Buying a new vehicle tactic? Will it work? acceptable?

[spikerS]

Alright, it is about time to pull the trigger on a new vehicle, and it looks like I want to get a new 2012 4 door Jeep Wrangler. Now like everyone, I want to get the best deal possible for one and save what cash I can.

My thoughts on the matter were this:
Rather than going around to 7 or 8 different Dodge dealerships and wasting a bunch of time, I would email them all, letting them know I am looking for the best price on one, with the options I am looking for, and sending out one email, but including the sales email addresses for all the dealerships in the TO field, so they know they are competing against each other, thus hopefully eliciting a better price. Once I find the best price, booking my test drive through them, and if I do indeed like it, pulling the trigger.

Is doing something like this acceptable? will they even respond? Is there a better way to do this?

Thoughts? Or am I just being some sort of douche canoe?

[dj_rice]

Some dealers will see that you are shopping and not respond.

Some dealers who need sales will obviously respond to you.

Good tactic though

[Type_S1]

I like it though...

I don't think the base price is going to differ much but maybe some free upgrades or extra perks like lifetime oil changes or something might be offered to sway you there way!

Plus...whats the worst that can happen? If it doesn't work just go to a few dealerships...nothing to lose.

[Masked Bandit]

I would be surprised if you get much response. It's a good theory but I don't think it'll go anywhere. I'm very interested in hearing how it works out though.

[Euro838]

Wouldn't you be better off going the Car Cost Canada route? My co-workers have done this and this way you will know the numbers so you can ensure you are getting a good price. This will also let you know the dealers that have preference to Internet type sales which is basically what you are looking for. Althought it is a slow time right now for sales so your tactic may work well.

[Thaco]

They'll just reply all, remove you, and agree to respond with msrp :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Ven]

I did that last year on a new car. Worked good and what a time saver for everyone. I sent communications out Alberta wide but fortunately the dealer who played ball was local.

Some dealers didn't reply at all. Discourtesy. So that puts them out of the running.

Some replied and didn't want to do business like that. So I put them out too.

Most just kept re-quoting MSRP. They got dumped too.

But a few said my terms we're reasonable and we could probably make a go of it. So we did.

My advice would be to not leave out any details in your email. There can't be any questions and you have to know exactly what you want and on what terms. Otherwise you get caught up in stupid stuff that just burns time like crazy and defeats the purpose. Know exactly what model, options, extras, payment, EVERYTHING. There should be nothing left to do but talk money, and I should already be somewhat close if you've done your research right.

Normally I'd grind for many hours at all the dealers and then make repeat visits. Last buy took two hours tops. Got everything I wanted for the terms I wanted.

[Stunt66]

I did the same thing when we bought my wifes car last year, whats unacceptable about this? you're buying the exact same car that can be bought at many dealers so why not make them work for it. Just be upfront in the email and tell them you're emailing around looking for the best price on your car and for sure they'll deal over email. We never met our sales guy until the day we picked it up.

[510-Trevor]

Its worth trying but you probably won't get much response for the Wrangler. Chrysler is currently working to increase production in order to keep up with demand.
http://www.automoblog.net/2012/01/19/jeep-wrangler-sees-continued-demand-chrysler-works-to-boost-production/

[G]

Someone should come out with a reverse bid website for car buying. Post up what you want and see who can give you the best offer. If enough people use it the dealers would be forced to respond. This eliminates the useless sales guy so the saving can be passed on to the consumer. Most the profits for a dealership are made from service anyways.

I should copyright this shit.

[spikerS]

Originally posted by 510-Trevor
Its worth trying but you probably won't get much response for the Wrangler. Chrysler is currently working to increase production in order to keep up with demand.
http://www.automoblog.net/2012/01/19/jeep-wrangler-sees-continued-demand-chrysler-works-to-boost-production/

oof, that does not bode well for me i guess.

