After studying a lot about leases, I’m pretty comfortable with numbers so I decided to contact 2 MB dealership last night for 2018 C300 loaners and negotiated today but with no luck. Here’s how it went:
Send an email to sales rep with a brief that includes a sheet with detailed information (trim, miles, terms, etc.) and a list of specific but very flexible color and options and I ask for any demo/loaner vehicles that resembles the brief.
They send me some cars with generic monthly payment charts and I ask for the options list and cost break down and I review the cost breakdown to make sure there is no BS fees and confirm MF and applicable incentives.
They include a sales price as well in the sheet that’s usually around 10% - 15% off so I propose a 25% off from MSRP, given the loaner status of the car, end of the year & month, and general loaner market.
Denied and even if I offer less discount, they will not budge above 15%, which I think is unreasonble considering a brand new 2019 C300 is being leased with discount around 12%.
Is there something I’m doing wrong? Last time I was leasing, the sales reps would not let me go but it seems that now that I’m trying to lease through email first, it’s not working (I always mention that I’m willing to negotiate online and ready to visit and make a deal ASAP) Is the state of NJ just not a good market? A 15% off of MSRP for a 2018 C300 with only $1,750 fleet incentive (apparently cannot stack with $1250 dealer incentive) sounds pretty bad to me considering 2019 has rolled out for a couple months now.
I’ve also heard contacting the sales manager directly has more success - can anybody share their experience on this? Also, i’m running out of local dealership around my area. Is it possible to contact dealership that are hours away (but still in-state) and have them deliver the car to my residence? If anybody knows any good dealerships in NJ, please let me know!
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I promise I searched this forum before posting this!!
I don’t think it’s something you are doing right or wrong, but whether the dealers are willing or not…so cast your net wide,you probably should reach out to more dealers than just two. I realized that the dealers in my areas are not willing to provide discounts anywhere even close to what is offered in this forum…
From my experiences I always go after stock numbers first, that way I know I’m getting the car with the options that I want. Try attacking cars that have been on the lot longer, cargurus and autolist are both good at that, only other thing like the poster above me said is cast a wider net. Sometimes calling is better I guess? I think your strategy is great just maybe the market is dry for deals in your area.
I always go to the dealer website and pick out the specific car I want. I click on their “Check Availability” button. This usually ends up at someone that specializes in internet sales or is at least used to dealing with queries on line and won’t give you the “come on in and we’ll work a deal” routine. I always ask for their best price and incentives in my original email. This starts the process.
I’ve found that I only get a serious response from about half I send so you definitely need to broaden your search.
I will start broadening my search, but what happens if the dealership is very far? I would have no way to pick up the car. Also, a lot of the dealership websites don’t have loaners in the list of their cars so I don’ think i’ll be able to pick a specific car
@2pac How do I know how long the cars have been in the lot? I will check out cargurus and autolist but if you could give me some insight, that’d be great
cargurus and autolist have a feature that shows you how long a car has been sitting on the lot in days, cars.com has a search feature where you can “sort by newest listed” and then you go to the last page and check out vehicles, cargurus and autolist are better tho because you can see how much time cars are on a lot.
As for picking up the car if its a distance away shipping within a certain radius should be pretty cheap, within 500 miles usually isnt more than $500 which is reasonable if you are getting a much better deal that far away from your location.
Couple things- not every dealership has an internet department that’s willing to essentially make a deal online. Some only have an internet dept that’s goal is to get you in the door.
Second, a lot of the best deals you see here are from LA metro or tri state area with high population density, and plenty of dealerships to serve the population. That equals more competition and the best prices. Not all deals are possible in all areas.
Try to lookup the total amount of vehicles at a dealership. More vehicles means a volume dealer. In other words, they’ll sell cars for less than other dealerships because the volume makes up for it. Some smaller dealerships won’t, as they make enough money per unit on the people that don’t haggle and grind.
