For beginners who are Non SoCal, Tristate, or FL residents

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Hi.

I made a trip to greet with a swarm of sharks to pull the trigger today

and… there are a few things I learned through the process which I think might be helpful for beginners.

What I’m about to write is IMO very basic stuff.

Something that anyone who is willing to do negotiation with car dealers should know.

At the same time I think it could sound dead wrong to some people

who knows a lot more than I do about car shopping.

Please comment and share if you have anything to add.

So… here it goes…

If you are not hiring a lease broker and doing it all by yourself…

  1. Find a dealer from each dealership who is known to give fair deals for customers or even random ones.
    Select the one who gives you the best price. I tried to email and text every single dealers in my local area
    to find the best deal possible and they blocked my ip address from their websites. Soon after, one of
    them called and asked me to stop. I don’t think its a good idea. It was pretty darn rude…TBH especially
    in Georgia standards…

  2. Do not expect that lowest deal of your choice will be your final deal. Be ready for a shocking increase.
    They are going to run numbers according to your credit score and incomes to determine the final deal
    and It will increase the lease if your status is not perfect. In other words, they are going to increase the
    number no matter what. My status, in my opinion, is near superb. But it still had a pretty steep increase.

  3. Argue with the original number you got from the dealer. Be ready to call ‘No deal’, but try your best to
    lower the deal. I had $38 increase from the original offer after they ran my numbers. I first called no deal.
    They asked me how much lower I want. I argued for 5-10 increase max. They settled with 9.75 increase
    from the deal. Even though the numbers increased beats numbers from other dealers, just be ready for
    it and do keep on arguing regardless of how much games you should play during the negotiation.
    I think it is very important to be ready. I was NOT ready for any sudden moves from the dealers and
    it took me some effort to keep calm and do my calculations.

  4. Know your numbers. Be ready for fast calculation. Numbers such as downpayment price converted to
    monthly pay (or 1000 divided by 24, 36, or 48), your highest acceptable total after unexpected
    downpayment offers, or anything that you think the dealers might come up with all the sudden.
    It might shake up the calculations you had previously and the numbers you want. Be ready for as
    many different numbers and calculations as possible . I wasn’t ready and I felt like I was being
    slammed by confusing figures and twists. I had two guys teamed up (maybe not necessarily teamed
    up but kinda stick together) to ruin my deal.

  5. States like GA add huge amount of tax on cars and this hurts feelings especially after seeing people
    from no state taxes getting mad good deals. At first, I misunderstood many of the dealers I contacted.
    Thought they were playing some crazy game with me but the fact is that those dealers were just plain
    being “not too easy”. It took me some time to figure out the big number differences and accept dealers
    point of view. The dealers in GA simply could not match the prices I thought amazing.

  6. Realize that dealers are not the most well-mannered or genuinely kind people (no big news? lol)
    They are there to make business first. I respect that. But, I also I had to put up with some attitudes.
    They might have put up with my attitude too because I simply didn’t like the idea of leasing from the
    beginning after seeing number differences between “fkiller deals” from forums and GA dealer deals. :frowning:

I hope this helps some people.

Last thing I want to add is…

Be rich lol

If you have enough money to add some extra $

to earn dealers full capability, add-ons, gifts, etc

you gotta spend some money.

There are much less stress when buying cars if you are rich.

After all, nothing is free.

Wish you all the best

K

6 Likes
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AHAHAHA, so true. I see people with their leased range rovers all the time. Paying probably close to 1500 a month, I say, “you could probably get an equivalent Mercedes gls for half.” They say, " I really like my Range Rover though, it’s just been in the shop every other week".

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Thank you for this information!

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My pleasure! Good luck!

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So in your option, being that I’m in Virginia. Is it smarter to hire a broker as I’m not in the “prime” markets? By the way, this is my first post and I’m loving this forum! I’ve always bought my cars, but being that I’m military and move so much. It would be a blast to drive somthing luxury for a few years. I love to haggle, but never seem to get the kind of numbers posted on here!

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I can only speak from my experience which is not as nearly as vast as many here, but I think if your state VA is like GA with mad tax bomb after purchase price…I don’t think brokers are worth looking for. In fact, I realized that, in GA, there is no such thing as “auto lease broker” like many other states. I think this is essentially because of the tax bomb. Too expensive to make a good deal. Found out the term “autobrokers” in GA actually refers to used car sellers. It just happened to be that way lol. Whereas states like Cali, I don’t know exactly how, but they seem to save time, effort, and money. So…yeah…if VA is not a cheap lease state…I’d just do it myself. Find a dealer or two per dealership, compare price, argue with the lowest offer to other dealers, pick a dealer, and do your thang. haha.

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Btrip, what part of Virginia? If it’s the Northern Virginia area, then I’d have to think that’s an excellent market with MD/VA/DC all lumped together. A lot of competition for sure.

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Thanks for this - it is off putting for sure to deal with the sharks and so I avoid by hanging out here all the time. Why did you include Florida in the subject? I imagine because it’s hard to get good deals here? Thanks again.

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Yep, great market for luxury cars also. And tax on full price is not as bad as TX or GA. It’s 4.15%, so very close or equal to 9% CA tax on rental portion.

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I’m in Virginia Beach but I’m also a dual resident of North Carolina. That’s where I have all my cars registered now as it seems to be a lot cheaper.

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Can’t beat 3% NC tax :slight_smile: But you can still shop in NoVa and register in NC.

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Thanks! If FL is not a lease friendly state, I must had wrong information written lol.

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Hey everyone. I’m new to the forum and was wondering how to post a new topic or how to find a similar topic so I can post. I’m looking into leasing a 2017 GLE loaner car, and I need to know how much of a discount I should look for. Currently they are offering 16% off msrp, no decrease to the residual, and base money factor. Idk if 16% is a lot or not for a loaner because I’ve only ever leased new. I appreciate any advice or anyone who can point me in the right direction. Thanks! :+1:t4:

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That’s too bad as I’m new to GA (1.5 yrs now) and lived almost 25 yrs of my life in socal before joining the mil and separating here haha. I JUST found this site while looking for deals on a charger scat pack (of course, finding the sexy hellcat post from earlier in the year).

I did a tiny bit of research and found that the silly ad valorem here that taxes you on the entire car value vs leased amount will be changing on Jan 1, 2018 to better mirror the rest of the country (taxing based on leased amount). I didn’t read into the fine print yet but that’s how I understand it. Hope this helps other GA members and thanks so much for your information and advice, K.

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Thanks man. Scat Pack Charger is one of what I am after at the moment after about 8months of 200t IS F Sport.