Tried to buy a new Caravan

[Where'sPiglet?]

Ohhh...this thread is making me nervous!

I am moving at the end of this month and need to buy a car once I move. Living in NYC I have not needed one and do not have one at this time. My previous two cars were hand-me-downs from my parents when they bought new-to-them cars, so this is my first time buying a car.

I am bookmarking this thread to re-read it and educate myself.

 

[P.I. Squirrel]

I ran across a site last year that is a good read. Some of the things on this site have happened to me (and others by reading these posts) over the years.

InsiderCarSecrets.com

I am not recommending anything this guy is selling, but there is a lot of useful info there.


Given that Chrysler is in Chapter 11 right now, when the Chrysler dealer asks "Have you ever filed for bankruptcy?", we now can say "No, have you?"

 

[Tina]

I've bought a few cars in my time, but I've never negotiated the sales price by payment. Is this something new? I normally take in my printout from Kelly Blue Book and start from there.

I once accompanied a friend to car shop for her minivan and caught the salesman trying to scam her. He tried to trick her with the rebate, telling her he had to add it back in for taxes and then take it off - which in essence, negates the rebate. He got extremely angry with me when I pointed it out because she didn't understand what I was saying at first. We started to argue (myself and the salesman) and the manager came over and told me to lower my voice (probably because he heard me say loudly "You're ripping her off!"). I told the manager what had happened and he asked US to leave. No problem there! We did leave, but not without exclaiming loudly to everyone in the very busy sales room what had happened. As we walked out the door, I heard one other guy at a table near the door begin yelling at his salesman for doing the same thing. I was happy to have ruined a couple of shady deals that day.

 

[Kickapoo Joie Juice]

Now, did they lose on this - no, because most of that cash back came from the manufacturer and not the dealer. Plus, they do have their hold back. I'm trying to help an American company, not rob them. I'm happy with my end of the deal, they are happy with theirs - it was a good day!

I never worry about robbing a dealer... They won't sell you a car they don't make a profit on.

 

[clh2]

The hang onto their keys for 2 hours thing is the oldest trick in the book. They'll make it even worse if you bring a kid with you. The idea is that you'll be so flustered by the end that you'll just sign the papers to get out of there. It sounds ridiculous, but it really is a sales trick.

The closest big dealership to me lost my business for life because of stuff like this.

Seriously - man - if they want my kid in their dealership wreaking havoc...fine with me. (Although D is now 15...) If I had DD with us at the dealership when she was little, and the dealer messed with me...I would have let my kid loose in the showroom. They would have begged me to wrap the deal up at MY terms.

Really...always do your homework. Always keep the purchase price of the car separate form the trade-in value of the old car. Never allow them to "hold on to your license", always give them a spare key for the vehicle. That way, if you need to get up and walk...you can.

My DH and I purchase a new vehicle about every 4 to 5 years. The last vehicle, a Ford, we did most of the negotiating on it on-line, and then came in and test drove it. That particular day, we had a very specific timeline, since DD needed to be picked up at practice. dealer knew the time line, and at 1:30, the sales rep was pretty surprised that 90% into the deal, I put on my coat and stood up. Clearly, I needed to go. The deal was wrapped up in 5 minutes. Dealer did not know that DH and I arrived in separate vehicles. dH stayed and finished up the paperwork.

Always do your homework on the vehicle. There is SO much info online right now. Know what you want to spend. Trade-in's are a bit of a wildcard here, but play the " If the trade-in won't get at least $3500, we will sell it ourselves first, and then come in for the car" card.

As our DD is getting to a "drivable" age, when we purchased a new car in March, we did not have a trade, we are keeping it for DD. We knew down too the penny exactly what we wanted to spend on the car. Our estimate was off by about $35, since we incorrectly figured state licensing fee.

The dealer had some stupid pinstripes painted on the car, and wanted to add $300 for those...UMM - NO. Not paying for pinstripes that add nothing to the functionality of the car. Our other option was to go to a different dealer, and they had a car for the same price, but instead of the pinstripes, the car had the back-up beepers, which I would have paid the $300 for. We weren't shy about asking for the pinstripe cost to be deducted. Once they realized how serious we were about buying the car, and if it wasn't this car, the next car on our list was at a different dealer, they made it work.

