roger13134

Just wrapped up a 3 week process of car shopping. Started off looking at L/Certified ended up buying a new 2017 ES 350. The process was draining, stressful, but also kind of fun. Here are some tips for people looking to buy (new) ES or other vehicle!

1) Use TrueCar to initiate contact with dealers with your specific car in mind (Don't be afraid to contact dealers out of state within reason). Once you get communication going ask for their absolute best price on your target vehicle. Tell them you are looking at multiple dealers and will not be coming in person unless you have their lowest price. 4/6 dealers I talked to gave me a sales price guaranteed for the end of the month

2) Go into your closest dealer/favorite dealer armed with those numbers. Tell them to beat the lowest price or your going elsewhere. Most likely they will match the lowest price and you can haggle for a few hundred more off. I actually left the dealership and got a call back 5 mins later telling them they agreed to my request of a few hundred below the lowest price of another dealer

3) Talk about incentives and trade in AFTER you negotiate sales price from MSRP price. Do not let them throw those incentive/trade in value numbers into the equation because it makes it seem like your getting a better deal than you are. Also RESEARCH your incentives. I ended up fighting for an extra 1k off because initially they wouldn't give me an incentive until after I called Lexus corporate and read the fine print

4) Realize at closing you do not need to buy an extended warranty. In fact call up other dealers and ask for their best price on the warranty. The warranty is the same no matter which Lexus you go to

5) Don't buy any of the other add ons, theyre mostly useless/high profits for the dealer

6) Do not pay for VIN etching, in most states you have a right to refuse to pay that fee even if its already been done on the car


Feel free to critique these suggestions or add your own. With this strategy ended up with 5.5k off MSRP, 2k in incentives, and $300ish off extended warranty price. Good luck all!!

bc6152

I agree with most of what you say, especially not telling the dealer you want to trade your present car in. Tell them after the price is determined for the new car.

I wouldn't use Truecar as they charge the dealer $400.00 for the lead. This $400.00 is then passed onto the buyer... Prices can be determined without Truecar just by contacting various dealers and also by using Costco auto buying services. Truecar also does not give buyers a complete option list to come to a realistic price on their web site.

Wandl

Thanks for these tips! Agree with them, keeping in mind that sedan sales are really suffering and the US auto industry is certainly slowing down (measured by unit volume) coupled with increased interest rates, automakers know they are facing
- increased lease returns (especially in luxury cars....I read somewhere 75% of all 2014's BMW's sold were leases) which are coming onto the used car market now, pressuring prices on new cars
- Increased delinquencies (over $500m of auto loans are 60 day + delinquent)
- Higher interest rates = lower purchasing power...albeit only slightly lower
- SUV's are hot, sedans are not

I would also caveat using Truecar; not only based on my own personal buying history but looking on forums like this and Edmunds, I've found Truecar's "lowest" pricing is still higher than what some great deals forum/Costco members have scored. You can use Truecar to get a good gauge of what the starting negotiation point, but don't let Truecar define what your final price to be.

The 2018 Camry will be out soon, the 2018 Honda Accord is going to be announced in 3 weeks....this hints at the possibility the Avalon will be all-new in 2019 (and since the ES is based on the Avalon, safe to assume the ES will also be completely redesigned in 2019) so Lexus dealers are likely aware there is plenty of fresh all-new competition with an end-of-cycle approaching for the ES, use all this to your advantage.

Best negotiation tool I've found, the power to walk away. You don't NEED to buy that car, but the dealer NEEDS to sell that car.

morgan1819

All good advice, and good info above.

The most important bit of all advice: walk away on the first visit/negotiation. Be kind, polite, thankful ... but be in a position to walk away and let them come to you. That's the only way you will truly know if you are getting their best price.

For a lot of people on this forum, the monetary difference between an average price and a really good price means almost nothing. It's simply about being able to drive home feeling like you were treated fairly, and got full value for money.

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gmanusmc

You did very well Roger.

Congrats and enjoy your new ES!!

HunkaBLove

This is timely. I'm looking at an ES350 with Nav and Luxury package (plus parking assist , blind spot monitoring, OT trunk, accessories, and a several other options) getting quoted:

$48,000 (MSRP) and a $41,400 (plus TTL) sales price

is there room for negotiation? Been looking at TrueCar but as you mentioned, that price is not entirely accurate.

