Joeb427

iTrader: (1)

No guarantee you'll get a $54K or $55K number but you should be in that ballpark. $1600 of list is a bad number.Especially when there's a $1500 Loyalty incentive.Don't forget Lexus will pay your first payment if financing too.Make sure you tell the sales person.

bigblack06

iTrader: (20)

Yeah called them, the sales guy I dealt with and the finance guy are both off today so after Christmas day I'll be able to work this out. They never told about the $1500 loyalty or first payment.

ntocamping

Very good decision. Always sell your car persoanlly. Trading in is a rip off.

bigblack06

iTrader: (20)

I know I was trying to make life easier but it seems I made it harder, I can live with selling to someone I know will love the car vs the dealership.

SW17LS

This is what I was afraid of, they saw that you were more concerned about the trade than the purchase price of the car so they gave you more for your trade, but they essentially sold you the new car for full sticker price when you factor in the $1,500 incentive.

It may or may not be a bad deal depending on what your 2007 is ACTUALLY worth. If the real trade in value is like $16k, which it may be since Carmax only offered you $15k, if they give you $7k more for the trade, yet sell you the new GS for MSRP...they are still coming off sticker $5,500 (the $1,500 is cash neutral for them since its a rebate), or nearly 10%, they are just giving you the money in the trade instead of off the price. In the end, its six of one, 1/2 dozen of the other.

Are you financing or leasing? Whats the rate or money factor?

But...you're in the same spot you were in, we need to find out what a fair value actually is for your trade before we can tell you if this is an okay deal or not.

Selling your car on your own is a PITA. You don't have the ability to offer financing, so you're limited to cash buyers and you have to spend time marketing it, meeting people, letting them take test drives, dealing with tire kickers. I wouldn't go through that for a couple thousand bucks personally, plus you loose the sales tax benefit for the tradein depending on your state.

matt2421

Car salesman are almost all villians. The first guy tried to low ball him on his trade, the second guy fails to mention the conquest rebate, villians in my book. I dont have to say anymore, looks like the salesmen this guy is dealing with are filling the stereotype on thier own. At least those guys who are trying to fleece this guy out of thousands of dollars have you to back them up. Crooks and villians in my book.

SW17LS

Look...the guy is still involved in the transaction, either try and help him like we're doing...or just back out of the thread if you don't have anything constructive to contribute. We're trying to help him negotiate a deal, not whine about being victimized by car salesmen. I'm actually trying to help save him money, why don't you actually read what I'm posting?

Like I said, it may not be a bad deal depending on what the actual trade value is for your 07 GS, we just have to find out what that is. You have two appraisals other than this one, one for $16k, one for $15k. I would get another one, Edmunds has an online trade deal that makes a bonafide offer. Its usually low, but its worth having as another data point. Here it is:

https://tradein.autotrader.com/ATPag...NX=TIMATCHPBTN

Try and get another quote separate from the purchase deal to see where it may be at. Then get some quotes for the purchase separate from the trade, then we'll work on combining them. You should be able to negotiate 10% off of the price of a GS right now with little to no effort. I would wait until right up to month end because its also year end.

PM me if you want and I'll be happy to give you my email if you want quick thoughts on numbers while you're there at the dealer.

matt2421

Whoa there buddy, calm down, its not worth blowing your top...my original post below, before you decided to come to the defense of the salesman trying to fleece the guy out thousands of dollars.


been there and i feel your pain. I realize there are alot of salesman on this site and they are not going to want to hear this but they are not your friends! i dont care how nice or friendly they are, they are there for one reason, to seperate you from as much of your money as possible!!!

My story...i had a '06 RWD GS 430 with 73K miles. I did my homework and i had several resources saying my car was worth between 19 and 21k. those sources were Edmunds, Kelly blue book, auto trader and my credit union (USAA). I went into my normal Lexus dealer and they offered me 16.5K. I was shocked at first which quickly turned into anger as i saw an '07 GS 350 on thier lot with 90k miles listed for 25K. i brought this to the attention of the used car manager and he tried to explain to me that the car that was for sale was an AWD, and a year newer thats why it was worth 9k more. I then told him i had resources that said my car was worth more. He then asked what those sources were and i told him.he then told me that those sources do not buy and sell cars on daily basis like he does for the delarship and that while those sources give you a ballpark price, the price that he offered was the true value of my car. So, no matter what i would have said he had an answer for it, just like a stereotypical used car salesman. Needless to say they lost my business. I wrote to Lexus about my episode with this dealer and i got a call back from the delaer about a week later and he said re-evaluted my car and then offered me 17.5k. At this point i was so upset with that dealership that i wasnt going to do business with them at all. Anyway, i shopped around to 5 different Lexus dealerships in the DC area and i finally got a dealer to offer me 19k. It was on the low end of my range but the delaer agreed to throw in remote start and transfer my aftermarket wheels from my old car to the new one for free. moral of the story, while there are a few good dealers out there, most are out there to screw you...so...shop around.