To the OP - Good luck with this!

 

[florep1]

Sorryto hear about your experience. We got a new Honda for the kids the other day, got it at dealer invoice (Honda never gives any rebates), and we were out the door in less than 30 minutes(had to wait for them to clean it, and fill it with gas). Yes, this one was assembled in USA with 60% American parts, 30% Japanese. Go figure.....

 

[D&DDisney]

Just bought a 09 Grand Caravan 2 weeks ago.
Went in to the dealer with the price we were going to pay per an ad we saw in paper. Also brought the printout of what our trade was worth. Told them we would only pay X and wanted X for our trade.
The sale did take a long time, but in the end we walked out with a new car paying $7,500 less then the posted price and getting exactly what we wanted in trade.

 

[Doodlebug939]

We are in the mist of buying a house in less then two weeks so I am not buying a car in the next few months.

My husband is going to be apart from us for several months in New Orleans while we are in Fort Worth. I am concerned about a hurricane and our older vehicle not making the trip. So once we are settled I figure that we will buy a new little car. Something that interested me was this bill that they are trying to pass. It is called "Cash for Clunkers" Here is a link that gives the details.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/02/senate-poised-pass-cash-clunkers/

If it is passed it gets people who own an older vehicle the opportunity to trade in for a better vehicle with a voucher of 3,500-4,500. That is on top of the tax write off that you get for buying a vehicle this year (return of state tax I believe)

So this leaves me to wait and see if this bill gets past. My vehicle is valued at about 2,000 right now. Any one else heard of this? If you can wait and meet the criteria it could help you.

 

[runwad]

We are in the mist of buying a house in less then two weeks so I am not buying a car in the next few months.

My husband is going to be apart from us for several months in New Orleans while we are in Fort Worth. I am concerned about a hurricane and our older vehicle not making the trip. So once we are settled I figure that we will buy a new little car. Something that interested me was this bill that they are trying to pass. It is called "Cash for Clunkers" Here is a link that gives the details.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/02/senate-poised-pass-cash-clunkers/

If it is passed it gets people who own an older vehicle the opportunity to trade in for a better vehicle with a voucher of 3,500-4,500. That is on top of the tax write off that you get for buying a vehicle this year (return of state tax I believe)

So this leaves me to wait and see if this bill gets past. My vehicle is valued at about 2,000 right now. Any one else heard of this? If you can wait and meet the criteria it could help you.

Yes Doodlebug, I've heard of this and am hoping it passes as we have a 3rd recreation vehicle, '85 conversion van, that we'd like to turn in to buy a new work car for my DH. It won't be hard to get something that gets 10 mpg more then our 85 Conversion van.ha

 

[SaraJayne]

Before you go car shopping again, you need to know the dealer invoice price (including ALL incentives to both the dealer and buyer) and the fair market trade-in value for your car. NEVER negotiate from a monthly payment standpoint. That is simply playing into their hands. Have your own financing set up ahead of time through your bank or local credit union, negotiate the price, negotiate the trade-in (it can be done) and then negotiate the payments. Payments always come LAST not first. Of course, you do have to know how much of a car you can afford before you shop but most banks have rates online along with loan calculators.

You can get new car pricing from places like Edmund's Car Guide (www.edmunds.com) and trade-in information from Kelly Blue Book (www.kbb.com).

We just (in Jan) bought a new (09) vehicle and I did all these things. I did all my homework, got all the financing in order before I even went to any dealerships and did all the legwork on my own. I emailed/called five or six dealers to see if they had what I was looking for. If they didn't email me back within 24 hours, they were out of the running.

I basically told them, this is the car I want and this is how much I'm willing to pay. The salesmen I eventually ended up buying from was wonderful and bent over backwards to help us. I was very impressed (and told him and his boss what a great experience it was).

We ended up getting the vehicle for $10,000 below dealer cost.

 

[DawnM]

We have 2 Saturns....in fact, I married my Saturn dealer! He is now an accountant, but when I met him he was selling Saturns.

