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.

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Call Brown Honda in Arlington and agree to a price over the phone/email then go pick up the car. That’s what we did with them. They said they were scared we were going to haggle for additional discounts when we got there, we didn’t and everyone was happy. In and out in record time. Got a great price and sold at a profit 2 years later during the pandemic. 😁

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.

Anonymous wrote: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.

Anonymous wrote:When you consider the fact that it is less stressful and takes less time to BUY A FREAKING HOUSE, it puts everything into perspective. When I bought my house, I showed up at the closing and all the paperwork was ready to go. There were no surprise fees, no one trying to up-sell me anything. I signed on the dotted lines and everything was done in about 15 minutes. When I refinanced, we did it all by email--I didn't have to leave my house.

So the fact that car buying is so awful is a CHOICE that dealers make. When you think about it that way, you can really just get down to brass tacks. I'm pleasant, but everything about I say and do is designed to deliver this message: You can make this easy for me and get my business, or you can make this hard and lose it. (Pleasant smile.)

Anonymous wrote:Hmm, I got my Honda “$3000” off MSRP, which Im always skeptical of because of the processing fees and such.

My out the door price (including taxes and registration) was $1000 less than MSRP — is there anyway to evaluate if this was a fair price?

Financing was very smooth, and I have a 4% rate which seemed well enough.

I shopped around 7 places and this was the best offer I could fine, and it seemed okay, but went smooth enough I must have been ignorant and ripped off.

Anonymous wrote:Very good experience in the last year--Acura dealer in Arlington on Columbia Pike. Very easy experience.

Bad experience last year--Safford Honda sales in Arlington (twice tried to sneak extra stuff into my sales agreement), BUT I am a big fan of their service dept, which to me is worth it.

Anonymous wrote: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.