It’s illegal in NJ for them to charge a different price for gas for non members. Hence the long lines 
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Same, every week: gas and a chicken. My dog gets a little on her dinner every night (I eat the wings and cook with the rest).
Bought my Michelin Pilot Sports there but I’d never do it again. They don’t take appointments, so anytime you need to come in for service you could be waiting a very long time. I’d rather pay more at a place I can make an appointment.
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Costco’s insurance saving is huge at least for me
Eyeglasses. Can’t beat Costco’s QPR.
My Costco also uses inferior balancing equipment. Discount Tire is a much better option in my opinion.
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My local DT looks like it was run by a bunch of ‘guys who got rejected from Pep Boys’ I like America’s tire more.
This thing makes a great chicken, while satisfying the urge to impale something.
I don’t think you can buy an uncooked chicken for less than Costco will sell you a cooked one (supposedly at a loss).
I try to avoid Costco at all costs though because it’s a madhouse over here.
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Go really early when the doors open, or before closing time. Always little to no crowds. Same thing with the gas lines. We really like Costco for most of their deals and their return policies, but they have a really limited selection (one or two of each product)
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Somewhat mitigated now that they have self-checkout. We now stop by several times a week near closing time, just to grab a few items, no cart or box needed, and it’s faster than a Safeway or Whole Foods now.
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The Costco’s around me take appointments (LA South Bay)- in fact, they encourage it b/c otherwise, you will be waiting for several hours.
in my experience, COstco will occasionally give a decent deal if the cars you want already has lots of promotions and incentives. But its probably no better than a good deal from one of the brokers on leasehackr. For example, in 2015, lexus IS’s were offering big factory incentives and dealer discounts. I put out a request on Costco and was offerred about 10% off MSRP plus all the factory promotions plus Lexus cheap factory money plus $1,000 costco money. Close enough that I didnt bother shopping any further. But I never replicated this deal since with Costco.
There’s the Costco buying program, which I agree with your assessment of.
More importantly, there’s the extra unrelated quarterly-ish bonus incentives that stack on top of other deals that are the primary benefit.
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That portion of the Costco Auto Program involves Costco acting as a broker to get a pre-negotiated deal with a local dealer.
Most of the Costco programs discussed here are additional incentives available to Costco members, such as the extra $2,000 incentive in some Audi models earlier this year.
The question then becomes: Is a $60 annual membership (which is fully refundable) worth getting for a possible $2,000 vehicle incentive? Even the gas savings alone pay for the membership.
Something I didn’t see mentioned previously is a lower Doc fee with Costco. Not sure if it’s still a benefit, but 4 years ago my GMC dealer’s Doc fee went from several hundred dollars to $29 just by showing my Costco card. That was a very nice surprise.
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Never saw that. Wonder if it’s still in effect. Some of these doc fees are really high.
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