New Car Shopping is the Worst - Any Hacks?

[Anonymous]

Good luck. Right now a lot of cars are already sold before they get to the dealership. We’re still in a major supply crunch. Your best strategy right now is to wait a year or two if you can.

[Anonymous]

We have bought our last two cars via email. You can also go to Fitzgerald Auto Mall where the price is the price, or you can do something like True Car or Costco where dealers will send you quotes.

[Anonymous]

I put a car in costco’s buying program and it returned “no dealers” who currently meet the criteria. Clearly some of these people responding haven’t purchased a car recently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I bought my last car by email. I had done my research, including going to some dealerships in person to test drive, and knew what was a good price. I emailed 3-4 dealers that I knew had my car on the lot and asked them to give me a price. Picked the lowest one, worked out a price for the trade in, and struck a deal. DH went and picked up the car, so I never even met the salesman.

A friend recently bought a car using the Costco car program. It is also no hassle/no haggling. Costco negotiates the price, and they match you with a dealer that has agreed to sell at that price.

You can still use the Costco/Truecar price to negotiate discount, just harder to do right now. Always focus on the “out the door price.” Don’t play games with how much you want to pay each month. Have your own financing arranged, hopefully with a credit union, but you can shop around. But be aware the manufacturer financing may get you (and the dealer) $500 or do. You can then turn around and refinance in a couple of days at a lower rate. Don’t pay market adjustment mark ups unless it’s a car in high demand, and always consider used due to depreciation. Extended warranties are usually a bad deal a a profit center for dealers. Same for tire snd wheel protection. Refuse to pay for nitrogen, leather/paint protection or VINa etching when you get to F&I. If the desler insists on a Doc fee then that should come off of the top line. Look around for other potential savings such as loyalty/conquest promotions. Also membership in the BMW car club of America nets you at least a $500 check.

Be firm but respectful and prepare to walk if necessary. Soliciting pricing buy emailing the Sales Msnager or Internet Sales Manager is a good strategy but may not get you the best price in todays market. You should’ve add Lao consider whether driving a distance can save you money. If you’re trading in treat it as a separate negotiation. Get online offers from Carmax, Vroom, Carvana or even another local dealership to use in the negotiation.

Consider whether the dealer offers loaners for service (service is where the bulk of profits are generated) or even pickup or drop off car. Also consider the length of warranty and what is d as No is not covered by the manufacturer.

No one cares if you walk. This strategy isn’t going to get you a good price now. They are selling car in transit with weeks long waits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have any of you bought a car during the pandemic? It does not work like that anymore.

My experience:
1. I test drove some cars. It was hard to find dealers that even had cars to test drive.

2. I called the dealers in my area to ask if they had the make and model I wanted. Nobody had any but I finally found one that had a shipment on order.

3. I put down a deposit for a car that was coming in 6 weeks. It was a refundable 500 dollar deposit.

4. The car arrived 6 weeks later, they called me, I test drove it, then bought it. There was no negotiation, I paid MSRP. If I had not bought it, they would have sold it that day to another customer.

5. The end.

It's a great time to buy a car if you don't like haggling because nobody is haggling. The only haggle might be if you're buying a high end luxury vehicle, or a dealer has some weird car that hasn't sold yet.

Pretty much this.
I mean there is no haggling. Expect to pay MSRP or over.

I bought a car a few weeks ago. It’s not true that there is no haggling and that you are paying MSRP, period. I negotiated my car out the door for under MSRP. Yes, there was very little selection on local lots and I didn’t get the color I wanted. But I pitted two dealers against each other and one was willing to negotiate. So I went with that one.

It’s not black and white, even right now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have any of you bought a car during the pandemic? It does not work like that anymore.

My experience:
1. I test drove some cars. It was hard to find dealers that even had cars to test drive.

2. I called the dealers in my area to ask if they had the make and model I wanted. Nobody had any but I finally found one that had a shipment on order.

3. I put down a deposit for a car that was coming in 6 weeks. It was a refundable 500 dollar deposit.

4. The car arrived 6 weeks later, they called me, I test drove it, then bought it. There was no negotiation, I paid MSRP. If I had not bought it, they would have sold it that day to another customer.

