Tell me about using Costco Car Buying Program

[Anonymous]

How did you know you were getting a good deal? Did you still negotiate with the dealer?

[Anonymous]

I looked into it recently for buying a Honda CR-V. I am not in the DC area but another major metro area where I had 13 Honda dealers within easy driving distance.

Basically, you input your info online, they have however many "partner" dealerships in your area, and they give you the maximum base price you'll pay. The dealers then contact you and try to get you to come in to show you their price. You're guaranteed it will be as good or better than what you saw online, but may be better.

It does NOT include any dealer add-ons and tax/title/license, and I found every dealer had add-ons. It was generally a "protection package" (included wheel locks, cargo mat, protectant spray, and pin stripes). That is totally negotiable but they'll act like it isn't. I had them take the pin stripes off, not a fan.

For me, it was a decent price but not the best price. Here's what I did - I wrote one email detailing my exact needs and sent it to every Honda dealer in the area. I kept a spreadsheet tracking their responses. I used a new email address for that so I could abandon it afterwards (I wondered if that was necessary since I am good with filters/blocking, but SO glad I did). It actually wasn't bad at all, and you totally got a feel for who was legitimate and who was going to be a typical salesguy trying to get you to come in, etc.

6 or 7 of them came right back with their out the door price. Others said they'd beat any price, but wouldn't give me a firm price before I came in. I went back to a few once I had the lowest price, and they all said "You should buy there, that is an awesome price and we can't beat it."

So here's the breakdown - MSRP was right around $33K, and all the cars had about a $1000 dealer add-on package on it (what a joke).

Costco base price was $29,674, not including any add-ons or TTL. I'm guessing out-the-door would have come out to around $32,200 based on all the other quotes I got. There were 2 dealerships near me that were part of the Costco program.

Dealer I ended up going with, base price was $28,990 including the add-ons, and the out-the-door price was $31,206. He was the lowest quote from the get go, and he actually sourced the car from one of the competitors who had given me a price $200 higher and was slow to get back to me. That dealer emailed me afterwards saying "Ugh, I just looked at the inventory and saw we transferred the car you wanted, I'm sure that was for you." Yep!

Costco pricing is fine if you want absolutely no hassle, but my way probably took me about 3 - 4 hours of messing with it, back and forth - totally worth the $1000 savings IMO. And everything was exactly as they said it would be when I got there (dealers will try to use scare tactics about hail damage, that the price will go up once you get there, etc).

Here's the exact email I used, if you want to copy it. I had to go through their response form for most dealerships, but on others I was able to email the internet manager directly.

I started on Monday and we bought the car on Friday. On Thursday, a few dealerships started reaching back out to me to drop their prices, which was interesting (they still weren't as low as the lowest initial quote). There seems to be a very clear prescription of what happens on what day - manager contacts you a certain day, etc. The follow up is all automated.

One other thing, and I have no way of knowing if this made a difference - I'm a woman, and I used my husband's name in all correspondence. It probably didn't make a difference, but I didn't want to wonder.




Subject: Quote Needed - 2016 CR-V Touring

We're in the market to purchase a new 2016 CR-V in the next 2 weeks. We've already test-driven and are contacting local dealerships to find the best place to buy.

Below are the specs for the car we are going to purchase. We are not interested in any different trim lines. Could you please let us know if you have this CR-V available and the best out-the-door price you can offer on it? If your offer is the most competitive, we can finalize details and we'll come in to sign paperwork and close the sale.

2016 Honda CR-V
Touring Trim Line
Front-Wheel Drive (not interested in AWD)
Modern Steel Metallic

Please be sure the quote includes any additional fees, licensing, delivery charges, etc. - if it is easy to itemize so we can ensure we're comparing apples-to-apples, that would be great. Otherwise, just let us know it is fully inclusive. If there are any additional benefits your dealership offers (included accessories, service plans, etc), please let about those as well.

Please let us know if you have any questions. We hope to work with you soon!

Thank you,

(Husband & Wife Name)
(Phone)

[Anonymous]

We did it, got a price that was right around the edmunds fair market value for the model we chose, which was good enough for us because we did not want to deal with negotiating.

[Anonymous]

Thank you both!!