Anonymous wrote:I recently bought a Highlander from Koons using Truecar. It was a better deal than the Costco price in my case. My price appeared to be higher than the website price, but the online price included fewer fees, so the Truecar price was actually lower after accounting for the fine print.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP here, I think you can do better than Costco pricing, use that as starting point (as you know you can get the car for Costco price no matter what) so you start with $1-2k under the Costco pricing. As stated before, any method that entails pricing being provided to you upfront, either via 1) sellers website, 2) costco pricing 3) truecar or anywhere else, means there is $1-2k on the table to be negotiated for a 20k car if not more. Forgot to mention that there are a few dealers that still have 2013 models, yes 2013 models, available that can be had for a steep discount, ie 2013 Nissan Altima V6 non-leather at Nissan Tysons, MSRP is close to 30k, they listed them for around 20k, which means you can probably get it for 18k plus tax/tags. I checked this a few weeks ago so they may/may not be there now.

Best of luck.

-car guy

Have you tried the Costco program? In my experience, the dealer website price is VERY high and can be beat by much more than $1-2k, Truecar or other prices are still quite high, but the Costco price is pretty darn good. I'd be interested to hear if you have been able to get a better price than Costco -- maybe I can be doing better! Caveat: I've only purchased new cars this way, not used. There seems to be even more haggling with used cars.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP here, I think you can do better than Costco pricing, use that as starting point (as you know you can get the car for Costco price no matter what) so you start with $1-2k under the Costco pricing. As stated before, any method that entails pricing being provided to you upfront, either via 1) sellers website, 2) costco pricing 3) truecar or anywhere else, means there is $1-2k on the table to be negotiated for a 20k car if not more. Forgot to mention that there are a few dealers that still have 2013 models, yes 2013 models, available that can be had for a steep discount, ie 2013 Nissan Altima V6 non-leather at Nissan Tysons, MSRP is close to 30k, they listed them for around 20k, which means you can probably get it for 18k plus tax/tags. I checked this a few weeks ago so they may/may not be there now.

Best of luck.

-car guy

Have you tried the Costco program? In my experience, the dealer website price is VERY high and can be beat by much more than $1-2k, Truecar or other prices are still quite high, but the Costco price is pretty darn good. I'd be interested to hear if you have been able to get a better price than Costco -- maybe I can be doing better! Caveat: I've only purchased new cars this way, not used. There seems to be even more haggling with used cars.

Anonymous wrote:I used the USAA car buying service (another awesome benefit of marrying my military man). Easy peasy. I have heard that the Costco program is very similar. Good luck!

Anonymous wrote:Sort of tangential: has any listened to the This American Life story about the car dealership? My takeaway from that episode was that apparently car dealers (or maybe just Chrysler) are desperate to meet their quota at the end of the month so that the manufacturer will give them a bonus, which can be as much as 80k. The people buying cars at the end of the month snagged crazy deals as a result. Has anyone else found this to be true at other dealerships??

Anonymous wrote:Use Costco or truecar as a starting point to your negotiation and to find the invoice price for the car and options (especially if your work or bank has a deal with truecar - as that will give you a lower truecar price). A good price is usually around 4% below invoice. Costco (for our last purchase) was 250.00 below invoice, truecar came in with a range for the three dealers, some above Costco, another significantly below. email the dealers that have the car you want on the lot - give them the best price you have and see if they can beat it. Commit a few hours and save a couple thousand. Just don't step in a dealership until you have your out-the-door price confirmed in writing.

Anonymous wrote:Sort of tangential: has any listened to the This American Life story about the car dealership? My takeaway from that episode was that apparently car dealers (or maybe just Chrysler) are desperate to meet their quota at the end of the month so that the manufacturer will give them a bonus, which can be as much as 80k. The people buying cars at the end of the month snagged crazy deals as a result. Has anyone else found this to be true at other dealerships??