5. The end.

It's a great time to buy a car if you don't like haggling because nobody is haggling. The only haggle might be if you're buying a high end luxury vehicle, or a dealer has some weird car that hasn't sold yet.

Pretty much this.
I mean there is no haggling. Expect to pay MSRP or over.

Respectfully disagree. There is no excuse to pay more than MSRP particularly if options are missing from a vehicle. Some dealers are selling at full MSRP even when the vehicle is missing things like HUD or lumbar or upgraded stereo/CarPlay due to semiconductor chip supply shortages.

Mmkay. Right now, if you won't, someone else will.

So everyone says this, but some of the same new cars I was looking at several weeks ago on a dealer lot hasn’t yet sold. Now, this isn’t a popular brand like Honda or Toyota, so maybe that has something to do with it.

I think going into it with the attitude that negotiating is off the table is a fool’s game. I literally just did it so it must be possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have any of you bought a car during the pandemic? It does not work like that anymore.

My experience:
1. I test drove some cars. It was hard to find dealers that even had cars to test drive.

2. I called the dealers in my area to ask if they had the make and model I wanted. Nobody had any but I finally found one that had a shipment on order.

3. I put down a deposit for a car that was coming in 6 weeks. It was a refundable 500 dollar deposit.

4. The car arrived 6 weeks later, they called me, I test drove it, then bought it. There was no negotiation, I paid MSRP. If I had not bought it, they would have sold it that day to another customer.

5. The end.

It's a great time to buy a car if you don't like haggling because nobody is haggling. The only haggle might be if you're buying a high end luxury vehicle, or a dealer has some weird car that hasn't sold yet.

Pretty much this.
I mean there is no haggling. Expect to pay MSRP or over.

I bought a car a few weeks ago. It’s not true that there is no haggling and that you are paying MSRP, period. I negotiated my car out the door for under MSRP. Yes, there was very little selection on local lots and I didn’t get the color I wanted. But I pitted two dealers against each other and one was willing to negotiate. So I went with that one.

It’s not black and white, even right now.

My guess is if you can find a car that you want on the dealer's lot, they are most certainly open to negotiation. A lot of cars have to be reserved with a deposit right now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have any of you bought a car during the pandemic? It does not work like that anymore.

My experience:
1. I test drove some cars. It was hard to find dealers that even had cars to test drive.

2. I called the dealers in my area to ask if they had the make and model I wanted. Nobody had any but I finally found one that had a shipment on order.

3. I put down a deposit for a car that was coming in 6 weeks. It was a refundable 500 dollar deposit.

4. The car arrived 6 weeks later, they called me, I test drove it, then bought it. There was no negotiation, I paid MSRP. If I had not bought it, they would have sold it that day to another customer.

5. The end.

It's a great time to buy a car if you don't like haggling because nobody is haggling. The only haggle might be if you're buying a high end luxury vehicle, or a dealer has some weird car that hasn't sold yet.

Pretty much this.
I mean there is no haggling. Expect to pay MSRP or over.

I bought a car a few weeks ago. It’s not true that there is no haggling and that you are paying MSRP, period. I negotiated my car out the door for under MSRP. Yes, there was very little selection on local lots and I didn’t get the color I wanted. But I pitted two dealers against each other and one was willing to negotiate. So I went with that one.

It’s not black and white, even right now.

I guess I’m not willing to pay *almost* MSRP for a car I don’t really want. You’re basically just saying take what’s leftover and then you’ll have some negotiating power. I mean there is a reason no one wants it.
What vehicle did you end up getting?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have any of you bought a car during the pandemic? It does not work like that anymore.

My experience:
1. I test drove some cars. It was hard to find dealers that even had cars to test drive.

2. I called the dealers in my area to ask if they had the make and model I wanted. Nobody had any but I finally found one that had a shipment on order.

3. I put down a deposit for a car that was coming in 6 weeks. It was a refundable 500 dollar deposit.

4. The car arrived 6 weeks later, they called me, I test drove it, then bought it. There was no negotiation, I paid MSRP. If I had not bought it, they would have sold it that day to another customer.