[Stunt66]

Originally posted by G
Someone should come out with a reverse bid website for car buying. Post up what you want and see who can give you the best offer. If enough people use it the dealers would be forced to respond. This eliminates the useless sales guy so the saving can be passed on to the consumer. Most the profits for a dealership are made from service anyways.

I should copyright this shit.

Can i buy into this:thumbsup:

[94boosted]

OP that's an interesting idea, I wonder if it might just work. But like has been said before chances are if your very specific about the jeep you want the cost difference between them will be almost insignificant IMO.

Just as an FYI, I just helped my Fiances sister by a Jeep Grand Cherokee and we had the pleasure of dealing with an awesome salseman (Martin @ Big4) he had a no bullshit approach... showed us what the dealership payed (matched CCC numbers), what the MSRP was and how much profit they needed to make. Made for a super smooth transaction.



Originally posted by G
Someone should come out with a reverse bid website for car buying. Post up what you want and see who can give you the best offer. If enough people use it the dealers would be forced to respond. This eliminates the useless sales guy so the saving can be passed on to the consumer. Most the profits for a dealership are made from service anyways.

I should copyright this shit.

All that would do is stabilize the amount of gross they all tack on to their cost of the car. They would agree to tack on X% on to every car and the price would be identical from one place to another. :dunno:

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by G
Someone should come out with a reverse bid website for car buying. Post up what you want and see who can give you the best offer. If enough people use it the dealers would be forced to respond. This eliminates the useless sales guy so the saving can be passed on to the consumer. Most the profits for a dealership are made from service anyways.

I should copyright this shit.

Don't think you are the first one to suggest this. Kinda like uship.com but for cars.

The only problem, this only work if you have competing owners, like Mercedes. Audi/BMW in town won't give a shit. And it will probably only work for vanilla overstock models only.

The mass e-mail spam seems to work quite well in US cities. I know may US buyers of B8 S4 able to go under MSRP just spamming dealers in the area. No such luck in Calgary.

[Sugarphreak]

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[racerjim]

I'd suggest not just staying in calgary either, send the e-mail out to okotoks, cochrane, olds even drumheller, If you can save a bunch of money its worth the hour drive.

[ddduke]

Originally posted by dj_rice
Some dealers will see that you are shopping and not respond.

Some dealers who need sales will obviously respond to you.

Good tactic though

This is what I think too. I personally hate when people waste my time getting pricing just to show my pricing to competitors, especially when they grind me for the lowest price and when they get what they want refuse to sign but want my bottom dollar in writing (obviously to show my pricing to other companies).

I'm not saying that you're going to do this but if I saw this e-mail from you I just wouldn't reply because I'd assume you're playing stupid games and not that serious because you're not even coming in.

I also may think that you're the competition getting pricing from me, I have blocked numbers calling me all the time asking me for a total price list of 30 different products.

[AndyL]

I don't think your going to get much movement on a wrangler, dealers aren't offering virtually anything for purchase incentives on them... we were talking about trading the van in on an unlimited, unless we wanted a standard, we were going to have to order it...

[Ven]

Originally posted by ddduke


This is what I think too. I personally hate when people waste my time getting pricing just to show my pricing to competitors, especially when they grind me for the lowest price and when they get what they want refuse to sign but want my bottom dollar in writing (obviously to show my pricing to other companies).

I'm not saying that you're going to do this but if I saw this e-mail from you I just wouldn't reply because I'd assume you're playing stupid games and not that serious because you're not even coming in.

I also may think that you're the competition getting pricing from me, I have blocked numbers calling me all the time asking me for a total price list of 30 different products.

It's your job to make as much money off me as possible. It's my job to keep as much money in my pocket as possible. Especially when you're selling the exact same thing as the next dealer. I price shop, it's my money. But my email method explicitly stated no dicking around, no games, and obviously by it's content hopefully someone should be able to tell I invested a lot of time into my own research. I didn't say, "How much for a 300C SRT-8? Gimme your best price ok." If a dealer wants to assume what I sent as not being serious that's OK, there's literally dozens of dealers with the identical product in a relatively short radius. One thing for sure is not responding is a 100% self inflicted no-sale. Dealers are going to have to adapt to this method, and some are. Personally I never want to talk to another car salesman again.

