Car dealership incentive question

I tend to get lots of junk mail from local dealerships, trying to convince me to race in and buy a new car. 99% of the time I ignore the mailings, but one caught my eye today. The dealership claims that they will buy back my current vehicle at 100% of the original factory base MSRP when my car was new. It applies to any 2004-2010 vehicle trading during the event. There are plenty of carve outs, for excessive wear and tear, paint/collision work, mileage, etc.

But, generally speaking, is this legit? Could I trade in our very clean 2006 Toyota Sequoia and get close to original MSRP for it? I'm not necessarily in the market for a "new" new car, but this seems to be an intriguing offer.

You folks that work at a dealership, is this a realistic offer? Or just smoke and mirrors to get me into the showroom?

All I can say is go in and check it out.

Just be upfront that you aren't interested in talking about another vehicle until they tell you what they will give you for the current vehicle.

If they won't do it, then walk out. Only costs a few minutes of your time.

I have seen a few different angles one of them is you would have to use a loan (over priced) from XYZ bank, and XYZ bank will give the dealer a kick back. Another is "fees" and a lot of them. Still might be worth checking out.

But remember A$$, Ca$h, or Grass no one rides for free.

read the fine print

and there's always fine print

dyintorace wrote: Or just smoke and mirrors to get me into the showroom?

I think you answered your own question.

On the other side of the coin, don't expect to "wheel and deal" on the new vehicle either. They are already giving you more then what your trade is worth. Or if they will deal on the new vehicle, they will assend load up on the fees to make up the difference.

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch, my boy. They will get it out of you somewhere.

What's this thing about fees? I've purchased 4 new cars (one was the wife's) from dealerships in the last 3 years (including trading in my current vehicle at the time) and I never had a problem with all these "fees" that dealers tack on to raise the price.

I'm curious if people who suggest it have actually ever purchased a new car from a dealership.

Fees:
In Ohio, it is state law that dealerships are ALLOWED to add on a maximum of $250 for "Documentation Fee." It can be no higher. It can be less up to and including the dealership can charge zero. Where things get blurry, is the dealerships will tell you "it is the law" and that they "have to" charge it.
What the are not clear about is that there is a law that allows them and the "have to" is not based on the authority of the law but the authority of their manager.

In other states, this "doc fee" is open ended and the dealership can arbitrarily choose any number they want. Often there is a law that allows them to do this (or no law that says they can't) and the have to (according to their manager.)

Link to article/chart that shows Doc Fee limits by state

The fees I am talking about are the scotchbrited carpet for $400, undercoating for $500, or even a "mandatory" extended warranty for 3500 bux, etc... basically a bunch of nothing that leads to an inflated pricetag.

Usually with those ACV is the same as it would be, you get the extra trade but its put on top of the new car. So yes just smoke and mirrors

z31maniac wrote: All I can say is go in and check it out. Just be upfront that you aren't interested in talking about another vehicle until they tell you what they will give you for the current vehicle. If they won't do it, then walk out. Only costs a few minutes of your time.

If you actually want a new car, I'd do it the opposite way. Go haggle, and get the cost down low. Then, after you have that in writing, talk about the cost of the trade in.

Ranger50 wrote: The fees I am talking about are the scotchbrited carpet for $400, undercoating for $500, or even a "mandatory" extended warranty for 3500 bux, etc... basically a bunch of nothing that leads to an inflated pricetag.

Ok, those aren't fees that you have to pay to purchase the car. Those are dealer extra's. If you're (the general you) too stupid to say no, then I'm not sure what to say.

Regarding the doc fee, do what I've done. Tell them to drop the doc fee or you will go shop elsewhere.

JoeyM wrote:

z31maniac wrote: All I can say is go in and check it out. Just be upfront that you aren't interested in talking about another vehicle until they tell you what they will give you for the current vehicle. If they won't do it, then walk out. Only costs a few minutes of your time.

If you actually want a new car, I'd do it the opposite way. Go haggle, and get the cost down low. Then, after you have that in writing, talk about the cost of the trade in.

I've always started with the trade-in. If you aren't going to give me a fair price on the trade-in, I know you aren't going to give me a fair price on the car.

z31maniac wrote: I've always started with the trade-in. If you aren't going to give me a fair price on the trade-in, I know you aren't going to give me a fair price on the car.

I've always done the opposite.

If you negotiate the new car price first, there are plenty of places then can hope to make up the difference in later. Trade in and financing being two biggies.

By leaving wiggle room (or even the appearance of wiggle room) in the latter stuff by deferring those till later, my experience is you leave more room to negotiate down on the purchase price. Then you can always use someone other than the dealer for those parts as needed.

z31maniac wrote:

JoeyM wrote:

z31maniac wrote: All I can say is go in and check it out. Just be upfront that you aren't interested in talking about another vehicle until they tell you what they will give you for the current vehicle. If they won't do it, then walk out. Only costs a few minutes of your time.

