Watch your email/phone light up Friday into Saturday.
Triple quota day is the 31st. It happens once every 6 or 7 years. Big money at stake. No reasonable offer will be refused when hundreds of thousands are on the line.
This forum is (mostly) silent about this, because they are all in cahoots with each other…
For example, the car buying services get paid by the dealership. So they “do their best” to get us a great lease… but all the while a lower price is less money in their pocket. See how it works?
This is why so many people scream at me here - calling me a troll. My advice is hurting their piggy bank.
Try it. There is nothing to lose (and an AMAZING car at a great price to gain).
How do you KNOW that you will be the deal that puts them into their goal? You make it sound like every dealer is off by 1 deal and they all are waiting for you to come in.
Is there a quick and easy way to test drive a lot of different types of cars in a very short time without getting roped into any deal making? I feel like even if I go to a dealership and tell them flat out that I just want to test drive the car and I’ll return to make a deal, they just keep dragging it out. I’m still trying to figure out what types of SUVs my wife would be happy with. So far I’ve test drove Toyotas and Hondas. The Rav4 is a possibility, and she wasn’t thrilled with the CRV. I also tried out the Equinox which I really disliked. Still looking to test drive a Nissan Rogue/Morano, Hyndai Santa Fe, Mazda CX-5, Subaru Forrester, Kia Sorrento, Ford Escape/Edge, and possibly some Lexus, BMW, Infiniti, etc though I think those will be out of our price range. I’m in San Diego, but will be in Orange County this weekend. Thanks!
I’m in Los Angeles. I’m looking at the Infinity as well or a Chrysler 300. Can you send me an example email “planting seeds” I’m totally cool with waiting till Christmas Eve. Just want to be smart about it.
First, I make several copies of my driver’s license…
With a marker, I blot out the last digit of my driver’s license number AND blot out the last digit of my home address…
I always take a test drive Monday thru Wednesday. These are slow days for dealerships…
Important: I visit the dealership about 45 minutes before they officially close…
I walk straight to the receptionist’s desk. I hit the first “up”… an “up” is a salesperson who gets the next prospect in the lot…
I say, “I do not want to waste your time. I am looking to test drive a xxx, a xxx and a xxx. I am not a tire kicker. I will be buying a new car as soon as I find the right car.”
Next:
I tell him/her that your wife/spouse/girlfriend/mother is shopping, and I HAVE to pick her up in 43 minutes. (This is crucial to say. The weird number 43 conveys exactness. Also, it “anchors” the idea that being late is not an option. Everyone knows stranding her at the mall will not end well).
Then I hand over a copy of my driver’s license.
About 3 minutes later, keys are in hand. Like magic.
I take the test drive. It might last 25- to 35 minutes max. I always hit the highway, hills and curves. And I am not shy - I took an Infiniti FX50 out for a spin many years ago. I asked if I could “hit it.” And man did that car zoom like a rocket onto the highway.
When I finish up, i (in a sort of rushed way) ask for a business card and then say, “I must run to pickup my girl. What days are you off so we can continue this conversation?”
Say it EXACTLY like that. Again, sound rushed. This uses NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) to disarm the salesperson.
Take the business card. Thank the salesperson for the quick demo. Then leave (again almost running out the door).
I have done this successfully for years.
Last time I test drove a car (2 months ago), it was so late in the evening, the salesman handed me the keys to a brand new Infiniti QX60. He said, “Have a blast with it… it has a full tank of gas.” This is great as there was no one pressuring us and hitting our emotional buttons. I returned the car… and flung the keys to him and thanked him. He was closing a sale, so it was easy to leave without pressure.
This technique turns the tables on the dealership’s “drag it out” games they like to play with us.
And trust me. No salesperson wants to start their 5-hour sales game 45 minutes before quitting time. They are tired. They are hungry. And most have family they want to rush home and see. They will be happy that you are leaving when they close for the night.
By the way: about blotting out the last digit of our driver’s license and home number… this is to protect our privacy…
They say we need a driver’s license for insurance purposes. This is not the real reason… they do it to add us to their drip mailing system… so they can send us endless junk mail.
And by the way #2: I ALWAYS email the same salesperson and ask if they want to sell me the car at the price I want. In other words, I do not ask for a test drive without following up for an opportunity to sell me the car.
I went around around to internet departments at dealers around town (checked their website if it showed inventory, which wasn’t always accurate) and wrote
i’m looking to lease this specific model car, and would like your best lease quote:
specified term
specified mileage
specified my credit tier (it was top so it made it easy)
monthly payment zero drive off or at least zero down
and include the total drive off (if there was one)
And I got specific quotes form most dealers. sometimes they’d call me back and do it over the phone instead of email. (which was fine), or maybe they had a slightly different model, etc. A few dealers wouldn’t give me a specific quote unless I came in in person. I didn’t talk to those dealers any more.
