Advice on Car Purchase??

[Tuna]

Ok, I'm getting a little frustrated....I want, no NEED a new car, but whenever I phone and talk to a salesperson, I get a different price EVERY TIME even on the exact same car with the exact same options!! I could understand if I called different dealerships and there were slight descrepancies but I'm talking $500 between 2 sales people at the same dealership, and up to $100 a month different in monthly payments! The other issue is, some places say the 3.9% they are offering applies to the Drivers option and other places tell me it doesn't. I know I'm ranting a bit but understand, i'm not "Shopping around" demanding I get the best price and running one dealer against the other or anything like that, I'm just trying to make sure I can budget for it, but I can't even get a ballpark price, and I can't help feeling I'm getting the runaround. Especially because some places are saying that "With gas prices going the way they are, we expect, they will take the 3.9% offer off of any TDi cars".

I don't normally rant like this, but I'm kind of hoping someone "In the know" could possibly point me in the right direction. That's all I'm asking. I really want to take advantage of the good financing but the way it's heading, I may just look at getting another beater until next year.

Thanks all,
J

[Simon]

Re: Advice on Car Purchase??

I can't really offer any advice except to call up 5th Ave and talk to Derick (GINCH on the site). He's a head honcho around there and i'm sure he'll tell you exactly whats up.

[Khyron]

Re: Advice on Car Purchase??

YOU set the price (to a point). Get the invoice cost, add a reasonable percentage for dealer profit, pick the options you want and order the thing. You obviously don't need to test drive/waste saleman's time so just order it direct from the fleet manager. But make sure you know EXACTLY what you want. He might counter with some slightly different vehicle that he has on the lot so go from there. Don't try and rip off the dealer but don't pay for overhead you don't need.

Use the finance rates off the vw.ca website as a guide. You can always go to the bank yourself.

Do your homework, or it will cost you. There is no need to use a salesman if you already know what you want.

Khyron

[Kor]

Re: Advice on Car Purchase??

Not-very-interesting story here.

About 5 years ago my dad was shopping for a new car, since he decided no more SUV's (for all the reasons a person decides not to own an SUV). He is a pretty busy guy, and doesn't have a lot of time to go down to car lots and haggle over cars. He also had a very solid idea of what he wanted: namely, a brand new loaded Chrysler Intrepid.

Now, don't get off topic about how the Intrepid sucks or whatever, that is not the point.

The point is, that he went down to a dealership, and they quoted him a price, and he shook hands with the sales guy, basically a done-deal on the spot without shopping around or anything like that. He even wrote down the price they talked about. Then we went home.

The next day my dad calls the guy back just to make sure or some small detail such as having a cd player and not a cassette radio or something in the new car. But, just to be safe, he double-checked with the salesman the price that they had written down, and all the details surrounding that price. Yes, it was all fine, all he had to do was sign some papers.

So the next day we went back to sign the papers to agree to the purchase. The price on the papers was totally different from the price they had talked about. Not by a tiny amount either. When he found this problem, he completely denied having ever talked about the price. He actually lied to both our faces and said that. However, I was there to witness it, they totally had an agreement on the price of this car.

So, basically my dad laughed in the guy's face (literally), stood up and walked across the road and bought a supercharged Grand Prix GTP from the showroom of the Pontiac lot across the street.

Anyhow thats my story, on that day I learned how insanely bad some car salesmen are. No matter what, even if they HAVE THE SALE IN THEIR POCKET they will still try to screw you when you aren't looking.

[GINCH]

Re: Advice on Car Purchase??

Ok, I'm getting a little frustrated....I want, no NEED a new car, but whenever I phone and talk to a salesperson, I get a different price EVERY TIME even on the exact same car with the exact same options!! I could understand if I called different dealerships and there were slight descrepancies but I'm talking $500 between 2 sales people at the same dealership, and up to $100 a month different in monthly payments! The other issue is, some places say the 3.9% they are offering applies to the Drivers option and other places tell me it doesn't. I know I'm ranting a bit but understand, i'm not "Shopping around" demanding I get the best price and running one dealer against the other or anything like that, I'm just trying to make sure I can budget for it, but I can't even get a ballpark price, and I can't help feeling I'm getting the runaround. Especially because some places are saying that "With gas prices going the way they are, we expect, they will take the 3.9% offer off of any TDi cars".

I don't normally rant like this, but I'm kind of hoping someone "In the know" could possibly point me in the right direction. That's all I'm asking. I really want to take advantage of the good financing but the way it's heading, I may just look at getting another beater until next year.

