Negotiating Price

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(verine2116 @ Feb 9 2007, 08:44 PM) [snapback]387808[/snapback]</div>

I used the internet negotiating method laid out at www.carbuyingtips.com after receiving a quote through an online discount price service (carsbelowinvoice.com, carsdirect.com, etc.). I enjoy using this method, but the other method may work just as well.

It took nearly 2 full weeks from the start of the process, but it was worth it as I was able to have several dealers bid against each other without ever leaving my home (and man its COLD up here in the Great Lakes!). I e-mailed four dealers in the Buffalo, NY area, four in the Rochester area and 2 in the Syracuse area. The negotiations came down to two dealers in Rochester, NY (Dorschel Toyota & Hoselton Toyota) and the internet sales persons were no push overs, but they were professional.

Here is the final price I paid at Dorschel Toyota:
07' Base Prius MSRP - $22,795 (Including Destination)

Negotiated Price - $21,100
NYS Sales Tax - $1503.38
Dealer Prep Fee - $99.95
Document Fee - $45
Registration - $80
NYS Tire Fee - $12.50
NYS Inspection - $10
-----------------------------------------------
Total Price = $22,850.83

I received $1695 off of MSRP and believe I got a pretty good deal as a few of the Dealers that responded said they could not go lower than $21,595, even though I e-mailed them saying I had lower offers.

Good luck & be firm in your negotiations as many dealers have Prius' on their lots and car sales in many colder weather states are slow.

 

I bought my 05 at Christmas time. I already had an 01 that needed repairs and they had this car on the lot. I spent four hours and every time they had an offer that I felt was too high I said "Well, I can just put my current car in the shop and get it fixed. I'll go call my husband to pick me up". At first they handed me an Ebay bid on a Prius and said that would be their trade in. I handed it back and said "Nice try". In the end I got my old car completely paid off and talked them down from 36 to just under 23 grand. It was a good thing I had checked the Blue Book price...always wise to do one's homework. This dealership is a bit out of my way but the one closest to me let me wander around the showroom with NO SERVICE. I have probably steered 8-10 people to that dealership for Prius'.

 

I got internet prices from 5 different Toyota dealers in my area and compared them. After fielding a bunch of phone calls and e-mails, I dealed them down some more. Then I went down to the internet sales department at a local dealership that gave me the lowest price. (When at the dealership, avoid regular car salesmen at all costs.)
I asked to see the invoices on all available 2007s in a PKG#6. I then offered to pay the invoice price (they all say they can't because of lack of profit, blah blah blah... don't believe it! The dealers get what's called "dealer holdbacks" AKA rebates from the manufacturer when the car is sold, it usually totals about 2-3% of the MSRP price, so yes... they do get a profit, on top of whatever they squeeze out of you.)
I also brought a small notebook filled with other quotes from different dealers as well as the info from Edmunds.com about the invoice pricing of the car as well as the packages. This tactic seems to make them little nervous about totally lying about the price of the car. I knew that I probably couldn't get invoice at the time I bought... but I was willing to try. I ended up getting my '07 PKG #6 for $27,011 (about $600 over invoice). I think with the buying climate right now, you might do better than I did.

Other tips:
1) Go towards the end of the month, on a Saturday night, close to closing.... sales numbers are due then and they may be more inclined to deal.

2) Do not discuss trade-ins or financing UNTIL the final out-the-door price of your desired car is finalized and written down on a sheet of paper. If you open yourself up to their negotiating tactics of price vs. trade-in vs. financing.... you will lose and they have a wonderful ability to twist the numbers to suit their profit. If they ask about financing at the start of negotiating, tell them that you have financing but are open to other options (dealers may drop prices to get your loan... but beware of APRs, know what you qualify for as far as car loans and don't settle for a higher APR just for the sake of a lower car price.) Try plugging in numbers on a car loan calculator at home to figure out what your monthly payments will be based on APR, length of loan, the car's price, taxes, license fees and trade-in/cash down.

3) Be willing to get up and walk away from a deal... tell them that you will. It's your money, you worked hard for it. Don't let them pressure you or guilt you into a deal you are not comfortable with.

4) Try bringing a neutral party with you. A person who is not "emotional" about the car may help you keep things in perspective. (By "emotional", I mean "in love with the car", "looking forward to owning a Prius", etc)

5) And my favorite... keep your cool, or at least look like it. Bring a book or magazine (or in my case... a Sony PSP) so when they go and talk with the "manager upstairs" about the prices you just negotiated... you can look like you don't really care. BTW - dealers really do send people by office doors/cubicles to listen in on conversations between buyers. They want to know how far you're willing to go for a car. Stand firm and remember tip #3.

Best of luck to you.... I hope you get the Prius of your dreams!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dylandog @ Feb 9 2007, 09:39 PM) [snapback]387904[/snapback]</div>

I agree with all of the above.

I used the edmunds.com service, which has I think up to 5 local dealers send in their offers to your email. It's hilarious to see the discrepancies.

I wanted a 2007 magnetic gray Touring with Package 6. The quoted prices varied by about $5000. The best quoted price in my area for that particular model (and make sure they actually have that car on the lot!) was $27,150, I think (within $100 or so of that). This gave me a very low "ceiling" for my deal. This was my out the door price.

My wife and I had talked it over and if we couldn't get a price at least a couple hundred below that, we'd walk out.

I brought in the quote (I didn't want him to see the other higher offers), and went and spoke with the fleet manager.