5. The end.

It's a great time to buy a car if you don't like haggling because nobody is haggling. The only haggle might be if you're buying a high end luxury vehicle, or a dealer has some weird car that hasn't sold yet.

Pretty much this.
I mean there is no haggling. Expect to pay MSRP or over.

I bought a car a few weeks ago. It’s not true that there is no haggling and that you are paying MSRP, period. I negotiated my car out the door for under MSRP. Yes, there was very little selection on local lots and I didn’t get the color I wanted. But I pitted two dealers against each other and one was willing to negotiate. So I went with that one.

It’s not black and white, even right now.

I guess I’m not willing to pay *almost* MSRP for a car I don’t really want. You’re basically just saying take what’s leftover and then you’ll have some negotiating power. I mean there is a reason no one wants it.
What vehicle did you end up getting?

Lincoln Nautilus. I guess I don’t feel like there were only leftovers on the lot. I mean, there were only a few at each dealer but they weren’t like offbeat colors or packages or anything. I’m guessing this varies by make and model. Yeah, I didn’t get the exact color I wanted but I also just wanted to buy something, get a decent deal, and be done with it. Plus, I got such a great trade-in value that paying less than MSRP out the door didn’t seem like a bad deal. No way would I have gotten even 75% of what I got for the trade on my 2017 vehicle pre-COVID. It worked out well.

[Anonymous]

For a variety of reasons, there are not enough cars to meet demand. Most car dealers had their most profitable year EVER in 2021 (not volume, profit) and I think they like the new market dynamic. Dealers hold most of the leverage and I am glad to not be in the market to buy a car right now. If I were, I would probably go through Costco or my credit union to buy it. I hate dealers, I hate car salesman and I don't see things improving any time soon.

[Anonymous]

There are no hacks. It's all stacked against you and there is nothing you can do to change it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have any of you bought a car during the pandemic? It does not work like that anymore.

My experience:
1. I test drove some cars. It was hard to find dealers that even had cars to test drive.

2. I called the dealers in my area to ask if they had the make and model I wanted. Nobody had any but I finally found one that had a shipment on order.

3. I put down a deposit for a car that was coming in 6 weeks. It was a refundable 500 dollar deposit.

4. The car arrived 6 weeks later, they called me, I test drove it, then bought it. There was no negotiation, I paid MSRP. If I had not bought it, they would have sold it that day to another customer.

5. The end.

It's a great time to buy a car if you don't like haggling because nobody is haggling. The only haggle might be if you're buying a high end luxury vehicle, or a dealer has some weird car that hasn't sold yet.

This, and you will be getting a "deal" at MSRP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For a variety of reasons, there are not enough cars to meet demand. Most car dealers had their most profitable year EVER in 2021 (not volume, profit) and I think they like the new market dynamic. Dealers hold most of the leverage and I am glad to not be in the market to buy a car right now. If I were, I would probably go through Costco or my credit union to buy it. I hate dealers, I hate car salesman and I don't see things improving any time soon.

Don't blame the dealerships or salespeople. Blame the manufacturers for not producing enough cars to keep inventory at a decent level.

[Anonymous]

Anyone have a clue how hard car buying will be a year from now? Will the chip shortage be easing? My car is 10 years old and when I bought it I did the email negotiation thing like the early posters on this thread. Sounds like we won’t be going back to that any time soon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For a variety of reasons, there are not enough cars to meet demand. Most car dealers had their most profitable year EVER in 2021 (not volume, profit) and I think they like the new market dynamic. Dealers hold most of the leverage and I am glad to not be in the market to buy a car right now. If I were, I would probably go through Costco or my credit union to buy it. I hate dealers, I hate car salesman and I don't see things improving any time soon.

Don't blame the dealerships or salespeople. Blame the manufacturers for not producing enough cars to keep inventory at a decent level.

Um, they can't. Not sure where you've been, but there's this chip shortage that's been happening for the past year and a half and they literally are not able to manufacture enough cars to "keep inventory at a decent level".