It's worth my time and peace to go to carmax for this reason. I have no interest in dealing with dealership BS ever again, even if it costs me a bit more. Money well spent.

Salesmen can be great, but dealerships almost universally suck, that's the lesson I've learned. So you need to leverage that to get a great salesman to help you overcome the crappiness of the dealerships.

Here's my strategy for new cars:

1. Do your own research about the brands and models you're most interested in, as much as you can read and glean from the internet beforehand.

2. Find online reviews of dealerships for the brand you are interested in that are reasonably close to you. Find the one that seems like its the best of the bad options, and then WITHIN that, look for reviews that mention a particular salesman being good.

3. Email that salesman personally. "I've heard you're amazing, I'm interested in a new VW BlahBlah, how's next Tuesday for a test drive?" When I've done this, I've gotten great white-glove service that helps the whole process go easier, generally with the salesman waiting outside for me as I drive up. No milling around until some shmuck approaches with "can I help you?"

4. Show up with some amount of homework. Research prices from different dealers, get the "TrueCar" price, see what incentives the brand is advertising. As well as a pre-approval with the lowest interest rate you can get. Yes, dealers are experts in obfuscating and jerking you around, but you will be better off if you've done *something* than the walk-in saps who've done *nothing.*

5. Yuk it up with the salesman. Make yourself his friend. Emphasize how bad you've had it with dealerships in the past and how you *really* need this to be a smooth experience. Act like a rich person who needs good service, not like someone who plans to hassle them right off the bat. They're people too and will help people they like.

6. When it comes to pricing, make him explain the pricing in detail. If the incentive you read about online isn't available, find out why not and see if there's anything they can do. If another dealer's price seems lower, show it to him and make him explain it to you and see how close they can come to matching it. You're not desperate to pinch pennies, but again, the persona you're putting on is a careful rich person who is obviously good with numbers and appropriately cautious with big purchases. Emphasize over and over again that you need the total, bottom line, all-in price -- the price to which not a cent will be added -- before you discuss financing or your trade-in. Negotiate as much as you like, but recognize that at a certain point, you're just nickel and diming. An extra $500 off isn't worth it if it's going to aggravate you and waste your day with threats to "walk out of here right now!" If you've followed these steps, you're already getting a better deal than most people.

7. Whatever you do, don't let them hear your monthly budget. Don't let them negotiate monthly numbers. Even if you plan to finance, tell them you think you're going to pay all-cash "unless there's a great interest rate, better than this one I have here from my bank."

8. When the salesman - now your friend - hands you off to the ghouls from management or financing, emphasize to the salesman that you don't want him to go far away and you're SO sold and SO ready to write a check, but you don't want a hard time from that point on. If management or financing gives you a hard time, say, "I'm sorry, I thought from my conversation with Tim that we were done negotiating and we had a final price with nothing additional. Can we get him back here? Otherwise I think I'll need to go."

It is their job to get you to pay more and they do it all day every day. They have the reps and the practice. You do it once every few years at most. You will not "beat" them. But you can at least make it easy on yourself without getting totally screwed.

Annapolis Toyota was mediocre. Nothing terrible happened at the dealership (other than being there for over 2 hours just to sign the paperwork and be put through the b.s. from finance). The tag and title people were slow and a little confused, but ultimately got it done. But their scheme is that you can’t buy or put a deposit on a vehicle online. They make you come in to do the deal, and try to scare you that the car will be sold to someone else if you don’t do it immediately, etc.

Koons Toyota Silver Spring was awful. They tried to sell me the same vehicle for $5k more, tried to sell me a different vehicle that I repeatedly said I didn’t want, and then the salesman had a little fit over the phone when I told him that I’d bought elsewhere.

Anonymous wrote:Any Honda dealer recommendations?

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1224404.page

Any Honda dealer recommendations?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The car dealership keeps you there all day long. By the time you come home with your new car, you're physically and mentally exhausted. You also feel like a huge sucker because you got ripped off. If you don't feel like a sucker, you really got ripped off and don't even know it.

I drive my cars until the wheels fall off just to avoid going to the dealership. If hell exists, it probably an eternal loop of the car buying experience.

I agree, and it's actually amazing how they are so bad people are willing to go to Carmax or do Carvana and pay huge amounts more because car dealers are such scum of the earth even one day with them is too much. This whole industry needs reforming to protect consumers from scam fees and sleazy techniques.

Yes. I probably paid an extra $1-2k at CarMax. I consider it money very well spent. My time is worth plenty, and they saved me a lot of time.

Anonymous wrote:For the people who have had good experiences, could you name the dealership? We're shopping for a minivan and all I know is I'm never going back to the Bethesda Honda dealership but I'd love some pointers, particularly a Toyota dealership.