If you actually want a new car, I'd do it the opposite way. Go haggle, and get the cost down low. Then, after you have that in writing, talk about the cost of the trade in.

I've always started with the trade-in. If you aren't going to give me a fair price on the trade-in, I know you aren't going to give me a fair price on the car.

There a few different ways to go about that. I've tried both, you still get the same result as others have said where you win one way they screw you the other.

Just out of curiosity I took my WRX to carmax to get a quote. They offered me $24,000 even for it. Took the WRX to a few dealers with some used and new vehicles my wife were interested in (see Civic Si vs. Pilot vs. WRX thread) to see what we could get for the WRX and how we could haggle them down either by talking sale price of new/used car or getting trade price first. In the end none of it was worth the time or effort and we decided the WRX was the best deal.

1. The results were that dealers in both Maryland and Virginia both think they can charge you a $500 dealer fee and think that it is a law. A quick google search on our phones got them to cut that off quickly.

2. As some know, Honda doesn't like to budge on the price. The most we got off any Civic was a $1000 and Pilot $2500. This was before Honda's Military Rebate.

3. Two out of the Four Honda dealerships we went to tried telling me they were giving me a $500 break because I was Military and it wasn't something they had to do. One of them told me they had to have detailed orders before they gave me the discount. I presented them with the proper paperwork from Honda's website stating all I had to do was provide and LES and I was golden. At that point those two dealers really didn't want to talk anymore.

4. Those same two that tried to tell me they were giving me a break due to my military status also tried telling me they were going to give me a break on taxes as well and that they were being so generous I would only have to pay the taxes on the difference of the vehicles. I quickly proved them wrong on that fact and stated it was simple numbers.

5. We also took some of the President's day nonsense we received via e-mail or snailmail into these dealerships to see if they would actually honor them and almost all of them said they were marketing errors, it was only for certain trades, or some other bullE36 M3 these scumbags could come up with.

6. When I presented my Carmax offer to most of these places after they gave me low ball offers from anywhere between $19,000 and $21,00 one told me to just take the car to carmax to sell it. I told them I would go elsewhere to purchase a vehicle then, they quickly matched it. One other quickly matched it, and the other two (same two with the military and tax nonsense) stated that Carmax just gives you that to lure you in then you get there and they offer you a thousand less (not realizing you actually have to take your car to carmax for an official offer that stands for a week). These two would only offer me a max of $23,000. At that moment my fiancee said it's not worth it and to just keep the wrx.

The best advice is just fight with the sales people, leave the dealership a few times, make them call you and put the ball in your court. You might waste a day but a smooth experience at a dealership = you getting screwed out of some cash.

JohnRW1621 wrote: Fees: In Ohio, it is state law that dealerships are ALLOWED to add on a maximum of $250 for "Documentation Fee." It can be no higher. It can be less up to and including the dealership can charge zero. Where things get blurry, is the dealerships will tell you "it is the law" and that they "have to" charge it. What the are not clear about is that there is a law that allows them and the "have to" is not based on the authority of the law but the authority of their manager. In other states, this "doc fee" is open ended and the dealership can arbitrarily choose any number they want. Often there is a law that allows them to do this (or no law that says they can't) and the have to (according to their manager.) Link to article/chart that shows Doc Fee limits by state

true. I live in neighboring WV and tried to buy a used xterra in ohio. it was a decent deal but the guy tried to take on a document fee, I think it was $350. I said whats this for? he said oh its for everything we do, you know, title and plates and all that. I said well I'm out of state, so youre not doing anything for my title and plates, youre just mailing me the title. And he said yeah, well for you it will be transferring the title and getting it to you and all that. And I said, well, you already have the title, so you can just give it to me and I'll keep my $350. And he said no. Well since we had agreed in writing on the price of the truck I walked, and a filed a complaint against him with the AG in ohio. She pointed me to the statute in ohio authorizing him to charge me all that E36 M3. It was really BS. Its a stupid law. but not every state has that.

My more typical dealer experience has been them wanting to add on crap, like scotchguard, and when you tell them no, they say 'well its already on the vehicle, so if you want that vehicle you have to pay for it.' My take on that is that I either get my deal in writing before we go into the back room, or I walk.