[Sugarphreak]

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[CapnCrunch]

Take the car for a test drive first. My wife had a Wrangler as a rental and there's no way I'd pay a penny for one of those. No sense wasting everyone's time if it turns out you don't even like the vehicle.

[Ven]

Originally posted by CapnCrunch
Take the car for a test drive first. My wife had a Wrangler as a rental and there's no way I'd pay a penny for one of those. No sense wasting everyone's time if it turns out you don't even like the vehicle.

I'll 2nd that. My wife went looney over the 4dr Wranglers when they came out and had to buy one. One test drive and that idea was quashed.

[Masked Bandit]

OP, have you driven one of these trucks yet?

[CapnCrunch]

Originally posted by Ven


I'll 2nd that. My wife went looney over the 4dr Wranglers when they came out and had to buy one. One test drive and that idea was quashed.

The one we had had 12,000 kms and the transfer case was already trashed. :rofl: grind...grind...grind...

F-ing Chrysler is destroying Jeep. :facepalm:

[spikerS]

Originally posted by Masked Bandit
OP, have you driven one of these trucks yet?

I just took one for a drive. Much better than the 2011. The pentastar engine makes a huge difference. Only thing bugging me about it is the steering wheel feels awfully close to the dash. Might just need some getting used to, but overall i do like it.

[Sorath]

Just go in with a CCC report? :dunno:

[Stunt66]

Originally posted by Sugarphreak


I see your point, nobody likes to spend time on something without results, however I think choosing not to participate ultimately hurts your position more than it helps.

At the same time, it is arguably a much bigger waste of time for somebody to go into each dealer and spend an hour or so trying to get the bottom price, most places also employ high pressure tactics and mislead customers at every avenue which makes the process all the more stressful. It also uses up more time of the salespersons than just responding to an e-mail.

Really I don't buy that this is a waste of time for dealerships or salespersons; firstly it is somebody approaching them with potential business; secondly the reality is the customer is using his/her personal time while the salespersons on the other hand are actually being paid to seek out business.

Besides, your competitors are going to find out what your pricing is one way or another. By e-mail, or if they send in somebody they know to pose as a potential customer.


:thumbsup: agreed 110% It's sales, not every customer is a guaranteed deal. If you don't treat every enquiry as a potential customer/sale than youre not in the right occupation. How much time can it take to fire off an email with your best price? sure some guys will be out there just wasting time but even if you land 1/10 email enquirys it's still worth it right

[ercchry]

Originally posted by CapnCrunch


The one we had had 12,000 kms and the transfer case was already trashed. :rofl: grind...grind...grind...

F-ing Chrysler is destroying Jeep. :facepalm:

mine left it's transfer case contents all over my driveway at 900kms :rofl:

[Maxt]

So the question is, what are you guys doing wrong with the T-case? The 231/241 in jeeps is just an updated model of the old np 207/208 T-cases, all made by new venture, a jointly owned company between Chrysler and GM later sold to Magna. GM and Chrysler have use them in everything , blazers, jeeps, 1/2-1 ton pickups with some pretty big power. I have been running the old np208 old version behind a built big block Dodge with 35's for more than 10 years. The only thing that should break those T-cases is not filling it with oil, driving it locked on dry pavement for an excessive distance and torque binding it, or bashing it into 4lo from 4 hi and back again at speed.
The 208 is shift on the fly, but even if I drive on hard packed snow at speed, it torque binds and I have to stop and do a 4 wheel burn out to shift back. Keep driving it torque bound and something has to give.

[CapnCrunch]

Originally posted by Maxt
So the question is, what are you guys doing wrong with the T-case?

You sound like you work at a dealership. Broken car under warranty -> customer error!! :rofl:

To be fair, mine was a rental, so god knows what happened to it before.

