade-in and financing would get the sale. (Since they were all offering 0% for five years, financing became a moot point.)
People sometimes forget to consider those four aspects in the "total" cost of a car. If you take your eye off any of those four areas, that's usually where you'll lose. (And we haven't even discussed the F&I department yet.2) Then I used Edmunds' trade-in appraisal tool
http://www.edmunds.com/tmv/used/index.html to get an idea of what my trade-in was worth. You enter the details of your vehicle, miles, condition, options and it will give you a "trade-in" price, a "sale to private party" price, and a price at which a dealer might likely resell the car. Kelley said I could expect about In my case, it said $6,000, $8,000 and $9,700, respectively.
Then, while I was waiting for the email replies, I drove by the dealerships to see if I liked the way they looked, how far away they were, and that sort of thing. I then chose the dealer I would like to use if everything worked out, and ranked the others. Since the dealers were all dealing with the same inventory, it was easy to get an "apples to apples" comparison. After I had received all email price quotes, I went first to the dealer I didn't particularly like.
I reminded him I didn't want to dicker and asked him for his best offer for my trade-in. He said $5,500, which was a little over the Kelley value but below the Edmunds number. I thanked him and said I'd be in touch.
I went to the next dealer and repeated the same exercise. I also mentioned that I had a "better than Kelley" trade-in value in my pocket. He gave me his best price and offered $6,500 for the car.
I went to the last dealer and got his best price quote: $1,000 under invoice (same as the others.) I said I would like to buy from him if we could make the numbers work, showed him the print-out of the Edmunds' calculations for my trade, and said I had offers between the
Edmunds trade in price ($500 over Kelley, remember) and the Edmunds "Private Party" price. He looked it over, checked out the car (which really was in very nice condition) and offered $7,500. In two days, I had increased the trade value by $2,000.
He then printed out the invoice, which I compared to what Edmunds said; everything matched. There were two $450 local advertising charges added, and there was a $1,300 holdback
http://www.edmunds.com/advice/incentives/holdback/index.html noted on the invoice. (The holdback just showed that the dealer stood to get $1,300 back from GM when he sold the car. IOW, that would be his profit if he sold it at invoice.)
MSRP was $X. "Supplier" price was $2,100 under MSRP, and "Invoice" (including the $900 advertising charges and a $735 destination charge) was $1875 under MSRP; with the additional $1,000, his offer was $2875 under MSRP, or $785 below "Supplier" price. I asked for a printout of the proposed deal and said I'd get back in touch that afternoon (the 29th of the month.) I went home and went over the numbers in a quiet environment, making sure I wasn't screwing something up or overlooking anything. Satisfied, I called the salesman and told him we had a deal - IF there were no "surprises" when I picked up the vehicle, and I didn't get high-pressure add-on pitches from the F&I guy. He promised that wouldn't happen, and it didn't.
There were no real "garbage" fees (although there was a $50 "Doc" fee, which is the max TX allows and which every dealership charges. I figured it wasn't worth arguing about.)
Might I have been able to drive a harder bargain? Perhaps. But Edmunds said that "True Market Value" for that car in our area was nearly $1000 more than I paid for it. So, thanks to independent backup from Edmunds and a little shopping around on my trade (an extra $2,000), I think I probably did ok.
2 Before you go to buy a car, be sure to look at "10 Steps to Buying a New Car"
http://www.edmunds.com/advice/buying/articles/78386/article.html
I am not Bourmb, I do not play him on TV, and neither did I stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night. As a result, the preceding is offered without any guarantees of merchantability, fitness, accuracy or anything else. YMMV. No animals were harmed in the making of this reply. Offer not good after curfew in sectors R or N. Call your mother; she worries.
Rick