His first offer was $29,950 or so. And, he showed me the MSRP and said "I knocked $500 off that for you; so, do you want the car?" Well, no...

So, I stupidly said, "I've got another dealer willing to give me the car for $27,150, so..." He looked shocked, and then walked away. He came back and said "I can give it to you for $27,000." We shook hands, and I bought the car after the above described 5 minutes of negotiations.

If we could do it again, I would tell them that I simply have a much better offer from another dealer and then I would have thrown out a price in the $25,000 range. But, because the fleet manager was a friend of a colleague, I went with full disclosure, and probably paid a little more than I could have otherwise paid. Still, he showed us the invoice and we ended up paying about $150 or so over invoice, maybe less. I'm fine with that, especially since we had absolutely no hassles.

Good luck!

 

I was out shopping at Costco this morning. On the way out, I saw a Prius in the store being used to advertise their buying service. I didn't look too closely at the details, but the large print stated the MSRP was $24xxx and the buying service price was $21xxx. May be worth a look if Costco is in your area.

 

I just got my 07 package 5 last sunday for $300 under invoice. I had spent 3 months going to about 8 different Toyota dealerships in the county and the best offer I had ever had was $150 above invoice. Then unknown to me the national coalition of Toyota dealerships (can't remember it's real name, but there are 250 dealerships in CA that belong to it) began offering 2500 off the prius. I tried to negotiate for 3500 off... no deal. then came up to 3000 off... no deal. after about 2 hours, leaving to "check out another dealer" and coming back with a made up number of 2700 off, they still wouldn't even match it. so I swallowed my own bluff and took the 2500, which comes out to 300 under invoice... i do not know, maybe i was too easy to accept it, but I really wanted my prius and they were the only one that had a driftwood pkg5 in San Diego.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(verine2116 @ Feb 9 2007, 09:44 PM) [snapback]387808[/snapback]</div>

The second is always better. In the first method, either your price is too low and no one will accept it, or it's higher than some dealer would have taken and you rob yourself.

Consumer Reports offers car buying advice at http://www.consumerreports.org

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(verine2116 @ Feb 9 2007, 05:44 PM) [snapback]387808[/snapback]</div>

In general it's to your advantage to get the other guy to show his cards first. And most salespeople will happily give you a price, even if it's nowhere near their best. This, at the very least, sets an upper bound for negotiation that you can then toy with.

Last week, over the course of three days, I negotiated with a few local dealerships over a non-touring #5 package. This was kickstarted by a local dealership who put out a flyer stating a sale price of just under 27k. I sent quote requests to four other dealerships; three responded promptly with two 26.5ks and one 26k. I counteroffered 25k to them all.

I ended up paying 25.3k (listed invoice price, though I don't know what the dealer's actual cost was). If I go strictly by the sticker's MSRP, which adds cargo and floor mats on at a price of $199, I paid just under 3k under MSRP. From the tales of others I suspect I might have been able to do better, but of the three respondees, one would go no lower than 25.7k and the other didn't answer.

I don't consider this a huge negotiation coup considering the sale price flyer also said "58 in stock" which, coupled with reports of large inventories at other dealers, made me wonder how effective pushing would be. No, the true coup was getting the finance critter off my back. He went nearly incoherent for five solid minutes when I told him I would be declining all of the options.

 

First, you have to know what you want. I wanted a specific Prius, Magnetic Grey 2006 package #8 and the accessories didn't matter, they all come with floormats and that was fine with me but the dealer doesn't get to pick the accesories so it pretty much comes the way it does and you need to lay that out in writing whether you get it the way it is at the price you negotiate or if you will pay the difference for other accessories included (make sure they don't rip you off though, I don't actually know if thats true) but mine ended up coming with the rear bumper applique for an additional $65 which wasn't a big deal to me and it's good to have. Since I wanted a specific car they would have to specially order and wait until one was allocated to their dealership (again, I'm assuming what they told me is true) and my request was prior to the actual release of the Magnetic Grey color so I didn't have much room for negotiating. Anyway, I started going to Toyota dealerships in the area, I told them exactly what I want and exactly how much I'm willing to pay for it ($28,000 was my magic number and it was reasonable). Of course the salesman did the back and forth game with the manager gradually lowering the numbers from MSRP, I would refuse to change my numbers and they would keep going back and forth gradually getting lower in smaller and smaller increments until I would finally get up and leave, that meant I was serious. I did that at one dealership that happened to call me back and offer a deal BELOW what I was offering, so of course I jumped on it without hesitating for a second. I had a slight advantage in that one of their new salesmen had screwed up and said he would call me back after trying to get me back to their dealership and never did, one of the managers found out he never called me back and I got a call from him apologizing and thats where I struck the deal. Maybe I just got lucky? Anyway, the deal he offered me was $500 over invoice because that's what he figured I was offering, he tried to add on their advertising costs to Toyota and other fees to the invoice and pulled some numbers out of his @$$, punched them into the calculator and came up with $27,356... my new magic number. A few weeks later I noticed some dents I believe to be from transport on the new car I hadn't even driven yet that sat in the garage until my Insight was sold, I kind of forgot about it for a while and never got around to calling them about it until recently and they don't want to pay to try and repair it because they claim they lost over $200 on the car I paid $500 over invoice on (plus the 2% dealer holdback they get from Toyota). It's a $200 repair bill, the paintless repair/dent removal shop thinks they can get most of it out, I hope they take care of it but go figure...