SW17LS

I know I said I wasn't going to get into this again, but this is too funny not to respond to.

So, let me get this straight...the dealer offered to swap your aftermarket wheels, which he did not want anyways, to your new car for "free", something that took a lot porter 10 minutes to do, and he got a set of OEM wheels and brand new tires out of the deal that improved the value of your old GS...and you thought that was him helping you out?!? LOL. Did he offer you the same deal on the new GS as the other dealer? How about the interest rate?

Hey, he did it for FREE! What a guy. Threw in a remote start that was probably already installed on the car too. Just those nice new wheels and tires on your old GS were worth the $1,500 more he offered you! Those tires are $300 a piece! Wheels are $500 a piece.

I'm willing to bet you let your anger at the first dealer get to you and the deal where you actually bought the car was either the same deal overall as the first dealer or worse as it was for the OP. At least he made you think he was "catering" to you. Hilarious.

matt2421

SW10ES, you are truly the salt of the earth, keep talking, i find it hilarious. Dealer got the original wheels from the '06 GS 430, which were sitting in my garage for years. They had to transfer the TPMS out of the original wheels to my aftermarket wheels which involved taking all 4 tires off the car, replacing TPMS and then remounting and balancing tires on both cars.

Actually, with the first dealer, i was looking to purchase an FSport. I ended up buying a luxury package which had a higher sticker price than the Fsport for the same deal.Keep trying to find a hole in the process SW10ES, fact is the first dealer was trying to screw me and he lost my business in the process. Keep trying to defend them despite never having met him, good on you.

As for my interest rate, i am Veteran of the US Air Force and USAA is my credit union. My interest rate is 2.25%

What else you got?

SW17LS

So he got two sets of wheels! Even better!

All that work cost him nothing by the way. Even if he gave you your original wheels from the new GS, you need to understand that the car is worth more on the original wheels than on the aftermarket wheels. He did not do that to help you, he did that to help himself. He did however appeal to your ego and made you feel like he was catering to you which is obviously important to you. He would have gone through all of that anyways, and he would have had to pay for 4 new GS wheels and 4 new tires...which now he doesn't have to.

That could be the difference right there.

F Sports are much rarer than the Luxury, and have much shorter lot times. Easier to get a deal on a Luxury model than an F Sport.

The dealer I bought from had like 25 luxury models and no FSports. They had 5 luxury models just in my color combination alone! My car sat on the lot since July. So again, don't assume this is the other dealer being magnanimous.

I'm not defending anything, I'm just saying that effective negotiation is an emotionless process. It does you no good to get frustrated or shake your fist at the air and damn the auto industry. Simply expect that a dealer is going to try and negotiate as good a deal for themselves as possible, as you are...and go in armed with data, stay unattached and calm and you will do fine.

passnu2

iTrader: (33)

I feel bad for the OP....

matt2421

Oh my, cars are worth more with OEM than aftermarket? thanks for the information, you have truly enlightened me. He appealed to my ego? were you there? He got two sets of wheels? do you know how the negotiations went? were you there with me with the first salesman and the gentleman who eventually sold me my new car? or are you just assuming? I could have taken my car to NTB or a similar shop and replaced the stock wheels with the aftermarket wheels. I guess i could have had them remove the tires so they could swap out the TPMS but that would have cost me money to which the dealer did for free.


Possible, i cant honestly make that generalization, i dont sell Lexus cars for a living. If you dont mind me asking, are you a Lexus salesman? I can only tell you i went to 5 different dealers and none of them had the color combination i wanted. Also, i saw alot of LP and NG FSports on the lot with a bunch of Premiuim models as well but Luxury models were far more scarce.



This is where you and i are going to have to disageree. I work hard for my money and parting with it is an emotional process for me. I could take the family on vacation or add on the family home instead of lining the pockets of a salesman and the auto industry with an extra 7K. Make sense? Also, I went in knowing what the new car and my trade in were worth. The dealer assumed i did no homework and tried to low ball me. When i then explained all the research i had done and he did not come down from his original offer he decided to play the stereotypical car salesman role and sell me the idea that my car wasnt worth as much as it was,which it clearly was as i got a better deal in the same geographical area for the same car. you have your opinion that this is ethical business practice, my opinion is this is criminal and borderline theft. Luckily, i did my homework and i decided to shop around which is the exact advice i gave the guy who started this thread.

JRey350hou

I said as such yesterday. There's no getting around it SW is a Hoot ! he's always in some kind of debate...look up all his postings and see,,( pls no response needed SW ) I will leave it there . OP don't get discouraged keep plugging and dont hesitate to take over your thread again after Christmas when hopefully some postive movement will happen with your transaction.

sydtoosic

ditto... this thread has gone into left field. if you guys feel you have to continue (i think everyone knows who i mean)... PM each other with your differences. you two have to agree (think about it) that it doesn't make sense. at the end of the day bigblack06 will have his new GS and you guys will still be going at it.