Home Forums Gear Hunting Trucks and Four-Wheel Drives Vehicle Buying/Pricing Services

Anyone ever use one?
Was it worth it or just a waste of time.

YES I absolutely HATE to put up with the hassle of fiddling with these people so that I am paying a fair and reasonable price.

Why is it only vehicles are overpriced and one has to fight to get it down to fair.
Corn isn't that way, Hay, most everything we buy.

A few years ago, we bought a used pickup from a dealer in a town near here. Their policy is no dickering. The price on the window in the lot is what you pay, no matter what. They're the biggest dealer in that town and they polled their repeat customers to see what people wanted. The result showed that nobody wanted to dicker so that's what they went to. New or used, they set what they consider to be the market price and they stick to it.

I you know what you want, then also know how much you will pay.

Have cash or pre-arranged financing.

Make an offer, lower than what you are willing to pay. The sales man will say he needs to check with his boss and will leave you in a hot little box. The sales man will go take a leak and tell some jokes with his boss, then come back and tell you no. Make your second true offer and the sales man will then leave again. Give him 3 minutes and then get up and walk out and see his reaction.

Do all of this on the last weekend of then month

I used one a few years ago when I bought my current truck. Dealer had a $2500 cash back deal, buyers service got me another $2500 off sticker, so seemed like a decent deal on a $33K Toyota Tundra.

Could I have done as well or better on my own after starting to walk out a couple of times? Probably. Dealer isn't going to sell at a loss either way. But using the pre-negotiated buyer service price saved a lot of time and hassle.

Keep in mind, if you use the buyer service, the pre-set price is only good for EXACTLY the vehicle and options described in the package. If you decide to add options or accessories, or if the exact vehicle isn't available locally and they offer a "similar" equipped vehicle you'll have to pay for any extras. Do your research ahead of time and make sure you describe the options you want as precisely as possible if you use a buyers service.

I went thru the USAA members buying service. They use data from Truecar, but work with local dealers directly.

Also, if you want to trade in a vehicle that becomes a separate negotiation.

I've never had to fight or work hard to get the price I want. I walk in, tell them what I want and give them a reasonable price. If I don't get an OK, I shake hands, tell them thanks for their time, and tell them I'll float the offer up the road. Almost every time they decide to sell right then. A few times they didn't and the competition did. I'm nice, polite, and to the point. I usually get what I want.

I don't go to a dealership until I'm ready to buy and I'll email every one I'm willing to drive to in order to get their best price up front. If they don't want to give me a price without me coming in, so long. Some offer terrible deals, while others aren't bad. Then I'll use one dealer against another to get the best price.

I have used USAA's car buying service, but get better deals on my own. For my '17 4Runner TRD Off-Road Premium I was offered $1900 off with USAA's CBS. I emailed back saying I'll take it for $3500 off or I'd just go out of town to get it. They agreed.

https://www.carvana.com/

My neighbor just traded in 2 cars to these folks and purchased 2 newer vehicles from them. Said it was the easiest and simplest car buying process he has ever been through.

My next purchase will be at Dave Smith motors. No hassle low pricing and I'll either fly down and drive it back or have it shipped up. Our local Dodge dealer made me an enemy for life with the purchasing goat rope than ran me through, and that was almost 12 years ago. I put a high value on my time, they could care less how much of it they wasted.

On the flip side our local Mercedes dealership has been a joy to deal with for purchasing and servicing vehicles. Had the same sales guy on the last two vehicles and will ask for him by name in the future. I generally detest salesmen, so for me to consider using one again is high regards.

Good method as very few dealers want you to leave with your money.

LouisB, just pay attention to the ads on TV at year end and they are telling you how many thousands of dollars that they are willing to take off the MSRP sticker price for the out going models. That should give you a good starting point of where you want to start to dicker. What I do is call or visit a lot of the smaller out of town lower overhead dealers to negotiate their price, then go to the dealer where you want to buy the vehicle from with some other competitive bids. That salesman isn't your buddy and when they quit smiling, you know that you are getting close. When I bought my first new truck, the sales manager offered me a job because I knew more about the truck than the guy selling it. Don't drool all over something that they have in the lot dropping buying signals, or they have you right where they want you. Check out what they have on the lot some Sunday afternoon when the salesman isn't there watching you.