Thanks all,
J

Hey Tuna,
Give me a call at work today 273-2500. I'll give you the straight goods. I've sold vehicles to several people on this board (Gaffer, Chris, skingle etc.) I won't jerk you around!
Cheers
Derek

[Boy Racer]

Re: Advice on Car Purchase??

Hey Tuna,
Give me a call at work today 273-2500. I'll give you the straight goods. I've sold vehicles to several people on this board (Gaffer, Chris, skingle etc.) I won't jerk you around!
Cheers
Derek

I will vouch for that

[Tuna]

Re: Advice on Car Purchase??

Hehe, thanks Kor. Yea, I don't understand it, Since my rant I stuck the #'s into a spreadsheet I made that calculates payments based on interest rate and it simply does not add up. Plus they added in "Disability insurance" into my payment "Subject to approval" How thoughtful of them. It's not even that I HATE sales people or anything like that, I just can't seem to get a straight answer. You can't even use the internet pricing because the dealer adds a bunch of stuff on to it (air tax, tire tax, 590 Service fee on top of delivery fee?). Is there anywhere you can find dealer invoice pricing in Canada? It seems to be everywhere in the US but can't find a Canadian site that publishes such #'s (that you don't have to pay for).

Please understand, I'm not ragging on salesmen or anything like that, I'm just stunned at the fact that everytime I get off the phone it's like I'm back at square one. It's funny because one of the salesmen was like, "It seems that you don't really know how much you wanna spend" I know how much I wanna spend!! HE doesn't know how much to charge!! Haha

Thanks all, oh and the bank rates are rediculous right now, that's why i'm wanting to go new, I can almost make the same payment because I'll be paying so much less interest.

Thanks Simon, perhaps I'll get in touch with Derek, At least I might get a peak at the MK3 beast.

J

[Tuna]

Re: Advice on Car Purchase??

Hey Tuna,
Give me a call at work today 273-2500. I'll give you the straight goods. I've sold vehicles to several people on this board (Gaffer, Chris, skingle etc.) I won't jerk you around!
Cheers
Derek

You replied while I was righting my second novel, Thanks! I'll give you a call.

Jason

[Khyron]

Re: Advice on Car Purchase??

Paying 15 bucks for an invoice sheet saved me 3 thousand - you're buying a car why balk at paying for a carfax or a invoice quote? Hell, the hidden incentives alone are good info worth the money... I used http://www.carquotes.ca/

Khyron

[Tuna]

Re: Advice on Car Purchase??

FYI, I talked to Derek, got some pricing and availability. At least now I have number to work with. Thanks for your time.

Props.

Jason

Kyron, thanks for the site. The reason I asked if there was a free one is because they are all over in the US (Edmunds.com for ex.) I was just hoping someone knew of a free Canadian site.

[gaffer]

Re: Advice on Car Purchase??

Call Derrick. I went to him after the salesman at another dealer was jerking me around on my first VW, and I went back to him for my last car too. I hear he does windows to.

Andrew

[GINCH]

Re: Advice on Car Purchase??

Call Derrick. I went to him after the salesman at another dealer was jerking me around on my first VW, and I went back to him for my last car too. I hear he does windows to.

Andrew

How'd youknow I did windows?

[NeonGTI]

Re: Advice on Car Purchase??

The invoice reports are good stuff. For 12 bucks I got one of those, went in to Northland (after the 5th ave guy was a complete ass to us) with a price in mind and got my GTI for $250 over what the cost report said. All told it was right around 28,500 + gst, which I was quite happy with.

Best of all for the sales dude was that I took only 15 minutes of his time.

[GINCH]

Re: Advice on Car Purchase??

The invoice reports are good stuff. For 12 bucks I got one of those, went in to Northland (after the 5th ave guy was a complete ass to us) with a price in mind and got my GTI for $250 over what the cost report said. All told it was right around 28,500 + gst, which I was quite happy with.

Best of all for the sales dude was that I took only 15 minutes of his time.

Hey man,
Who did you deal with here at 5th? Anyways, in all fairness we probably wouldn't have sold the car for $250 over cost. After paying the sales guy $200 for the sale, do think its fair the dealership makes $50 on a $28500 purchase? I know most of you guys don't think a dealership should make any $$$ on the sale of there product but lets get realistic. Do you guys work for free?
Derek

[R_Ethug]

Re: Advice on Car Purchase??

when i did my sale on my car i told the guy flat out i'll give him dealer cost plus 5% for himself and GST.. done deal