Sorry for the hijack.

gmanusmc

First week of last August, we got a $9500 discount on a car configured just like you describe (msrp $48,298). At that time, there was a $3500 rebate for both leasing and conventional purchase. I sent emails to the Internet department of about a dozen dealers and narrowed that down to the 3 or 4 willing to negotiate honestly (you should be able to tell). Longo and Cerritos offered the best deals and we ended up with Cerritos because they were the easiest to work with and had the exact vehicle we were shopping for. Looks like the current rebate is $2500 (might be just for leasing) - that might increase as new model year approaches.

lesz

I believe that the current rebate on the ES is $1000, but I expect that number to go up significantly in the next couple of months. Car sales, in general, are down. Sales numbers for sedans, including the ES, are way down. So, I would be surprised if the rebate for the 2017 ES doesn't climb to levels similar to those of last summer and last fall for the 2016 ES. Also, as we move through August. that is when there likely will be unadvertised incentives to the dealers to help them move their remaining 2017 inventories in anticipation of the arrival of the 2018 cars, and that will allow the dealers to be even more aggressive in their discounting.

While I'm confident that discounting will be more aggressive in the late summer and into the fall, for right now, the price that you are being offered appears to be good, but the assessment of any price needs to be qualified.

Car dealers make their profits in a variety of ways, and the selling price of the car relative to MSRP is only one of them. Additionally, the dealers can make profits from lease terms, finance terms, undervaluing trade-ins, selling the buyer high mark-up extended warranties, selling the buyer high mark-up dealer added options, etc. So, for example, if a dealer sells a car for $7000 less than MSRP but, if the dealer can undervalue the trade-in and sell the customer an extended warranty, that dealer can make a bigger profit from that deal than it might otherwise make on a deal with a discount of only $3000 from MSRP that doesn't tap into any of those other profit sources. If you buy an extended warranty at anything even close to the advertised price, for example, buying that extended warranty, alone, can be the equivalent of giving the dealer back $2000 or more of the money that you thought you were saving with the discount from MSRP

I'm curious about the $48,298 Luxury package ES. How is it equipped to get the MSRP that high? Most ES with the Luxury package have an MSRP around $46,000, and when you get to a MSRP of around $49,000, you are getting into the territory of an Ultra Luxury package ES.

gmanusmc

You're right lesz - the msrp for our current ES was actually 47,015 - it's pretty well equipped including pano roof, one touch power trunk, pre collision, and other stuff that adds to the sticker (no dealer installed add ons though - I don't go that route). Reminds me about how great the discount was (20%) haha. The 48,298 msrp was the 2014 IS350 lease that we turned in before we got the ES. That's what I get for relying on memory. Thanks for refreshing my memory.

lesz

Thanks for the added information.

Even though I (mistakenly) asked about a $48,298 Luxury package ES, I was actually more interested in knowing how the $48,000 Luxury package ES that HunkaBlove is considering is equipped. While I can see how a Luxury package ES could get up to a MSRP of $47,000, I'm not sure how you get a Luxury package ES up to a $48,000 MSRP.

If it was me, as an alternative to a $48,000 MSRP ES, I think I'd consider an Ultra Luxury package ES for a MSRP of around $49,000 and which could likely be bought for less than $1000 more than the $48,000 Luxury package ES. While I admit that many of the UL package features, including the ambient lighting, rear seat sunshades, front passenger memory settings, etc. are not important to me, the UL package car would have the semi-aniline leather seating and driver's seat thigh extension, which, to me, are the two nicest features of the UL package. While I can understand that many could not justify spending, say, $2000-3000 for those features, for less than $1000 more, it is easier to justify going in that direction.

HunkaBLove

It has several add-on options like OT trunk, panorama roof, 18" wheels, spoiler, etc. The options added up to the MSRP (the numbers corresponded between TrueCar and Edmunds).

But I understand your point, lesz. I don't mind paying a little more and justify the UL package (but that wasn't on my original request to the dealers).

Wandl

Someone recently scored a $8500 discount off MSRP so yours is pretty close, like others said if you can afford to wait however I think you could save $1k-$2k as we approach the fall.

HunkaBLove

Ideally I would wait a few more months until next year's model comes out so prices will drop, but can't wait much longer due to necessity (my 94 Camry blew a head gasket last month).

Sometime I search incorrectly to try to find other threads about pricing.

Dstu10

I agree the prices will drop, however, 2018 is going to be a fairly unique year as there are a lot of outside market factors.
1. New car sales are down, a lot, some say it could be as high 25% from last year.
2. Consumer confidence is down.
3 Most dealers have a LARGE number of 2017 ES 350s on the lot.

My guess is we will slow production and release of 2018s until excess stock can be liquidated. Dealers need to move inventory to replace with 2017s.

Breakpoint

My guess is that if 2018 ES sales numbers continue to slump, the 2019 ES, with a major redesign, may be introduced early, like the summer of 2018. We should hear 2019 model rumors by the end of the year. This may further reduce 2018 ES prices, depending on the rumors.