This is how I buy my car. It is very important 1) you know what you want; 2) do NOT go in until you have a confirmation on the car, price (out the door), and availability; and 3) be willing to walk out if they don’t keep their words.

Anonymous wrote:We have bought a car twice using email and we test drove the car first, then decided exactly what options we wanted, then emailed a bunch of dealers, then negotiated them down a bit until they were at what we thought was the lowest based on the true car price and other dealers, then went in to get the car.

Do the dealers like this? I don’t know and I don’t particularly care.

We did something similar this year. Test drove in a different state. Came home, sent emails with *exactly* what we wanted, except for color, which we didn't care about. The most responsive dealer just happened to be the closest to us. We negotiated a bit over email (showing exact same car advertised 45 miles away for cheaper). Met in the middle which I was fine with bc I didn't want to drive 90 miles round trip to save a few dollars with an unresponsive dealer. Agreed on price over emailn aaaaand that's the same price we paid when we picked it up and closed the deal.

If it matters, we were paying cash, so we didn't deal at all with the financing dept.

We recently bought a car. None of the area’s Toyota dealers wanted to give us a price in writing over email. They all wanted us to call and come in-person. I told them I didn’t have the time for that, we needed to shop online because we had a young baby.

Dealers are avoiding as much as possible to put things in writing these days. They want you to have the least possible amount of information

Per Million Dollar Listing on Bravo, you use the term "best and final."

Anonymous wrote:Here's what I got last time I did this:

- a handful of unimpressive quotes that matched whatever they had on their website as their best price.
- a bunch of emails telling me to come in to the dealership or call them.
- a bunch of emails that said, "bring us your best offer and we'll beat it!"

OP here. Yeah, there is a lot of this happening too. But I think these dealers are being short sighted. There are certainly volume dealers out there that are willing to do everything over email and have buyers drive in from out of town to complete the purchase. I'd prefer not to do that, but I certainly will before I over pay.

most effective way is to look at their online inventory and negotiate the specific car with vin#. otherwise you'll be comparing apples and oranges. look for the exact car at a different dealer's inventory. compare to the average invoiced price paid online for a baseline.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes dealers definitely know about this whole "email and get a price" thing and discourage it. I'm also curious how people convinced dealers to just give them a price over email, they don't seem like they want to do that.

I do think knowing *exactly* what you want in terms of trims and extras is important so you can ask for the price all in.

You just email them saying “give me your out the door price” and they do it. If they don’t want to I’m not making them but I’ve never had a dealer say no.

OP here. This usually works for me too but one of the dealers is saying no and I should call him.

I just tell those people “no” and move on.

Yeah, you want the "out the door" price. And be sure it's for the trim level you actually want.

And they will still try to make money from you at the dealership on extras (warranty, financing, trade-in, etc.).

Here's what I got last time I did this:

- a handful of unimpressive quotes that matched whatever they had on their website as their best price.
- a bunch of emails telling me to come in to the dealership or call them.
- a bunch of emails that said, "bring us your best offer and we'll beat it!"

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes dealers definitely know about this whole "email and get a price" thing and discourage it. I'm also curious how people convinced dealers to just give them a price over email, they don't seem like they want to do that.

I do think knowing *exactly* what you want in terms of trims and extras is important so you can ask for the price all in.

You just email them saying “give me your out the door price” and they do it. If they don’t want to I’m not making them but I’ve never had a dealer say no.

OP here. This usually works for me too but one of the dealers is saying no and I should call him.

Anonymous wrote:Yes dealers definitely know about this whole "email and get a price" thing and discourage it. I'm also curious how people convinced dealers to just give them a price over email, they don't seem like they want to do that.

I do think knowing *exactly* what you want in terms of trims and extras is important so you can ask for the price all in.

You just email them saying “give me your out the door price” and they do it. If they don’t want to I’m not making them but I’ve never had a dealer say no.

We have bought a car twice using email and we test drove the car first, then decided exactly what options we wanted, then emailed a bunch of dealers, then negotiated them down a bit until they were at what we thought was the lowest based on the true car price and other dealers, then went in to get the car.

Do the dealers like this? I don’t know and I don’t particularly care.

Yes dealers definitely know about this whole "email and get a price" thing and discourage it. I'm also curious how people convinced dealers to just give them a price over email, they don't seem like they want to do that.

I do think knowing *exactly* what you want in terms of trims and extras is important so you can ask for the price all in.

I tried this a couple of times and found it to be a colossal waste of time. Use online resources to identify all the rebates and incentives you can, go find the car you like, and negotiate a reasonable deal. Pay no junk or add-on administrative fees, and call it a day. Unless you find a demo or ugly duckling (undesirable color, poor combination of add-ons, etc.), you aren't really going to get much for your efforts.

For all of your savvy negotiators out there, how do you know when you've gotten the best possible deal? When you think you are close, do you then go in person, or wait until the final price is right before setting foot there? I'm finding some of these dealers don't want to give a straight answer, or just keep pushing for me to come in to the dealership. Since I'm looking all over Nova, some of these dealers are 45+ minutes away so that's not practical until we are ready to buy.