I’ve read so much on here about email negotiations, and about not going in unless it’s to sign and pay and drive, and about researching the deal you want. And it has been so helpful.
So I made the following template and have been email dealerships with VIN numbers of the the stock that I want, and I either hear nothing back or I get the boilerplate “Come on in and we’ll talk” response. What am I missing here? Is it just a bad time to be doing this?
Hi I'm interesting in buying "VIN" in your inventory. I've already test driven the car, and know that i want it. Looking for best deal atm.
I'm looking to close this weekend as I'm about to sell my lease so if you can send me a quote with the following that would be easiest:
Selling price
Incentives
MF (my fico auto avg is xxx, you can give me project/best guess)
RV
Monthly w/ $0 down for 36/10k
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First off, dont ask them for quotes and dont ask them for stuff like rv/mf/incentives.
You should know the rv/mf/incentives you qualify before you ever talk to a dealer and you should be making them an offer, not asking them how much they want you to pay.
From there, expect most dealers to say no, come in, etc.
You should have a target deal in mind. “I would drive this vehicle for $xxx per month.” From there, pay a $10 donation to this wonderful site to become a super supporter and gain access to RateFindr. Or, if you’re a cheap ass, go to the edmund’s forums and ask them there.
Now that you have the rv, mf, and incentives, you go into the LH calc, put the numbers in, and see what discount is required to reach your target of $xxx per month. Then you head to the marketplace and see what kind of discount brokers are offering. If you’re way off base, you need to reevaluate. If you’re on target, then you reach out to the dealer and make them an offer. In my opinion, your offer should be short, sweet, simple, and to the point. Don’t bother laying out the rv, mf, etc. You’ll come off as an entitled prick who will give bad CSI surveys if the slightest thing goes wrong, and you’ll end up in the junk box.
From there on, it’s your negotiation skills. Just think, most of the best deals on here have the dealer either not making a ton of money on it, or in some cases, losing money. So why would a dealer want to spend a bunch of time doing back and forth and hardly make any money? Make it easy for them to just say yes and move on
You’re asking them to do too much work, and they’d rather ship you to a salesperson in that case. As others have said, you should know the answers to all of that already. Your email to any sales manager should simply be the following:
Pleasant hello
Here’s my offer based upon zip code xxxxx and rebates
Offer to close quickly if they agree
You completely understand if you cannot do this deal but thank them for their consideration
Thank you for this. I did go to Edmunds like the cheap-ass that I am and found out the particulars (MF/RV/Incentives). But some of the advice I’ve read and have gotten irl has been to make them do as much of the work as possible. I guess your way makes sense as well.
So, once armed with all the relevant info, is the idea to low ball them until they meet me where I want to be?
Don’t ask for the info, tell them you have the info.
I’m looking to lease a 2204 XYZ. Using MF 0.0002, residual 60%, incentives of $10,000 and a discount of $4000 off MSRP, a 24/12 lease should fall into the $500/mo range with $1000 due at signing.
What possible motivation would there be to do that?
If you want them to make next to no money, your only value to them is to be the quickest, easiest sale possible. If you want them to make no money and do a bunch of work for it, you’re nuts.
Imo, your goal should be to minimize back and forth. “Here is the price i want. If you can do this price, i will be there in 1 hour to sign and take delivery.” Make it stupid simple. If you overshoot reality with your offer, its just going to end up in the trash.
In the many many years I’ve been doing this stuff, I’ve never taken a shit offer and turned it into a good offer. The great deals start out as at least good deals and then with some work became great.
It’s a waste of time for everyone to go any further if you want to be at $500/mo and the offer from the dealer is $800. Just say thanks for your time I’ll look elsewhere and move on.
My offer below from a few years ago was ghosted by sales, then GM replied. My email offer:
VIN: 3MW5P7J03M8Cxxxxx Stock: M8C16068
MSRP 47140
10k/36 with ccfr, loyalty, penfed, OL.
My offer is:
$2600 drive off, $380 pre-tax monthly
Reply from GM:
We can do $399 plus tax on our white one granted you have both loyalty an OL.
$2600 down
