O.K. I took the plunge, now what do I do?

[luvmarypoppins]

DH told me to start looking for a new van. I requested 3 online quotes and there is 1 more dealer that wont give quotes over the internet. Anyone have any experience with this. I hate bargaining, dealing with salespeople etc. So is the price they give us over the phone the lowest we are going to get etc. DH already said if they treat us bad in any way he is out of there. I know he means it since some guy insulted us when we bought our last van and we walked right out of the place. I was 8 mos. preg. with ds 3, had a 4 seater car and the guy says, just how serious are you about buying this van. Needles to say another nice dealer got our business. Any advice is appreciated.

 

[Dan Murphy]

Refer to www.kbb.com and www.edmunds.com

Good luck.

 

[SyracuseWolvrine]

Once you get the price quotes back from the dealers, send an email to each of them, and say that another dealer offered you (the lowest offer), can they beat the offer? (when you email the lowest dealer back, don't say that they're the lowest, just say that someone else was able to beat their price, could they go any lower? ... if they say no, and the other dealers can't match their price, you can always go back to the one who was the lowest price and say the other guy turned out to be a sleazeball, and you'd rather do business with someone honest, even if it means paying a little more ... gives you an out)

 

[mommytotwo]

The dealers can always still bargain with you. If you have a trade in, or also depending on what your down payment will be, may change the price of the vehicle or the monthly payments. When you get a quote from a dealership, get it in writing so that they can not change the price on you.
What make of vans are you looking for?

 

[legs22]

I bought my car 2 yrs. ago. I did it all online by dealing with one person at each of several dealers. I got quotes and I haggled with them through email. I loved it. So much better and easier than doing it in person.

 

[luvmarypoppins]

This whole process is frustrating to me, so far #1 writes an e mail and says say exactly what models and options you want. Hello, I did that in the original e mail. #2 calls us, when I asked to be contacted by e mail, we werent home anyway. He sent us 2 e mails and said what colors will we not consider, hello I wrote the color I wanted in the original e mail and what options are REALLY important to us. Hello, I also picked out every option that we wanted and listed them. I thought this was suppose to be simple, fast and painless. I feel like I am dealing with a bunch of monkeys. #3 has not even gotten back to us. If I say I want a blue butane 2005 Grand Caravan with so on and so forth options, that is what I want. What is the problem. Is anyone here an auto salesperson. Am I doing something wrong?

 

[OhMari]

you don't want to buy a van, do you. You can change the type of vehicle to drive. Change is good. (Just kidding).

Word of advice-don't go to a chain dealership, ( a dealer who owns many, many, dealerships. Go to a locally owned dealership. They usually have the best sales people.

Or walk into the service or collision center and ask the service manager or bodyshop manager who they like to deal with in the dealership for sales people. They will usually tell you (who is the best to work with and won't try to sell you something you don't need or want).

 

[clh2]

We did most of our negotiating on our recent Escape purchase through the internet. Are you able to check the "new dealer inventory" to see if they have exactly what you want? Or are you wanting to order a specific model? Are you looking for "last year's" or this year's model. Also - at least in the Milwaukee area, the dealer's trade inventory. We knew exactly what vehicle, color, options were available on the Escape. We also knew that the dealer we wanted to work with would need to do a trade.

One thing we found that by getting through the initial negotiations over the internet, when we walked in the door of the dealer to figure out the trade, do a test drive etc, they took us very seriously. We got a fantastic deal, we knew the bottom line price we were going to pay - considering the trade, and the dealer made it work. We were ready to walk out, because the "trade" part of things wasn't going as well as we would have liked, but they reworked the numbers. They also knew we had a specific time that we had to leave the dealership - so I needed to pick up my DD from a class. All in all - we spent about an hour in the dealership.

Do your research. Edmunds is a great resourse, as Dan Murphy mentioned. I think we also used something else to help in determining the value of our trade in - maybe something with Kelly Blue Book. DH did most of the research.

 

[mrsv98]

I have one word for you... Carmax . If you have one near you then that is the way to go. While most deal with used cars, there are some that sell new cars. That is where we bought ours, at the dealership in Kenosha, WI. You can look at their entire inventory online, the price is set, no haggle and they will transfer cars between dealerships for you, sometimes for a fee.

When we bought our Windstar, we went the dealer route and we ticked off time and again. With Carmax, it was a great experienc AND we figured out, that between what they gave me for the trade-in and the lower price on the van, we saved $6000.

We will be looking for another van in 2006, and I won't consider going anywhere else. (Here ends the commercial! )