Buy a used car at CarMax. I determined what car/year I was interested in; found the cars on their website and researched the information about mileage, number of owners, maintenance records, accidents (all available on their website); reserved the car I wanted on their website; went in and talked to the salesperson for roughly 10 minutes; took it for a test drive. When I decided to buy it, I told them I wanted to do their express check out. Told them I wanted to finance it through my credit union, and got not one second of pushback. Arranged financing through the credit union in 24 hours. Credit union sent the check. I went back to CarMax, signed some papers, they put the plates on the car, and was out of there in less than 30 minutes.

Yes, I paid more than I would have if I had bought the used car privately. But I did all the research from the comfort of my couch, the price was known up front with no hidden fees or extra baloney, and I spent no more than an hour total in the dealership. And I got a 90-day warranty, which is more than I would have gotten in a private sale. Well worth it to me.

However, some used cars are much better deals than others. If you're looking for a Toyota minivan, used might not make much sense.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's always been like that. I begged them not to treat me like I was treated last time. They promised to 'take care of me'. I really need to go to therapy over how they took are of me.
Not only did they try to rip me off several time, but they messed up paperwork about 8 times, including pulling someone else's credit.
I ended up going to DC DMV as my temporary tags were expiring and asking when the dealership got my tags. The minute I left DC DMV and called the dealership to tell them that they have my tags, they found them in the basement. I show up and they rae asking me who has the tags.
They also gave me only one key to my new car. I show up to pick up the key and they ask me who has the keys. Many other things they messed up I'm trying to forgot.
The worse part was me asking for my car keys to my own car and nobody getting up to get them. Don't let women shop alone. It was absolutely disgusting. I felt like I'm held there by three men surrounding me to get a deal done.
They would make Judge Judy cry.
The car is fine, but I will never set foot there to fix the car.

Wow. Lots here.

A lot more. I should be in therapy. They sent me off with someone else's DL number on my papers. I headed straight to DC DMV with them. They didn't pick up the phone or answer the e-mail to get it corrected. The sales guy asked who I was. Also promised to bring the new key to my home when they find it- good one. Creep.
Most mess up I have forgotten as I'm trying so hard. If you buy car from them, problems will follow you for months and for some people, for years if you read the yelp reviews.

Anonymous wrote:We just had a great experience at Priority Nissan through internet sales. The manager we worked with was Angel. She quickly provided a great price in writing and didn’t try to pull any tricks. We couldn’t find the same price anywhere else so we worried it was too good to be true but we paid what she promised. The sales person she had help us was very low pressure and pleasant too.

Priority Toyota in Springfield was a refreshing change. I would recommend them.

Anonymous wrote:Horrible experience with Koons Tysons.

Koons Arlington was so bad that I decided I wouldn't buy a new car. I don't know why car makers just don't let you order a car for a set price and have it delivered.

I feel like we've done okay with Fitzgerald Subaru in Rockville and Gaithersburg. Got our last 2 cars from them and everyone's price was within a hundred or so of each other and it made it easy. Always more paperwork than seems necessary...

Anonymous wrote:We just had a great experience at Priority Nissan through internet sales. The manager we worked with was Angel. She quickly provided a great price in writing and didn’t try to pull any tricks. We couldn’t find the same price anywhere else so we worried it was too good to be true but we paid what she promised. The sales person she had help us was very low pressure and pleasant too.

I also recommend internet sales - get them to give you the final out the door price and not just the car sales price.

And if you have your own financing, even better! My last car was negotiated with the internet sales manager and I walked in with a check for that amount. In and out in 2 hours

For used cars - Look into what it takes to buy vehicles directly at auction and cut out the dealership. I'm skeptical that the dealership actually does a real inspection anyway.

We just had a great experience at Priority Nissan through internet sales. The manager we worked with was Angel. She quickly provided a great price in writing and didn’t try to pull any tricks. We couldn’t find the same price anywhere else so we worried it was too good to be true but we paid what she promised. The sales person she had help us was very low pressure and pleasant too.

Anonymous wrote:The car dealership keeps you there all day long. By the time you come home with your new car, you're physically and mentally exhausted. You also feel like a huge sucker because you got ripped off. If you don't feel like a sucker, you really got ripped off and don't even know it.

I drive my cars until the wheels fall off just to avoid going to the dealership. If hell exists, it probably an eternal loop of the car buying experience.

I agree, and it's actually amazing how they are so bad people are willing to go to Carmax or do Carvana and pay huge amounts more because car dealers are such scum of the earth even one day with them is too much. This whole industry needs reforming to protect consumers from scam fees and sleazy techniques.