Originally Posted by Jim B.
(Post 3351826)
Pretty good point.
My g/f has been utterly loyal to the Jaguar dealer's salesman that sold her her last two Jaguars; and had them exclusively serviced by this dealer, which is over 200 miles away, too!
.... but now she's looking for a new 2014 one, and has run into the exact same scenario as you have described, above, but this time with me in on the negotiations with them.
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Your analysis omits the fact that in ALL cases, when buying a new or used automobile, and I have bought a lot, especially from the new car dealers (Mercedes, BMW, Subaru, Ford Mercury, Volvo ect in the past 10 years alone), it goes like this.
You make your offer, on the new car and separately and a bit later, on your trade in, and your salesman takes in the offer to the Sales manager, who you almost NEVER even get to see, and then the salesman walks it in, and come back out 10-20 minutes later either smiling or downcast-looking, and your offer is either rejected, accepted or countered. The offers and counter offers back and forth can go on for hours, with the salesman being the foot soldier through it.
Though sometimes if negotiations utterly stalemate or bog down, and the deal is about to collapse the Sales Manager will come out with his "final and last" best offer. That happened to me several times.
This can take hours! Took me all day almost - literally - in at 10am, and out at 7:30 pm to get the deal "done" at the BMW dealer last year.
And it depends on MANY things under which *YOU* have no control: Is there a sales incentive going on, did they view you as sincere, and willing to really buy that day, what is the day of the week, the weather, (perfect day would be the last day of the month, with a quota to meet and the factory looking over their shoulder, it is closing time, and it is raining, and there is a factory to dealer incentive, the model you like is a slow seller, or the unit you are looking at is a unit that hasn't moved for months, and they would love to see it gone from the lot as the flooring costs are killing them) ect. Or maybe they will feel like just this time they can "blow one out" and make it up on the next schmuck ( err, customer) that comes in.
Plus it's a sliding scale too! They can overallow on your trade, but they will make it back by stiffening on lowering the MSRP (sticker).
Or if you demand to see the factory invoice, they will finally show it, and maybe even sell the car at near that of even LOWER if it's a slow selling model; but they will "rip your head off" on your trade in and give you virtually nothing for it, ("It's no good, (or) it's too old for us, we will have to send it to a wholesale dealer auction") or many thousands of $$$ less than dealer wholesale for it, where it will astonishingly rise resplendent a week later on their used car lot.
And in every case there is a 2% or so "dealer holdback" on every new car so sometimes they can let it go even under factory invoice and not lose money.
That is the end of Part I.
It starts all over again in Part II where even cash buyers have to go and see the finance manager.
These folks will often try and sell you every available extended service and warranty plan, interior paint and wheel and windshield and seat fabric protection plan under the sun, and god knows what else, and sometimes if you want to buy just ONE plan, they won't, --instead you have to buy a "bundled" plan that includes crap you don't want and likely will never use.
And these are negotiable, same as buying the actual car, though of course most folks don't know that. Varying from dealer to cite an example, a $3200 extended warranty can be negotiated down to $1,800 at a Mercedes-Benz dealer - where I live...
And the finance manager makes HUGE commissions selling that stuff, often times FAR higher than a competent salesman can ever make.
Whole thing is exhausting for an average buyer, and worse for uninformed people, females, especially, that want a good deal.
Most people hate it - and they have to do it every 5-10 years, but the car dealer does it every day all day long.
Advantage: dealer
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This time the deal fell apart last month ...
Looks like my g/f is going to have to wait till the '15 Jaguars come out and will wait till late fall to get her car spec'd out and order it then.
She will be facing the same conundrum as described above though.
Likes the salesman and the dealer and is a loyal customer, but there are plenty more in the San Francisco bay area - all of them would love the business and might even sell one at a greater discount than her "preferred" dealer.
Her decision though.
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