Dealer when negotiating a car: “it’s just $5,000, you can just put a couple hundred in bitcoin and make that by the end of the day”.
If it was that easy I’m pretty sure we’d all be millionaires and you would not care about the 5k yourself.
2 Likes
I hate it when dealers ask “Where are you looking to be for monthly payments?”. This was after they sent me a quote with very minimal discount and me telling them we were quite far apart.
I provided them with a monthly, based on my research on this forum and the info I received from Edmunds (MF, RV and incentives). I made it clear I was not putting any money down but only paying the usual fees and first months at signing. Will provide an update once they respond.
1 Like
my response to stupid questions is always: I want you to pay me $132.38 a month to take this car off your hands. The number is always some weird number with cents just to make it even more confusing 
1 Like
This an Audi dealer btw, in a wealthy town. I am sure they will say no to my offer.
I agree, but frequently, as a broker, I have to ask a similar but more friendly worded question to many people that I speak to from here. Many people are hesitant to answer to which I usually have to remind people that I’m not a dealer and it’s not a trick question 
2 Likes
Yeah, wealthy towns are usually the problem. The dealers are used to people just walking in, signing whatever is put in front of them and drive off. This is especially prevalent in areas where there is no alternative dealer nearby, or if there is one, somehow both are owned by the same auto group.
1 Like
After strictly following LH’s recommended workflow of negotiating a lease, I kinda started to let loose on answering these questions. I did my own math and calculated the monthly. If you can get me there we have a deal, I don’t really care how you get there. A lot of times this actually cuts down a lot of dealer BS, the sales will be so clueless so that the manager has to come out then it goes back to grinding down details like discount/MF/incentives etc.
2 Likes
Luckily, there are quite a few dealers (4ish) within an hour drive from me. I wanted to give my local dealer a shot.
1 Like
There are two BMW dealerships owned by the same group in my town and the one next to us. My friend tried to “hack” a bmw from the one in our town. He got blacklisted from both lmao, he would literally ask for 20% off new cars with base MF, after numerous emails he got “banned” from both.
2 Likes
I hate when customers think I can read their mind.
4 Likes
It isn’t a dumb question. We select few may not like it, but the overwhelming majority of car shoppers only care about the payment.
To be fair I think the folks on this forum don’t represent an average buyer. 7 times out of 10 people walk in to the dealership without doing any research and just knowing the max they can afford in monthly payments - ofcourse not the best way to do car shopping but these buyers make LH worthy deals possible. I can also imagine that this is an easy way for a salesperson to figure out if the customer has reasonable expectations or not. eg $400 on an X3 with 0 DAS is never happening.
I usually respond in kind to this question by saying I’m looking for x % off MSRP pre incentives and x MF, and if you they can get me those the monthly will fall in line with where I want to be.
I don’t know what the “recommended workflow of negotiating a lease” is, but I agree with this method and have been doing it the same way for some time. I really don’t see any reason to discuss payment inputs besides taxes, fees, DAS etc. It’s much easier just to negotiate a monthly that you want to achieve and that’s the language that sales guys are used to communicating in anyway. There’s no reason to discuss MF, RV, selling price etc except if they ask you how you came up with your target. You should already know what you want and what the monthly payment is resulting from those inputs.
The only asterisk when I’m hesitant to lead with a monthly payment is a fear of low payments situation where the target payment is insanely low relative to the perceived value of the vehicle, but that hasn’t really been a concern with leasing for awhile 
I guess the Camaro LT1 is a good example of it recently.
2 Likes
I am a pretty well informed customer and I am in a no way unrealistic. I had asked the dealer for their pre-incentive discount and they came back with a 3.5% dealer discount. I’ve seen brokers offer 10%+ off on a similar car.
Anyway, I might be in the minority but I do not blindly quote a monthly when I am asked that question.
The BMW, Audi (the one I reached out to) and Benz dealerships are owned by the same group. The BMW dealer was offering me 9% off MSRP on a custom order but I passed, given how crappy incentives are at the moment. At least the guy was pretty honest.
Why’d you even bother if you knew the incentives are bad?
I don’t mean this as a knock on you at all, just a general rant, but when I hear things about people reaching what could be a really good deal and then just passing on it (which might not be what you did, maybe you passed on to someone else, etc), it irks me because when I try to hack cars for myself, I always get the eventual reply about how they’ve heard this in the past and they don’t bother because people don’t take the deals even when they were great, blah blah blah from the dealer.
I feel like a golden rule of hacking should be to only start the process if you actually plan to get the car, no casual hacking or random deal shopping if you’re not intent on taking the car if they reach what is actually an agreeable deal.
3 Likes
I’ll go next. My best response today was, “Sir, your lack of comprehension does not require my continued assistance via phone” when a customer wanted 6K off a Civic LX.
10 Likes
This one goes into the most ridiculous category. I am looking for a 2020 S560 4matic. Found one with 3,000 demo miles $126k msrp. Got on the phone with the sales manager to discuss. Backing into his number, I came up with a $0 dealer discount and a marked up money factor. Essentially he wanted to sell me a used, outgoing model for above MSRP. Told him if I wanted to be ripped off, I’d wait until the 21’s rolled in. He told me he thinks they will lease in the mid $2000s. Needless to say, the convo ended there.
3 Likes
Maybe I should have been clear. I had reached out to a broker offering 11% off, but they could not get any build slots. Hence, I decided to reach out to my local dealer who had allocation, knowing full well what the incentives were.
I would probably have made a deal at 10+% off with my local dealer, but 9% was their max.
We can agree on that. I am ready to make a deal, that’s why I reached out to dealers. I am not here to waste anyone’s time. If we can’t agree on a deal, I move on. I am moving away from BMW for now and focussing on Audi. I have loyalty and I qualify for the 3 month pull ahead program, through Audi Financial.
I hope moving forward, we do not make sweeping generalizations when someone shares their experience.
2 Likes
I don’t think I made a generalization. You made it sound as though you didn’t take the deal because the incentives were bad, which, in my opinion, would not be a great reason if you got that far, there is really no other way to read what you said.
If you had said that you were targeting 10% and they wouldn’t get there, then I wouldn’t have even went on this little rant.
It sounds like we’re in full agreement here.
1 Like