big dealers get better deals than little dealers
I think bigger auto dealers automatically get a bigger discount for moving more units. What they definitely get is better deals on the floor plan rebate. Cars that sit at the dealership are typically on a floor plan. What that means is that dealers have six months interest free for the vehicle to sit on the lot. However after six months the vehicle starts eating, principle and interest!
The vehicle manufacturers give dealers a floor plan rebate even on vehicles special ordered for a customer to help with floor plan costs. It used to run three to six percent, not small change on a forty thousand dollar SUV or Pick-up. That is why they can sell below their invoice and destination charge and make a buck.
There is also the statistic that the chances of selling a car to a customer is 30% or less if they walk off the lot. That is why they damned near grab you by both hands to hold you if you start to leave. Another bit of information, those sites on the internet giving wholesale prices of automobiles are generally pretty accurate. Years ago I sat down with a curious Chevy dealer. Turned out I knew to the penny how much the decked out Tahoe was going to cost him.
Knowing these things, I am almost ready to deal. The final thing is that I check on dealers within a hundred mile radius of me. Then I get the fax number for the fleet manager. I put together a request for a quote and fax it to every dealership within a hundred miles. Almost every one of them will play. Last deal I made, I helped a friend buy a very popular pick-up truck for $350 under invoice to the dealer! That is unusual but I do usually get vehicles for $50 to $150 above dealer cost and destination, the only valid fee. Dealer prep and such is padded, I won't pay it.
Worst case, I have rearranged a deal when I was crooked a bit. We looked at several vehicles a long ways from the show room. When we got to the show room the salesman got out a pad and did some cyphering. We got to a number that worked, I bought the truck and drove it home, sixty miles away. When I got there and looked at the paperwork on the window, I realized the salesman had swapped list prices on me. I bought the cheaper truck but negotiations had started from list on the higher priced truck!
Happened that this was Saturday night now. My brother and I were both off Monday. I had him follow me to the dealership and I parked the pick-up square in front of the door, now with 120 miles on it. I dropped the keys on the salesman's desk and my brother and I went and ate breakfast. When we rolled up to the dealership the salesman asked where my new truck was. I pointed it out and pointed out the problem. The salesman tried to deny it but I went into sledgehammer negotiation mode. He either deducted what he claimed he was going to or I left the truck there, sue me and be damned! The three day cooling off rule doesn't apply to vehicles in my state.
The salesman cried loud and long, the dealer was equally unhappy. The salesman had upped the vehicle price about twenty percent before negotiating it down further than he could from the real price. I wouldn't budge an inch or a penny. I sat there about an hour while things rocked and rolled at the dealership. That hundred plus miles on the odometer made that a used truck. If they took it back they lost money. If they sued me it cost them money and maybe the stink I promised in all of the local media.
I finally got the truck with a very large mark down. Exactly what he had claimed to be deducting. "You would never have gotten this truck for this price Saturday!" "I don't care." I put almost two-hundred thousand miles on that truck. Had I been the sucker I would have remembered every time I stepped in the truck. As it was, I had pleasant memories of the purchase! Sold the truck for a decent price and watched it going up and down the highway in front of my home for years more!
Kinda like when two would be hustlers meet, one leaves happy and one leaves unhappy. I actively hustled twice in my life, hustled somebody that wasn't trying to hustle me. Those hustles were fifty years ago. I was told that was what pool players did and I wanted to be a pool player. Those two hustles still bug me. The hundreds, maybe thousands of times, that I hustled a would be hustler don't bother me in the least!
If I traded Dean a fifty dollar cue for his probably $100 to $150 cue I would be happy too! Several of Dean's defenders are second owners that got into the cue for a nice price or trade, puts a different light on things.
Since the conversation had drifted towards vehicles I wanted to point out a sweet way to buy one. Works well in the time of the virus too. You can do everything from home except pay a deposit and take ownership of a vehicle. Buy with thirty minutes face time or less if you know what you want.
Hu