[revelations]

OP you might also consider doing this to out of TOWN dealers as well. A former coworker this the exact same thing by email but he also looked at dealers in Sask and Edmonton.

He ended up saving $2-3k on the price of the minivan buying from Sask.

[Rat Fink]

.

[Maxt]

Originally posted by CapnCrunch


You sound like you work at a dealership. Broken car under warranty -> customer error!! :rofl:

To be fair, mine was a rental, so god knows what happened to it before.
No I don't work for any car company, but I know what those t-cases can take for abuse.

[zipdoa]

Just use CarCost?

[ercchry]

Originally posted by Maxt
So the question is, what are you guys doing wrong with the T-case?

what i did wrong was trust that they could fill the damn thing properly from the factory... never even used it before the seal went :nut:

[Sugarphreak]

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[Mitsu3000gt]

My guess is you'll get a ton of replies like "why don't you come on down and we can chat". They want you to come in person so you're more likely to pull the trigger. Dealers generally hate negotiating over phone/email. It's like pulling teeth to get them to talk about price not in person. You might get lucky though, nothing to lose by trying.

[J-hop]

Originally posted by Sugarphreak


Just rented a 2011 4dr Wrangler Sport for a week, put about 650km on it. I actually found the engine was probably the best part. It had 20K on it and while it was fun to cruise around with the top off, all I can say is what a piece of shit at the core.

Going up any kind of hill you could hear something creaking in the drivetrain that was ready to go, the front end banged around like an old stage coach on roads and it had pretty piss poor road manners. I know the Jeep guys are going to jump on me saying "well it is designed for off-road" over the road manners... but honestly we had it doing some very light duty off-roading and it failed hard. I should have been able to fly down some of the rutted roads, but instead it was banging the front end around so badly I was babying the hell out of it hoping it wouldn't break.

unfortunately i've had the same experience with the wrangler, we used to have them at a rental place I worked for. Granted I only drove the 2010 but it was an utter POS, they were actually purged from our fleet quite quickly because we had complaints almost every time they were rented.

they also had the oddest design flaws, I remember if you washed them the roof drainage sill was such that it directed water straight into the interior of the vehicle if you had the door open. The back of my shirt got soaked on many occasions vacuuming out the footwells after washing them.

[swak]

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[Shlade]

go into the managers office, throw $500 on the table and point to the car you want... yell out "TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT SISTER" wait for response. Bullettproof

[sugoi240]

I use to work at a dealership, and I can tell you that sometimes the person on the other end of the email doesn't give a discount because only he/she has the privilege to keep the commissions via email, the other salespeople don't get "ups" via email/internet. So you are effectively dealing with one person, and if the other dealerships agree on a standard price, you won't get a deal when you go in asking for him/her at the dealership.

They figure if you come in at that price, you're willing to pay for it.

[CapnCrunch]

Originally posted by J-hop


unfortunately i've had the same experience with the wrangler, we used to have them at a rental place I worked for. Granted I only drove the 2010 but it was an utter POS, they were actually purged from our fleet quite quickly because we had complaints almost every time they were rented.

they also had the oddest design flaws, I remember if you washed them the roof drainage sill was such that it directed water straight into the interior of the vehicle if you had the door open. The back of my shirt got soaked on many occasions vacuuming out the footwells after washing them.

There's no dummy pedal to rest your left foot either. WTF?

[M.alex]

Originally posted by Ven

Some dealers didn't reply at all. Discourtesy. So that puts them out of the running.


How is that a discourtesy?

If I were a salesman to me this means that this customer is probably a dickhead who will try to jew the price down as absolutely low as possible and I won't make much commission, if any, on the sale.

there's plenty of better marks, errr, customers, out there who won't be a headache.

[Ven]

Originally posted by M.alex


How is that a discourtesy?

If I were a salesman to me this means that this customer is probably a dickhead who will try to jew the price down as absolutely low as possible and I won't make much commission, if any, on the sale.

there's plenty of better marks, errr, customers, out there who won't be a headache.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or serious. Nice work on the antisemitic slur though, class act to the core.