I think any time you buy a car you need to do just what you said here, research, etc....the moment you say, "I want my car payments be X," they think they HAVE you......of course they can get you $400 payments and if you dont' look at the bottom line (number of months times the payments) you might just drive off with a really bad deal. I have a friend who does this. It drives me crazy. She trades in cars every 3-5 years and just worries about payments, not bottom line.....and she has NEVER gone without a payment. Then she complains that she is broke all the time.

Our cars are paid for and we plan to drive them into the ground! 2 Saturns and a Toyota.

Dawn

Thanks for making me feel like I did the right thing. Really, I don't even need a new car. I finally said to DH last night it is like the I want a HE Front loading washer and when the old regular washer breaks down beyond repair then I'll go look for one. It isn't broke and I dont' need one, so I guess I'll stop looking for one.
Funny thing though was the painless experience I had when purchasing the Saturn my DH now drives. I did the research, I figured out the base price and the incentives within a few dollars and procurred the financing from my credit union. It was an easy purchase, walked in, told them what we wanted, they sat down with what they had in stock and the prices, we took the model we wanted on a test drive and we picked it up about 48 hours later with very minimal paperwork. When I am ready to buy because of need then I will do that again, and I am pretty sure with the same slaes team since I know she can sell me any brand since the owner of the Saturn dealership also owns every other kind of dealership around here!
Funny you mention the toyota being more American than the Dodge--my sister said the same thing when I talked to her and she was metnioning the price on the Toyota mini van as less expensive than my Caravan and in need of far less maintainence. She also asked what dealership I went to and when I told her she was like OMG and told me about when she was in college and went to get her car fixed there they strong armed her into buying a new one and wouldn't give her back her old car something like beyond repair so you should just get a new one! She was 19 and by herself but said she never went there again and was sorry that she didn't share that experieince with me prior.

 

[Where'sPiglet?]

You're right ... that's why I said "dealer's cost" not "dealer's invoice" . IMO "cost" includes the holdback.

I do not understand these terms.

I went and looked at a few cars yesterday. I know exactly what I want and the MSRP for it. Now I just have to figure out exactly how to GET it.

 

[SaraJayne]

I do not understand these terms.

I went and looked at a few cars yesterday. I know exactly what I want and the MSRP for it. Now I just have to figure out exactly how to GET it.

Dealers cost is what the dealer paid for the vehicle.

Dealers invoice is what they are selling it for.

 

[Princess April]

I swear it was easier for us to buy the house then it was our cars.... I have had some really disrespectful dealers over the last few years and we just get up and walk out... One man even told my DH to "control his wife" when I told him I was taking the baby (she was 3 then) and leaving and he could stay if he wanted to... I swear my DH (the calmest man on the planet) almost reached across the desk and punched the guy!!! (and he's 6'3" 250+ lbs. not a force to be messed with! )

 

[amjg]

I never worry about robbing a dealer... They won't sell you a car they don't make a profit on.

This is not necessarily true. We own a car dealership and my husband came home the other night and said they had sold 10 cars that day. But they sold three cars for less than he had in them just to move them. If they sit on the lot too long they end up costing money.

 

[rcraw45425]

I bought a new Mercedes last month, very painless transaction. I went by the dealer ship on Wednesday, just to look, then had to leave my carpool week), the salesman called me that night offering 1.9% for up to 66 months. DH and I talked and I went back the next day and drove one, of course they wanted me to take it home, no dice. I also found out that my lease was actually coming up one month sooner than I thought (it was actually up June 1 instead of July 1 like I thought). I went back the next morning (Friday) and decided on a different one of the same model, sat from 10ish till around 12 when DH came by to pick me up for lunch, we went by after lunch, signed the papers and I was on my way by 2:30 that afternoon. We have always had pleasant experiences with our local Mercedes dealership, very unlike all of the other domestic dealerships here in town. We live in a city that houses a huge army base and the dealerships tend to treat everyone badly (can I say that Bill Heard Chevrolet originated here?), so dealing with people that tend to bend over backward for you is a nice change of pace. They called me a week later to tell me that they had one of the hard cargo mats and a set of high end rubber floor mats for me, as a thank you. All we ever received from Ford was a folding chair!