Oinkyboink

How do I find the invoice price? What percentage would you suggest trying to get off the MSRP if the invoice price isn't available? (Is 15% off the MSRP still good?)

Thank you

gmanusmc

Not necessarily - dealers have been known to produce "invoice documents" that have been fabricated to convince customers they are getting a great deal at xxx dollars under "invoice." Msrp is usually pretty consistent and an excellent benchmark to measure your price by. You just need to be sure that you are targeting a percentage off msrp that is similar to the better/best deals you are seeing on various vehicle pricing forums.

gmanusmc

Stick with targeting a discount off msrp - it is your best and most consistent benchmark to gauge your deal by. Invoice pricing is a moving target and is changed from time to time by vehicle manufacturers.

If you get 12-15% off msrp, you will automatically be well below invoice.

tea

i'd offer $6,000 off. so about $36,000 + TTL

Daniel2311

I just purchased a IS350 rwd, with the exact options I wanted & color. Paid 10.5% off MRSP plus taxes. Dealer also included trunk mat & wheel locks, and tinted the windows all at no charge. I made the purchase in Dallas. I was comfortable with it overall.
Daniel

woowoo

The offer from the dealer sounds right, exactly what I'm paying.
$588/m with $10,000 trade in plus discount $3000 off

2015 250 black w/red + nav
But I think you should get a 350.....
My gas goes for little power.

gmanusmc

Congrats on your new IS!

The OP is in CA and stands to do a bit better than your dealer gave you. I'm surprised you didn't get better than $3k off - maybe they increased your trade value a bit and it all evened out.

azmojo

Although possible, this is not likely in the age of the internet. Anyone can check invoice pricing at Edmunds.com or any number of other sites. How many dealers would risk a phony invoice price that could easily be proven wrong?

On the other hand, dealers can add things into the MSRP, such as tint, aftermarket wheels, etc. and that distorts the discussion here.

Dalva

Edmunds.com is an excellent site, I've converted for CDN $ and got 4 winter tires with rims, + a 500$ discount on a 250 IS, f2, 2015.

gmanusmc

You make good points, but smart shoppers deal with just the clean msrp without all the distractors added in - when dealers are allowed to add in stuff, especially stuff you don't particularly want, it puts the buyer at a disadvantage. I avoid entering into negotiations on any vehicle that has extras added on. "Invoice" is x percentage off msrp, and occasionally the x percentage is changed with no change in the msrp. I used to use invoice as a guide like you advocate, but have discovered it much easier to use msrp as my main benchmark. You still have to keep up to speed on incentives, rebates, trunk money, etc. and compare the quotes you receive with what others are actually paying. In the end, if you achieve the right discount off msrp, and take advantage of all available incentives, you will be where you want to be relative to invoice, which is what you are recommending.

azmojo

Say what you want but it complicated things immensely because markup (MSRP to Invoice) is about 2% higher on a loaded IS350 vs a bare-bones model. By my calculations, if you pay invoice on a base model you save 6.9%. If you pay invoice on a fully-loaded model, you save 9.0%.

gmanusmc

Geez man - let it go - not too many folks buying these things bare bones - do what's comfortable for you - whatever benchmark you use, as long as you get a price comparable to the better pricing in your market and you're happy, that's what matters. Based on your numbers, I guess I should be pretty happy with the 16% (almost 8k) we got on our 350.

Not sure where you got your numbers - edmunds shows about a 7% spread btwn msrp/invoice on a 350 F-Sport/ML/BSM (fairly popular configuration).

GiN4tHeWiN

I just got the IS350 F Sport White for $47k out the door, I felt it was a pretty damn good deal. The salesman said they didn't profit from the sale, and that since it was the last day of the month (4/30), they just wanted to add another car to their monthly sales (i don't actually believe him.. but it could be possible too).

Anyway, when negotiating the price for a car, i always talk out the door prices... so that forces them to calculate the tax & title fees.. this way, you're not surprised by anything when you're about to write the check.

i don't know where you're from, so i dont' know if you have more than a few dealerships where you live. i live in san francisco, so there's about 8-9 Lexus dealerships within 75 miles. (i mean, i feel it's pretty worth it to make the drive if I can save at least 200 bucks)

my strategy was to email all of these dealers initially offering a super lowball offer. I said $43k out the door, and if they couldn't meet that.. give me your best offer. a few dealerships basically laughed in my face, but a couple gave me $51k out the door, $49500 out the door, etc etc. from there, i took the lowest offer received and emailed the other dealers saying "hey another dealership (i dont tell them which) offered me XXX, can you do better?" doing this, i finally got the price down to $47800 out the door, which i was already kind of happy with. but i took a shot and lied, and emailed the dealer nearest to me, telling them I got a dealer to agree to $47000, but they didn't have the interior in my color... so if they could match the price I'd be happy to buy it from them. they thought about it a bit and gave me the OK and told me to come in.

the MSRP for my car was $48750 before tax and TTL, so i felt $47000 out the door was pretty sweet.

Anyway, i dont know if you bought the car yet, but that's how I negotiated my car; I think it was a good way to go about it,because i didn't have to waste time driving around to each dealership and have them play their salesman games with me for hours. you're the boss here, you should be the one with the power since you're the one with the money, so don't let them use their sales tactics on you

Good luck on finding a good deal, and happy hunting!

p.s. loving the is350 by the way.. the only problem is i'm not used to paying so much for gas.. but i moved from a 2002 honda accord, pumping regular.. so i guess it can't be helped

gmanusmc

If your $47k includes TTL, that's a very nice deal at about 13% off msrp - you did a great job shopping for the car - don't feel bad for the dealer - they made some bucks somewhere on the deal.

Congrats and enjoy your new IS!!