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okay, I have been doing my research... went to edmunds.com etc and have the info on MSRP, Invoice, Street cost etc. I am not trading my current vehicle.. will be selling it outright (if at all). Obtained outside financing... Know what model and trim/package etc I want, etc..
The strategy I would like to employ it walk in.. negotiate on final price only, not trade in, monthly payments and all that other "4 Square" BS I have had tried on me. I would like to avoid the F & I shysters office totally.. dont want the special paint sealant, underbody coating, VIN etched windows etc...
Alas... due to my being a Eff-up in the past, the rate at which I am approved is pretty steep. So.. . do I eat my words and see what the boys in financing can do? Or, use what I have now and try to shop the loan out myself later on? I hate being in that F & I office.. its like being in the interogation room at the sherrifs office lol.. (uh.. not admiting to anything! lol)
Covers all your questions for $40 and hand walks you through cutting the deal, how to secure financing, do and don'ts of working with your car salesman, creating competition among dealers to get the best price, negotiation, and work with the dealers in your favor.
I recently used their packet in March and did my buy end of March to come out with $3000 less than invoice and a 7yr/100k warranty with $0 deductible at dealer cost of $940 instead of the $1296 they wanted to charge for it.
i second that......the $40 bucks seems to be well worth it to the majority of others as well. I am in the same boat as you, props for doing the research, its so time consuming, but im hoping, for me atleast, that it helps out in the long run.
I've purchased many cars in the past, but $3k less than invoice seems like a far stretch unless there were $2500 in dealer incentives that were not published. Even in today's competitive market, that's a tough one. Generally you can negotiate invoice minus a few % points but holdback is only 2% of invoice and the invoice you see at Edmunds, etc. doesn't include advertising fees, gas, and a few other misc charges, not to mention floor plan charges. Dealers are in business to make a profit, even if it's a small one, and not to lose money. Unless they were making it up on the back end (financing) ...
Not saying you're not telling the truth, but can you provide more specifics, copy of the invoice, your buyers order, etc.?
I'm getting ready to order one at invoice (- any rebates) so if I'm not being aggressive enough with the dealer I'd like to know. I don't think a $40 report from FightingChance is going to get me an extra $3000 off of what I can already negotiate.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kamikazeH20mln
fightingchance.com
Covers all your questions for $40 and hand walks you through cutting the deal, how to secure financing, do and don'ts of working with your car salesman, creating competition among dealers to get the best price, negotiation, and work with the dealers in your favor.
I recently used their packet in March and did my buy end of March to come out with $3000 less than invoice and a 7yr/100k warranty with $0 deductible at dealer cost of $940 instead of the $1296 they wanted to charge for it.
__________________ Mike
'08 Altima 2.5S... in the works!
When you deal with Internet sales managers, they are in the business of VOLUME, not PROFIT. I hit at end of month, end of quarter, end of fiscal year (aka end of March) with just Internet Sales Managers and a 5 % sales slump (all info used from Fighting Chance). In addition, I had started my quote with 10 dealerships in 2 days within 5 days till end of month (as they also advised on when to time it). Within 1 day, I narrowed down to 5 dealerships, and end of day down to 3. I did a price match with the nearest one with the best price of the other. I came to the winning dealer with my spreadsheet of the top 3 dealers with a breakdown of all known costs, and let him know I was still receiving offers from other dealers while I was waiting for his paperwork to review. I had already been into the dealership before for one of my many test drives with all the dealers I quoted with. Before any paperwork was reviewed or started, I test drove both cars with the same features, just in the two colors I liked, and picked the one I liked best.
For MSRP, I pulled the prices from the Nissan.com's car builder. Invoice costs are from FightingChance.com's packet. Destination charge is $625 and Dealer processing at $99, which I have automatically included in MSRP and Invoice cost due to being standard Nissan dealer costs. MSRP and Invoice do not include titles, tags, taxes, and registration fees.
