Ed HArris
Dodge Dakota
JOIN HERE
11/30/2003
23:46:16
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 Subject: RE: Who Got the Best Deal/Price?
IP: Logged
Message:
Drove into Murray Dodge in my little reg cab 107000 mile 95 Ranger on October 31st 03 a little after 4pm and drove out by around 7 or so in an Atlantic Blue 04 Quad CAb Sport Plus 4x4 with package 26C, 60/40 split bench, rear slider, V8, 5speed automatic, tilt, cruise, single CD, . Stickered at just about 29,330. Invoice according to both Edmunds and KElley Blue book was right at about 26,100. Holdback at 3% of sticker should have been approximately 880 on this particular truck, so invoice minus holdback would have been about 25,220.
Walked in saying I wanted to be at about 24K plus taxes and financing when all was said, acting like I had just pulled the number out of my ass. Told him if he could take the rebates and my trade and make it work for that number Id take a truck off his hands. They told me that would be hard on an 04 with only 2500 in rebates available but it would be easy if they could find me a left over 03 with the 4 grand in incentives. So I had them jump on the locator and look for 03's. They found one that had what I wanted, over 300 miles away in Rhode Island, which they weren't willing to go get for me at first. I told them give me the name and number of that dealer, I will call to leave a credit card deposit over the phone and drive from Philly to Rhode Island to save myself the 2 grand. Salesman ran to the manager, manager says find a way to put an 04 in the same price range. We found one on their lot in a color I liked, and they gave me a really high value for my trade in order to make up for the 2 grand in rebates I wasn't getting by going for the new model year. Picture it... regular cab 95 Ranger, 4 cyl, stickshift, torn seat, torn headliner, 107 thousand miles, Walmart paint job(dont ask), not even air conditioning, and an ugly white contractor's cap complete with ladder rack to put the cherry on top. I had been offered 300 for it earlier in the day, and I thought THAT was generous. he offered me 1980 for it, or just about the exact amount of rebates I was missing out on by not getting an 03.
Then we started on the financing. Told him straight out, I could get below 5% with Police and Fire credit union even though truth was I had not even applied to them yet. If he couldn't get me the same or beat it, Id either finance elsewhere and come back to buy later or else wait another year to save up and pay cash. He definitely didn't like me throwing out another reason why I sould walk out. He shopped my financing around, got me 4.9, which is about as good as I felt a 23 year old recent college grad with only a 3 yr credit history could expect.
When all was said and done, we started at sticker, went 2500 off, then 1980 for my worthless Ranger, 450 for 'customer preferred discount', whatever that is, and 400 for my college grand rebate, to get the total to 24,167 for the truck itself. Or for you invoice addicts, 2 grand below invoice. Even with taxes added in it only came to about 25,567, still about 600 under invoice, or invoice-holdback+ about 300 bucks. Did he still make money? Absolutely. AFter all, even though I paid less than he did most of my discounts were subsidized by the factory, not him. Plus I financed through them, a factor which probably made them more willing to work with me on my trade because theyd make money on the kickback from the financing. Whereas if Im walking in with a pre approved check for 24 grand he has no reason to inflate the value of my beater.
I don't use invoice as a weapon to try to minimize the dealer's profit, it's more of a gauge for whether Im getting a fair price.
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