[bignerd]

I don't think you need to include all the email addresses you are sending the email too... I think if you are emailing it is somewhat of a given that you will be contacting other dealerships as well, and if I was a sales person it would just annoy me.

I did the same thing when buying my car, but sent each dealership a seperate email, some didn't reply, some didn't have any deal to offer and I got one good price from Medicine Hat, but ultimately ended up getting the best deal from a Calgary dealership in the end. Told them I was serious and went in to do the final numbers and dealings in person.

[codetrap]

It worked for me when I went shopping for my VW. I actually was able to cut a deal with a VW dealer, which is usually pretty unheard of.

[CanmoreOrLess]

Originally posted by Ven


I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or serious. Nice work on the antisemitic slur though, class act to the core.

I thought he was going to get off Scot free. You are going to be a busy beaver correcting all the racist, slanderous, etc hatchlings of this lot. Good catch though.

[yeller]

LNrLfylgHE0&feature=player_embedded#!

[Strider]

The times of buying/selling cars has changed a lot... these days, it's not rare for customers to know as much or more about a car than the dealers. If the customer is doing all the legwork, why shouldn't they be able to get the best price? I think this is going to eventually be the new standard for buying cars and if dealerships can't adapt, then they'll lose customers.

I used this technique recently to buy a car, and it worked pretty well. Since there aren't too many dealers, I ended up emailing as far away as Vancouver (but only because I have family out there, so I would've treated it as a visit if I had to go all the way out there to drive it back).

As a few other posters mentioned, you've got the order a bit mixed up.

Do all your research ahead of time, read up on all the specs, features, warranty, etc online. Go test drive on a weekday/weeknight when they're not busy, and figure out exactly what trim, options, color you want. Get them to build it and price it out for you.

If after the test drive, you know that this is the car for you, that's where the fun begins.

Now that you know exactly what car you want, figure out what you're willing to pay. Be reasonable and be fair.

Go to carcostcanada (paid) or carsaver.ca/unhaggle.com (free) to get the invoice price report. Know exactly what the base price is, exactly what each option costs, and every fee that gets tacked on (a/c, tire tax, pdi, documentation fee, etc). That way, you can call them out if you see inflated numbers.

Spend some time googling and reading forums to see what discounts other people are getting/have gotten (either MSRP minus $xxxx or xx%, or Invoice plus $xxxx, even Invoice minus $xxx in some rare cases when there's factory incentives). Take some of these stories with a grain of salt.

Start compiling your list of email addresses. Go to each dealership's website, look for the email address of either the internet sales rep (if there is one) or the sales manager.

Compose your email. Only do this when you're absolutely ready to buy... don't waste people's time.
Tell them exactly the car you want, the price that you're willing to pay, and that you're ready to put a depost today. Also, be up front - tell them that you're contacting multiple dealers and whoever comes back with the lowest price will earn your business. There's absolutely no reason to put everybody's email in the To: or CC: field. Email them separately or BCC them.

Sit back and wait for the emails/phone calls. Some dealerships may ignore you, some won't play ball, most don't want to give a written quote without commitment. No worries, you just need a couple quotes that meet your expectations.

[project240]

Originally posted by Strider
The times of buying/selling cars has changed a lot... these days, it's not rare for customers to know as much or more about a car than the dealers. If the customer is doing all the legwork, why shouldn't they be able to get the best price? I think this is going to eventually be the new standard for buying cars and if dealerships can't adapt, then they'll lose customers.




Not to change the subject, but isn't this the same with realtors these days? They make huge commission, yet, the amount of work most realtors do is significantly less than 5-10 years ago.

We were just talking with a realtor (who has been one for almost 30 years) and he told us that he used to show people on average 30-40 homes and now that has dropped to about 6-8 homes before a sale yet he still makes the same commission and house prices have gone way up (meaning he's making considerably more money for considerably less work)