markwill12

I've seen all the various "best practices" around negotiating (don't state the financing up front, don't disclose whether I have a trade-in, etc, etc). It's all sooooo tiresome and one of the reasons I a lot of my work colleagues (over 900 to date) successfully use a particular buyers agent. I am very seriously thinking of doing the same again, having had her save me a bundle when I bought a car previously. She handled EVERYTHING, delivered the car to my work place and I just signed a few papers. Simple and painless and, as I say, back then she saved me a few thousand.

However, I also like to make things simple when working with dealers I am currently working with a few dealers on a good price for an ES 300h. I had a thought last night that I THINK is a no-no, but thought I'd ask for the collective wisdom here.

I have identified a car at one dealer that fits the bill, assuming I can get a decent price. He's asked me to name a price and said he'd "find a way" to make it work (yeah, OK ). I do have a trade in, potentially.

ALL I care about (having identified the car) is the NET price I will pay, after all is said and done. So, I am considering going back to him and saying something along the lines of:

"I have this car to trade in. You sell me the ES 300h, I sell you this car and I want to pay a TOTAL (including everything, except any interest that might be charged on a finance deal) of $40,000. That includes the ES 300h, the credit for the trade-in, TTL - everything. You can work the numbers any way you like - but I will pay $40,000 total, plus interest."

I am not asking for a comment on whether the number ($40,000) is a good one (obviously, I'd have to provide the ES 300h and trade in details and it's obviously subject to an inspection of my car - but it's a Honda Accord LX in very good condition and with only 70,000 miles).

What I AM asking for are opinions on whether I am likely to see any benefit in letting the dealer work his own magic with the numbers - providing I don't pay more than $40,000 plus interest.

BTW, I am not worried about the interest because even if I finance through them (helpful for the dealer, presumably) I plan to pay it off within a month.

Am I smoking? Are there any dealers who would play straight on this and consider this type of proposal?

Mark

lexuslover

that is perfectly fine and IMHO the better way to go about things when you have to trade a car in.

i negotiated a car for my mom last year which involved selling the RX as a trade, and i said, look i don't care how you "massage" the numbers, i want my monthly payment to be $___ when all is said and done. with no money at signing (the trade is used partially as first month).

if you do a little math and understand what is the fair price on the ES in your region, and then a fair price on your trade, and then run the scenario, and work out the payment yourself and tell the salesperson to go figure it out. i didn't want to deal with how much is this new car, how much are you going to give me on the trade, and what interest rate. i already knew that the rate should be 1.9% and how much i wanted to finance after taxes, etc, so i just calculated it and gave him the number and he worked it out. in our case, they ended up allocating an additional $2500 to the trade that they were initially not giving us.

of course in negotiations you want to start lower than your target price, so that's what we did and we "met in the middle" which was what we intended and were very happy with.

gmanusmc

Mark - when a trade in is involved, that is what the dealer is doing - buying the car you are trading in. As you probably already know, a trade in complicates the deal and the buyer must be very careful not to let the dealer use this to their advantage. You must have your car honestly appraised to find out an accurate trade in value through places like Carmax, kbb, edmunds, etc. I do know this - ask anyone who is in sales - he who speaks first...loses. You need to get several dealers involved and request that they provide their best quote. Once you tip them off, you have given them a number that will only go up - you won't be able to go down and you have allowed them to control the negotiation.

Bill G

bc6152

Buying a new car: Determine lowest price by checking with 2-3 dealers if possible. Do not inform of any trade.
Check with costco or Sam's Club buying service (almost the same as your buyer's agent except free). Determine who has lowest price and secure it. Go online and determine value of your trade from several sources. Print these reports and bring with you to dealer. You will be offered WHOLESALE value for your car. Pick a color that wife likes. 2.Buy car, go home, tell her you got it "on sale" for about 2-3 thousand less than you actually paid. Show car to wife, kids and neighbors. Happy wife = happy life. Never give a number (price or acceptable monthly payment) to a dealer - ever...

markwill12

So, I think this approach worked really well for me. It simplified the whole discussion and we didn't get stuck in the weeds. I came up with a cost (in my mind) that I wanted to pay for the car (x) and a price I wanted for my trade off (y). I allowed 10% for TTL and any other fees. So, the price I offered was (x - y) * 1.1.

We just negotiated on that price and didn't worry about how the dealer worked it out, which gave him some flexibility to "fudge" the numbers between the new car purchase and the trade-in to his how benefit (but didn't matter to me in any meaningful way).

I think I paid a reasonably good price for the car (exactly the invoice price, which I believe isn't too bad in Washington State). I got $600 over the trade-in value as figured by KBB for my 2003 Honda Accord LX V6.

But I really liked the simplicity of the whole thing. I knew there were not going to be any "surprises" when I walked in the dealer. I'd already agreed the exact value of the bankers draft I'd be bringing along, so there was zero point him trying to sell me more stuff or "accidentally" have any oversights on the paperwork. And it all went very smoothly.

I am very happy with this approach and, as per another recent thread, I have got rid of my old car with zero hassle.

Loving my new car Thanks for all the suggestions, everyone.

Mark

gmanusmc

Congratulations Mark - these ES's are really nice cars and you are really going to enjoy it!

markwill12

Thanks When I bought a Nissan Quest 9 years ago, the family was so thrilled with the DVD player that I took the kids out for a ride with some friends - just so they could watch a movie on the move. And, yes, they saw the whole movie

If I follow that logic, with all the goodies in my new car I need to go out driving all day

Mark

Arty101

Mark, good luck and fun fun with your new car.

SW17LS

Congrats!

I think you went about it fine, in a way that worked for you. At the end of the day I think people get too tied up trying to squeeze every dollar out of the deal they can. Figure out a fair price, and make the deal.

markwill12

Thank you. Yes, I have little double that I could potentially have got a better deal if I spent a lot more time on it, searched outside my region, negotiated really aggressively and so on - but at some point I need to put some value on my time (and, to be fair, I was treated fairly and respectfully by the dealer).

I wanted....

. A great car with the options I wanted
. The simplicity of trading in my old car, as compared to a private sale
. A real sense of comfort that I got a good deal. If one accepts the KBB suggested value on my trade-in, I effectively got my 300h for hundreds below invoice, which doesn't seem bad for this part of the world.

I achieved all three of those. So, I am happy.

I did knock them down $750 in the last hour or so, including $400 below "last offer" price Pretty sure they will survive though!

By the way, the whole process exposed significant differences in attitudes across dealers. The guys I purchased from treated me like an adult not a "target".

Thanks again.

Mark

SW17LS

There's a huge spread between dealerships when it comes to service quality, even within the same brand...