Can't get my dealer to play ball on a Pathfinder lease.....do I just start calling every dealer in the area?

I picked up a frontier for my sister last year from this dealer and they shot it straight with me, but mind you I wasn’t expecting anything off MSRP I just wanted the residual and MF to not be marked up and they did that.

Now today with their lot full of cars unlike last year when it was completely empty they are refusing to work with my on a pathfinder for my other sis. Hell they even tried to tell me they are added 2k to every car for “paint and interior protection”, I laughed but he was serious…although he was gracious enough to not add it, right.

Unfortunately they won’t knock anything off MSRP and from the numbers they gave me today I think they are also marking up the numbers on me, this was over email so I asked but they haven’t given them to me yet. On a 45,600 MSRP car they came back with $450 a month 18/10 with 3k down…that’s not right even at full MSRP. Of course they are saying the truck is in high demand…right.

So what do I do here? Just start calling every dealer in the area and ask them if they are going to knock anything off MSRP for me?

Your default expectation for an aggressive but realistic LH deal is that you’ll need to reach out to 6-12 dealers before finding one.

But…

Move to a strategy of making offers.

Plug the following into the LH calculator after MSRP of the vehicle you’re looking at:

Selling price based on % pre-incentive discount found by searching Shared Deals and Marketplace sections of this forum.

RV, MF and incentives (lease cash) from Rate Findr. Add any extra rebates you qualify for (college grad, etc) under incentives.

DMV fees and taxes based on your state’s official website.

Voila! Now check the box to make it $0 DAS and offer the resulting monthly payment*

  • preferably rounded to a multiple of $5 or $10 to make yourself seem more like a normal person :innocent:
7 Likes

Determine the deal you want and offer it to the dealers around. You don’t need them to give you numbers. You give them numbers.

6 Likes

Thanks for the reply fellas, considering that this dealer wouldn’t knock anything off MSRP and they even wanted to add 2k to it. I don’t think I’m going to be getting the 6-8% off MSRP I’ve seen others at, what would be realistic?

Or does that just not play into it?

Just go to another dealer, don’t play with this one.

3 Likes

Who cares what this dealer will do? If they won’t play ball, move on. I’ve had dealers tell me it’s impossible for any dealer to do anything less than $5k over msrp and then the next give $5k under.

If no one around will play ball, then reconsider your price target or increase your search radius.

2 Likes

I don’t know how many Nissan dealers are near you in Michigan, but as others have said, reach out to multiple dealers with an offer. Of course, use broker deals as a blueprint. It does not mean you are going to be successful, but that’s what I have done in the past.

Dealers will either say YES or NO. There is no need to stress about the dealer you worked with last year. It does not matter if you are returning customer in this case. They do not want to work with you. Move on from them.

Having just recently negotiated a Pathfinder deal myself, here is my 2 cents:

  1. Trying to negotiate with just one dealer, even if it’s a dealer you’ve gotten a good at in the past, doesn’t give you any leverage to make a good deal.

  2. As a buyer, a lot is stacked against you, and you don’t have many tools at your disposal. Two that you do have are: shopping around many many dealers, and ability to walk away when you don’t like a deal. Since you don’t control many of the other levers, you have to use the couple that you do.

  3. Dealers will hardly ever present their best deal to you up front. Recently, two dealers I contacted sent me screenshots of the lease “deals” on Nissan’s national website, and told me that the deals I was asking for were not possible, because that would mean that they were better than Nissan’s national deals, and that was not possibly. – lol

  4. A couple of the dealers, that gave me the absolute worst figures in the beginning, and told me that they couldn’t do anything better, ended up giving me some of the best prices in the end. Many dealers will give you horrible prices and hope that you take them. If you continue the process by shopping around, and showing that you are serious about getting a good deal, they may change their tune.

  5. Very often I was tempted to “tell off” the dealers who did things like sending me screenshots from Nissan’s national offers. But I resisted that urge, and kept politely engaging with all the dealerships, never “writing any of them off.” It seems to be that after dealers have a certain amount of time invested in you (via communication, answering questions etc), at this point (sunken cost fallacy I guess), they are more likely to bend to make a better deal with you.

  6. I never asked for, or tried directly to contact any General Managers. However, as the deal “progressed” (see #5 "sunken cost), several managers reached out trying to “seal” the deal. The very best deals I have ever gotten on cars have all come when GM’s get directly involved.
    Sometimes, this process is a bit like a video game…you have to go through the levels of minions, to get to the “final boss.”

I am far from a pro (I’m not even a car enthusiast per say). This is just my little common sense wisdom, learned along the way. I hope some tidbit of it helps you!

15 Likes

Give this fella a bell - ✅ NewAgeAutoLease | NISSAN 8% OFF ALL PLATINUM PATHFINDERS! 387$ M | END OF MONTH SPECIAL! - #217 by NewAgeAutoLease

Play with the calculator and figure out the deal you want, then email a dozen dealers letting them know you’ll pick the vehicle up today if they can offer it.

Screw this first dealer.

1 Like

+1 - A couple of years ago, when I was negotiating an Audi lease, the GM got involved. Deal was finalized after a couple of phone calls.

2 Likes

Thanks again all I appreciate the help!

Doing the dance right now with about 10 different dealers, one so far wouldn’t do anything and a second wouldn’t go past 1k off MSRP. Dancing with the other 8 or so now…

Why not just pay a broker $5-600 and save yourself a significant amount of time and effort

2 Likes

I’m also trying to do just that, one doesn’t have any left but I reached out to another in the Midwest…

Man some of these guys are real pieces of work, they get personally offended when you ask them for numbers…really silly

I got one that may play ball, i told her I’m at 4% off MSRP but holding out for 6% and if she can get me there I’ll come pick it up tomorrow.

So she asked for the details, trying to call my bluff of course…I sent her numbers but of course don’t have a deal sheet.

This strategy is virtually guaranteed to be very time consuming and frustrating for you.

4 Likes

What was their deal? Did they even agree to meet you at 4% off?

Did you really have a 4% off deal? If so what was the monthly difference between a 4% off deal and a 6% off deal?

She told me they would beat it and asked for the deal specifics, I sent her numbers but I’m sure she’s going to come back and say she needs the deal sheet from the dealer. Maybe it’s just a different animal out here in Michigan but this doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere, best so far has been 1k off MSRP which ended up at $525 a month. Honestly most of them just offered full MSRP with the $300 incentive off and were not cordial when I told them I couldn’t do that, I was cordial to all of them and just honestly said what I was looking for…

No I didn’t, best I have had so far was 1k off which is roughly 2.15%