Anyone take advantage of the "employee discount" at car dealerships?

[Rock'n Robin]

Rats, do you know of the 3 dealerships in Toledo only 1 Malibu LT has onstar? And of course it's silver. Even if it's a great deal, I'm not planning on "settling" for a car that doesn't have what I want on it. Onstar is very, very important to me. I wonder why the nicer trim line has so few available with onstar?
Boy that checking inventory online is cool, though!
Robin M.

 

[Shannon G]

Rats, do you know of the 3 dealerships in Toledo only 1 Malibu LT has onstar? And of course it's silver. Even if it's a great deal, I'm not planning on "settling" for a car that doesn't have what I want on it. Onstar is very, very important to me. I wonder why the nicer trim line has so few available with onstar?
Boy that checking inventory online is cool, though!
Robin M.

It might still be worth checking into - the dealer may be able to swap with a dealer from another area. The dealership we use sometimes swaps with dealers in NY, so you may not be limited to really local dealerships to find what you want.

 

[gopherit]

Does anyone know if this is true for both Chevy and Ford: you can combine the Employee discount + either a rebate or low APR?

TIA!

Can only speak to Ford, thanks to the nice new silver Ford Escape Limited
parked in our garage...

Ford has SEVERAL "incentives" offered right now in addition to the employee discount. For example, our purchase listed an MSRP of $28,880. THe Employee price was then listed as 25,805. They tacked on an additional $2000 cash back OR reduced financing -- i.e. 1.9% -- which either leaves you at a purchase of 23,805 or cuts you a nice break on interest while you invest the moolah elsewhere (I think CDs interest rates are around 4% or so now). If you buy a truck, there is also a "Home Depot" bonus of some sort too -- I think that's an additional $500 cash or up to $800 something bucks of Home Depot merchandise. Go to www.ford.com and you can see exactly what the incentives are. One note, though -- it's only the 2005 models, and certain ones are excluded (such as the mustang someone mentioned, or the hybrid vehicles also. We would have loved to try a Ford Escape Hybrid... but not at full price, thanks!) THe incentives vary with the type vehicle. Also -- be aware that some regions have specials at different times -- we learned that we couldn't get a single Toyota incentive right now in our state... but 15 minutes across state lines would net us reduced interest rates and up to 1000 cash back depending upon the vehicle. TUrns out they do their incentives by region. Naturally, of course, no one in West Virginia was going to tell us THAT!

The goal of the employee price is of course to move vehicles. It also serves the purpose of gaining market share. And I guess it worked on us. For example, DH and I were TOTALLY focused on getting a Toyota. But Toyota just wasn't dealin'. The Escape was a nice in-betweener from a RAV4 to a Highlander in size... we got leather seating, side curtain airbags, 3.0 engine for way less than we would have paid for the Toyota. Now granted -- I'm partial to Toyota for a reason, and that's its reliability and strong resale value -- I LOVE my Sienna and would have loved virtually anything off that Toyota lot, LOL! But my DH has "Failure to Commit" issues when it comes to buying vehicles. He has zero haggling skills, and Toyota KNOWS they have a strong product -- true "deals" are hard to come by (except maybe in the Camry line... SUVs are just seeling too strong, and the gas economy of the RAV4 is attractive to someone looking for an small SUV). This type dealer-incentive purchase such as what we got with Ford (i.e., an established rock-bottom price, here ya go, clearly posted) meant no dickering, no haggling. They were willing to find whatever we wanted (fortunately, they had it, right on their lot, but my colleague bought a truck this week and they picked it up for him at a dealer 6 hrs away.) We got what we wanted in features, and at a good price. THis dealership has an excellent service dept too -- so if it does poop out on us for any reason, we know we can get nice loaner vehicles, etc (sad to say I'm alsready thinking that way, with a new car -- but I'm leary of the US auto lineup in terms of performance, thanks to a really bad experience with a Chrysler! I think any auotomotive group (foreign makers included) can crank out a lemon... I just think the odds of getting one (and the degree of its lemon-ness!) are higher with some makers versus others!

Plus -- we kinda feel like we're doing our company a favor, as our company's businesses are major suppliers to the American automotive industries. If automotives don't sell, we don't sell, it's that crazy circle of life thing, on a fiscal perspective.

All in all, we just thought it was a good deal, a pleasant buying experience, and the vehicle fits our needs very well. So while Toyota is our first and only true "love", I think we can make room for an American-made "mistress" for a while!

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[ZachnElli]

Chrysler and Jeep are getting into the Employee discounts also.

 

[vettechick99]

Thanks gopherit!!!! And congrats on your new car...don't you just love that new-car smell? mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.......

 

[BriarfoxinWA]

Does anyone know if this is true for both Chevy and Ford: you can combine the Employee discount + either a rebate or low APR?

TIA!

We just bought a Ford Focus. Got the Employee discount PLUS a rebate of $2,500. MSRP on the car was just over $20,000 - we paid $14,400.

We had our choice of either the rebate or 2.9% financing...

 

[castlegazer]

I bought a Saturn Relay. I got an absolutely amazing deal of about $7,800 dollars off because it was also a program car (the type of car has only been out for about 6 months so I was very very lucky to find a program car with a few miles on it).

I learned the hard way there was no set discount. Discounts varied widely on different models and the higher the price the greater the discount on it. It is a great deal at Satun because they normally do not have any type of deal like this excepp a little over $1K for personalizatin sometime.

The original GM deal is a very good deal for some of their higher model - less traffic cars. If its a car they have no problem selling, there is less of a discount.