My car is a 2008 Altima Sedan 3.5 SL CVT, with the Splash Guards, Rear Spoiler, Technology Package, VDC, Aluminum Kick Plates, Moon roof wind deflector and Mats.
Additional Discounts:
Trade quoted by CarMax at $4500 -> Dealer Match plus $500.
Trade in Discount: $500
Taxes avoid by Additional Discount:
($29547 - $4500) * 6%) - (($29547 - $5000) * 6%)
($25047 * 6%) - ($24575 * 6%)
$1502.82 - $1474.50 -> $28.32
Total Trade in Discount: $528.32
Car Warranty Discount (72mo/100k $0 Deductible Gold preferred from Nissan)
Quoted at $1495 -> Price matched from competitor at $943 (dealer cost)
Car Warranty Discount: $552
(Free oil+filter changes, car rental for service work, discounted scheduled maintenance) ALL FOR LIFE
Dealer cost: $550 -> Priced matched from competitor at $0
Perk Services Discount: $550
Rebate: $1250 cash back or $1050 <?> with 3.9 APR
Used cash back at $1250
Nissan Rebate: $1250
Discover Card Rebate:
1% cash back on $3000 credit card charge
Rebate: $30 (hey, every little bit counts! :-) )
I also bought the Ding Monkey service at $799 for 3 yr coverage. I could go into the cost avoidance of the Ding Monkey service as a additional discount cause my work parking lot is known for getting cars dinged, which cost $100 a pop. I've been parking at the very TOP of the lot for the meanwhile in the extra wide spaces to avoid this:-)
In final, the dealer didn't make anything off of me. The sales manager even commented when I finally got out the door that he made no money on me. I commented back they will when they send me the customer sales survey.
This survey if filled out excellent does the following:
- Nissan sets a quota tier of cars to sell and the bonus they give the salesman and the dealership for X number of car sales.
- This can be lowered or taken away completely if these survey's are below a certain threshold.
- This also doesn't include any internal programs the dealership franchise has based on the same results of these surveys.
One of the additional offers by an opposing dealer was an additional $1k on my trade while I was waiting for the dealer I was at to get their paperwork together for review...but too bad they were 25 miles away.
Going through all of the above takes patience, keeping it strictly professional and business-like, knowledge of how a salesman and dealership works, creating competition for business, and timing. Raw negation is nearly worthless once you step foot into the dealership; it needs to be done outside the dealership before you step in.
WOW! I really appreciate the detailed and thorough response. I hope you had most of that typed already.
Now that I have a more realistic idea of what the true cost was under invoice ($732) it gives me a goal to shoot for. The actual invoice of your model is higher than the 2.5S I'm looking at and the majority of the $732 discount is holdback. I do agree they didn't make much, if any, on you and this is a very aggressive deal.
As for the other discounts, perks, trade allowances, etc. they are significant but in my mind I don't consider that "below invoice" pricing. Each one could vary depending on dealer. I'm still up in the air on my trade and will probably sell myself unless the dealer makes me some crazy offer but I may start with Carmax as a baseline. My dealer also has the free oil changes, inspections, etc. but I never let a dealer touch any of my cars unless it's warranty work, and then I'm skeptical. They always seem to screw something else up and for a $20 oil change, doing it myself and know it's done right on my own time is worth it.
As for the CC rebate deal, I use my Shell MC (1%) for EVERYTHING. I'll put my deposit on it & pay it off of course.
You did good. Gives me a little motivation to start a dealer war on my order!
Thanks!
__________________ Mike
'08 Altima 2.5S... in the works!
I remembered most of it, and the other half I went back through my bidding binder (yes, a binder:-) ) I use to work in IT Procurement for 3+ years and use to the RFP process and quote process.
Yes, I mostly took their holdback (2.5%). The $500 dollars additional on the trade in was applied by them in that manner instead of in the overall discount as part of the price match. It still provides the same result: reducing your taxes on the overall car sale in the state of MD as per the new 6% tax law. The old 5% law double taxed you at the car sale and end of year with the IRS.