After I got the quotes i called back the top few dealers and told them what the better deal I had was, and asked if they could beat it.
I can’t guarantee it was the best, but it was fairly direct.
Awesome details! Thanks so much for the tips! I especially like the going there before closing idea. I noticed when I test drove the equinox that worked out really well. I did however give them about 15 minutes to try to give me a deal, but at one point we were way too far away on numbers and they just said they would call me if they got a different (slightly cheaper) model in. Ended up working out well.
Are you trying to buy a car or interview for a job of test driver at Car and Driver magazine? MIght help to narrow the list. I am all for test driving but looks like you left out Jeep renegade, Compass, Volvo Xc60, jaguar Fpace, Mercedes GLA 250, Acura RDX, Audi Q5 from your list
hahaha… nah, I’ve already decided I hate the Jeep Compass, so we can take one off my list Honestly, there’s so many promising options for small->midsize SUVs that I just don’t know where to start! I’m sure my wife would be happy with any of them as long as they had all the “bells and whistles”. I really wish there was one place where you could check out every new car. I’m gonna go try to test drive a few tonight and see if I get some more options to try to find a deal on.
I feel you there. Going through/went through the same thing with my wife. Looking to replace her Escape purely out of wanting something new. Lots and lots and lots of great options out there. CX9 is great, but leases terribly, X1 felt like a mini (because it is) and nowhere near the price they want, X3 was good, wife hates the GLA/QX30, any suv that “looks like a hatchback” even though I kinda like em.
All in all, ended up with honing in on an RX350 (the NX F-Sport is also really nice) and they lease pretty well. Wasn’t even expecting to like a lexus as much as we thought we would. Just figured we’d pop in to do our due diligence just to say we did look like we did with infiniti.
I worked a deal entirely over the phone this weekend. Asked for the sales manager directly. Told him stock number of the vehicle, made sure it was on their lot. Told him ready to lease today and wasn’t interested in haggling back and forth — can you do a sale price of XX,XXX. I knew the lease MF, residual and what similar models were leasing out for so I knew what my target sale price was. When he agreed I made sure that he went over all of the acquisition fees with me and that the MF and residual were the same that I had. Filled out all application forms online - credit check, info, etc. 1 hour later at the dealer, test drove the car. Paperwork waiting and ready, signed the deal - matched what we discussed. It can be done without stepping into the dealership, you just have to find the sales manager who is ready to deal and knows your serious.
Your story will surprise a lot of people here - they cannot believe that we hold as much power as car dealers do.
And we are quickly approaching the perfect storm… end of month… end of quarter and end of year manager quota bonus time. This is the first time New Year’s Eve is on a Saturday in a long time… will not happen again until the year 2022. Bottom line: if a dealer needs that one last sale to get hundreds of thousands in bonus money, we win. (Just make sure to take delivery on or before that Saturday).
By the way, you could have avoided the dealership altogether by having the car delivered to you… they would have even brought back your trade in from your home, too!
So just because the 31st is a Saturday, there will be unheard of, once in a decade deals? Some dealers have hundreds of thousands in bonus just because they need to sell an extra car? In that case, why not just sell it to their employees, friends and families for 50% MSRP? The 10k loss on that car would easily be offset by their mega bonus. They can even sell it to straw buyer on the 31st and then repurchase it in inventory the 3rd as a CPO if millions of bonus are on the line lol
Please do not post things that are dubious or not true.
You assume all buyers are leisurely car buyers. Car buying is unfortunately the most stressful experience because people are buying with a timeline - they need to return their lease at month end, their car is having mechanical issues and finances are tight and or dealing with negative equity.
Not many people are like @Phantomcypher where they have the capital and lie in wait to strike at the 488 Maserati deal. Indeed the 488 Maserati deal shows that deals can be had year round not at end of year or quarter. May was the $250 volvo lease deal, June was the $100 BMW i3 lease deal, August was the Acura $199 lease deals with Edmunds coupon, October was the Ram $200 lease deal with Edmunds coupon etc etc
I challenge anybody to replicate the above deals on Dec 31st, those deals happened just because the dealers needed to make room for new year models or clear poorly selling ones.
The best time to buy a car is well, when you actually don’t need one but the dealer needs to sell one.
Honestly, there’s so many promising options for small->midsize SUVs that I just don’t know where to start! I’m sure my wife would be happy with any of them as long as they had all the “bells and whistles”. I really wish there was one place where you could check out every new car. I’m gonna go try to test drive a few tonight and see if I get some more options to try to find a deal on.