I had sent a very accurate description along with very accurate pictures, detailing every problem with my trade in, to a dealer that I bought my excursion from. We agreed on a fair trade (it was a bit under market value, but my trade had a few issues I didn't want to deal with to sell myself, and couldn't afford to be without a vehicle, and couldn't afford to buy the new vehicle without selling my old, one of those deals). When I got there, we had already agreed on the trade value and the purchase price of the excursion, and I'd put money down. had the whole deal in black and white. Then when we sit down with the manager, he pulls this 'well, we can't give you that much on your trade in, its got some issues." I say WHAT issues, he goes on to tick off a couple of the things I had described in my emails before we had negotiated the price. I pointed that out, and I said look, I just drove 18 hours here and I have the deal in black and white. My wife and I are both attorneys. You can take the deal we worked out, where you take my trade in, repaint the quarter panel and fix the o2 sensors and sell it for $2-3k more next week, and where you make $4k or $5k on this excursion you just took as a trade last week, or we sue the living E36 M3 out of you and you get to not only sell me the excursion and take my trade on the price we agreed, but you also get to pay for hotel, gas, and meals for this lovely vacation to arkansas we took to pick up the truck. He went ahead and did the deal.

DirtyBird222 wrote: The best advice is just fight with the sales people, leave the dealership a few times, make them call you and put the ball in your court. You might waste a day but a smooth experience at a dealership = you getting screwed out of some cash.

+1 I walked out three times - on three separate days - when negotiating my corolla.

The best part of the negotiation
sales weasel: "You know, if you went with the sport package, it would come with the power mirrors and windows..."
me: What's the horsepower on the sport model?
sales weasel: 95 hp....
me: "So you want me to pay $2K more for something with less horsepower than my 1990 geo?"

second best:
sales weasel: "we can't sell it for that, we'd loose money! look at the invoice...."
me: "you're neglecting to mention the $4k in holdback money you'll get from toyota after the sale. You'll still make a profit...maybe not as much as you'd like, but this is last year's model. You can't expect to make your normal profit."

When we were looking for a new car one of the dealerships tried to pull that "fees E36 M3" on us. Maryland limits documentation fees to $100.

Both Subaru and Hyundai listed tax, title, and fees as ~$2000 and had it broken down and showed a $100 documentation fee. The Kia dealership (for same price car) showed tax, title and tags as $4000 with no break down.

Needless to say, we didn't go back to the KIa place and ended up getting the Subaru dealer to drop the documentation fee altogether.

I did the leave and comeback thing over the course of a few days with the Subaru dealer in Florida. It netted me a couple hundred off the car, some free all-weather floormats, and 15% off any subaru accessories lol.

DirtyBird222 wrote: I did the leave and comeback thing over the course of a few days with the Subaru dealer in Florida. It netted me a couple hundred off the car, some free all-weather floormats, and 15% off any subaru accessories lol.

It helps to also show up driving a different car each day so they don't feel like you NEED to buy...

Thanks for all the input. Given that I don't need a new car, I'm not going to waste my time (or their time) going through the wringer.

DirtyBird222 wrote: The best advice is just fight with the sales people, leave the dealership a few times, make them call you and put the ball in your court. You might waste a day but a smooth experience at a dealership = you getting screwed out of some cash.

My last Accord purchase was a fight and struggle over 3 weeks. The guy was a total tool but I was a dick back to him. In the end he sold a car and I got a great deal.

JoeyM wrote: The best part of the negotiation sales weasel: "You know, if you went with the sport package, it would come with the power mirrors and windows..." me: What's the horsepower on the sport model? sales weasel: 95 hp.... me: "So you want me to pay $2K more for something with less horsepower than my 1990 geo?"

"You think you hate it now, wait 'til you drive it. "

DirtyBird222 wrote: I did the leave and comeback thing over the course of a few days with the Subaru dealer in Florida. It netted me a couple hundred off the car, some free all-weather floormats, and 15% off any subaru accessories lol.

And to think, I didn't have to go through the theatrics, and got a price matching one of Ford's family plans (without a PIN).

All through email before even stepping foot in the door to sign to the order sheet.

Maybe people are being too combative?

Once I found a dealer that actually wanted to sell me a car, my last three new vehicle purchases have been advertised incentives and pretty much drama free. MIL needed a car, and local dealer offered her full MSRP. I called another, and they had incentives to clear the buttload of last years Cav's off the lot. They told us the incentive price, we negotiated. He offered to up the price on the trade in, instead of taking it off the already low incentive price of the last-year model (save even more on tax). We got $6500 trade in on an almost 10 year old Cavalier plus the incentive they were offering. 06 truck was the same deal. Beginning of new model year, and bucks off last years model. I was able to use my supplier discount as well. The deal was already good enough that there was no room for negotiating, but the sales guy noticed my Z24, told me I was eligible for the loyalty discount. An extra $1k. That guy was no BS, and pro. I even got zero percent financing. With the current truck, I saw an ad for $10k off the MSRP. I didn't need a new truck, but $10k off? I just left my long commute job, and for that price, it was worth starting out with a new vehicle, and keep the mileage low. I don't think I was in there for any longer than 30 minutes. I told him what I wanted, he found the truck, and that was it. There was no negotiating, no extra fees, and no BS. I got a $26k truck for $16k like the ad said.