With any of Nissan's warranty, you have a warranty book that needs to get stamped for ALL maintenance. If it is not stamped, they can void your warranty. Plus I live in a condo and have no room to do oil changes.
I also left out that I paid $3k with my Discover card, and the rest in cash. After I had paid off the loan on my 2001 Honda Civic in year 3, I was stashing away its previous car payment into savings for my next car for 4 years. My civic had reached a repair point of dumping $1500 into it for a $4500 car.
Glad to help inspire you with your own bidding war :-) Feel free to get the list of dealers from nissanusa.com and just do a mile range from your zip, and go down the line. I had called them first asking for Internet Sales, and if none, then their Sales Manager to send out a quote request. I used email and faxes to communicate with and did phone calls for the bid rounds with the dealers submitted their bids all through email and fax. If they refused to, they got dropped from the list.
Alas... due to my being a Eff-up in the past, the rate at which I am approved is pretty steep. So.. . do I eat my words and see what the boys in financing can do? Or, use what I have now and try to shop the loan out myself later on?
Do you let them see what they can do? I say yes, but only because they can sometimes save you a percentage point or so by going with some out of state bank. I did my own financing on my Altima, and the found out later that my bank where I have my home loan, several vehicle loans, etc, etc, was offering a 1/2% lower rate through the dealer than what I got.
Also, you'll usually get a worse rate (if rates remain level) for a re-fi than a new car loan, and you will get your loan term either shortened or lengthened when you refinance.
__________________
2007 Altima 3.5 SE, Majestic Blue, Charcoal Leather. Stock until the aftermarket catches up with my wishlist -
It was implied in an earlier reply that you should deal with the internet sales manager. That's rule #1 these days. Don't even think of walking in and talking to any of the salespeople working the floor. When I bought my '07, I worked out every detail (except for the test drive) over email.
I walked in at the end basically just to sign the papers. I had a check in hand from my bank, but I let them try their banks to see if they could get a better deal. Turns out they saved me .5%. Not a ton of money, but I took it anyway. If they wouldn't have been able to match the deal, I'm sure they still would have been happy to take my check.
I remembered most of it, and the other half I went back through my bidding binder (yes, a binder:-) ) I use to work in IT Procurement for 3+ years and use to the RFP process and quote process.
Yes, I mostly took their holdback (2.5%). The $500 dollars additional on the trade in was applied by them in that manner instead of in the overall discount as part of the price match. It still provides the same result: reducing your taxes on the overall car sale in the state of MD as per the new 6% tax law. The old 5% law double taxed you at the car sale and end of year with the IRS.
With any of Nissan's warranty, you have a warranty book that needs to get stamped for ALL maintenance. If it is not stamped, they can void your warranty. Plus I live in a condo and have no room to do oil changes.
I also left out that I paid $3k with my Discover card, and the rest in cash. After I had paid off the loan on my 2001 Honda Civic in year 3, I was stashing away its previous car payment into savings for my next car for 4 years. My civic had reached a repair point of dumping $1500 into it for a $4500 car.
Glad to help inspire you with your own bidding war :-) Feel free to get the list of dealers from nissanusa.com and just do a mile range from your zip, and go down the line. I had called them first asking for Internet Sales, and if none, then their Sales Manager to send out a quote request. I used email and faxes to communicate with and did phone calls for the bid rounds with the dealers submitted their bids all through email and fax. If they refused to, they got dropped from the list.
A little off topic here, but I see you had an 01 civic that got too expensive to maintain...did the transmission happen to go out on you? my 01 civics tranny died at barely 80,000 miles, and I decided to buy the altima i've always wanted haha. just seeing if your car did the same.
yup. my 2nd gear on my automatic in the 01 civic started to slip really bad. I was also overdue for all new brakes and rotors at 85,000 miles. I had already replaced its tires in January :-(
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