I used Costco one time and bought a new Accord and saved a ton of money. I went to the same dealership a few years later to buy a Civic and the price was disappointing.

Just yesterday at Costco in Baton Rouge saw an older couple buying an Audi and they seemed elated if that's worth anything to anyone.

I ran into a place like that. After test driving the used SUV I was interested in, I showed them the online printouts of the dealer just down the road who'd had that very truck on their lot for 11 months, listed for $2K less than this place was now asking.

The lady wouldn't budge. I asked her if she'd like to bring the boss in, to explain how they thought they were going to move the truck at a higher price, when even the lower price was demonstrably too high (it hadn't sold in nearly a year). She declined, and wished me well.

I don't enjoy dickering, but when data is fairly easy to come by these days, I don't enjoy being treated like a fool.




Yup. I pick a model, trim level, and color that's fairly common and shows up on most of the dealers' inventory pages. Then I call them 3 days before month's end, telling them EXACTLY what I want, and that I'll take delivery on the last day of the month. Day 1 = get quotes, Day 2 = make the rounds just 1 more time, giving all one chance only to meet or beat the best offer, Day 3 = buy vehicle.

I test drive to see what I want, then never visit a dealer 'til I take delivery. Anyone who won't bid, or tells me to "come in" with my best offer, gets scratched. And some dealers are so close to their monthly sales goals, that they throw out some deals that neither I, nor their competitors, can believe.

Fighting Chance has pricing data and sales trends, along with spelling out how to do the bidding process. I find their data is worth the $39.95 they ask.

FC

Funny I just sent an inquiry out Sunday over edmunds
One brand, common options (are there any real options in a basic PU any more)
Really seems more like a "sales lead" service for the dealers that participate in the area

Basic $38K level

One was willing to drop a whoppng $138 and I told them I would not be bothering them any more and their counter was "Well just look at our resale value". Right off there is one less to fiddle with.
One other willing to cut $700 and change, no counter.

One came down thousand and something
Nice but still to pricey
Finally the lastcame off thou and change, the off another thou and then 500 and then 250, and then mgrs special deal of another 250.
This guy may make his bonus this month.
One more dealer that did not participate, but since he is in a high rent district he may not be in the running, besides all his trucks are in a separate lot and signs everywhere that only employees are allowed in that area.
Hard to sell me a truck I can't even look at without salesman breathing down my neck

Did I ever mention how much I hate buying a vehicle?
Wonder what percentage of the population would compare it to getting a root canal without anesthetic?

Rant mode off

One Jeep dealership down here in central Florida advertised up to 30% off MSRP on 2018's on TV last week. I've seen 20%, 22% and even 25%, but never 30% until then. I'm sure that the "up to" part isn't going to include which ever one that you are looking at, but I thought that it was an interesting come on..

The Ram Dodge, Jeep dealer I was at last week must have had 100 jeeps on the lot.
Apparently they are plentiful right now, almost all were hard top whatever the modern version of the CJ is called.

My wife bought a new car last fall and we used truecar or true price or ??? from sam's club and it was like craigslist where you had tons of dealers calling / emailing / texting for the first couple days and then dropped off quickly assuming you bought already. Poor follow up and tended to try overselling you. Dealers wouldn't read your requirements very close

We found the same car on the buying service at higher price than the car on the dealer website.

I would not recommend it unless you need a sorting tool to find a specific car or have to travel a ways for a dealer.

Your mileage may vary

Don't use the USAA car buying service as it is worthless. It is nothing more than a sales lead generating scam for dealers as has been described above for other Truecar and others.

There are car buying concierge's who specialize in buying cars. You can either pay them a flat rate up front or you can get your best deal, send it to them and they make money on how much they improve the deal. I may try something like this is the future because the Truecar stuff is simply worthless.