I would recommend greatly expanding your search area…you can make home delivery part of your list of requirements. As you expand your list of dealers you will notice that out of 10 dealers, one or two are making serious credible offers, and you are on your way. Clearly always need to have a greatly expanded list.
Thanks for those websites. Is there a way to search a specific car by its VIN number? I know I can narrow the search by days it’s been on the market or choose a car on their website and it will have the amount of days. I have some recommended cars from dealerships and would like to check how many days they’ve been on the market!
I think only dealers can lookup by vin and see how many days on the lots it’s been, you can see when a car was built for some manufacturers by vin lookup but sometimes cars spend months waiting for delivery to dealerships, you’re just gonna have to use cargurus to narrow the dealer and car manually.
My experience is that you will get really bad numbers until you can find (or pretend) there is competition. Then you have to tell them the numbers you want and ask them to meet / beat them. I was fortunate to get some broker numbers to even know what was possible and then shopped them.
Also be prepared for dealers to move numbers around. It was very difficult to get any transparency in what was what and I spent a lot of time translating their offers in to order to compare them and determine the actual cost.
How would you approach in pretending there’s a competition? I’ve contacted additional dealerships and mentioned I’ve in negotiation with other dealerships as well (which is true since I’m now in contact with 6) but usually after they hear what kind of ball park range I’m looking for, they either hang up on me or ask me if I have any offers even remotely close to my proposal. I don’t so I just tell them I’m still in the progress of negotiation and usually they will just say “get me the figures from other dealerships in paper (or I guess email written) and we’ll beat that” and then just hang up on me.
All the dealerships I’ve been in contact will not budge over 15% off of MSRP… would they believe me if I lie that I have an offer for like 20% off of MSRP?
They know what the cars cost and what the absolute rock bottom that they or another dealership are willing to sell them for. So, if you just make shit up and are way off, you’ll get nowhere.
Your situation is tough because none of the dealers want to play ball. In my case, I had received numbers from a broker from a state that had higher fees. I was able to match it locally and then get about another 500.
As mikem says, you just can’t make random stuff up. I had a baseline / real quote and then sent it to 2 dealers. One dropped the monthly and I made up that the original quote drive-offs came down.
It sounds like you are in a tough market and / or looking at a desirable model. It’s frustrating when told to show them numbers. That’s a BS tactic and I responded to that with “how about telling me what you can do instead of me feeding you numbers”. You may want to contact a broker and see what they can do. You will pay a fee for their service, but it’s worth it if they get a better deal than you can.
I’m in SoCal (where I literally have 3 MB dealers w/ a 10 mi radius; I ended up contacting about 5), but I had similar problems to you. There’s some great deals being discussed here, but I think many of them are unicorns, and I think loaner lease negotiations are much more variable than are new cars. I even found the stock number for cars on the dealer’s lot and STILL couldn’t get sales people to respond to e-mail OR calls (let alone give a quote).
Contacted a “broker,” who was essentially useless.
I think the market is just weird right now (IMHO, of course).
If you’re not in a rush, just be patient and flexible (esp w/ options since loaners, at least in LA, tend to be optioned in very narrow and specific ways). Agree w/ others that trying to find specific cars and choosin ones that have been sitting on the lot longer, rather than asking the dealer to find a car for you.
You can try using the CPO tool from mbusa.com which I think will also capture some loaners. Sometimes the Carfax report will have the use of the vehicle (I think loaners will fall under “corporate fleet”).
Agree 100%^^^
When I shopped for my new GLS and C300 recently I found that it was smart to cast net far and wide as there is a wide variation in style among CA Benz dealers. Some have too much attitude and only cater to tech guys with options who come in and pay cash. But there are others who are hungry and willing to deal. Many won’t get serious by email but most will quote and negotiate by phone. Several even offered to deliver to me though I’d insist to see the scanned paperwork first as it always has “mistakes” - I found NorCal better than SoCal but that isn’t the rule and it’s certainly worth a $59 southwest flight if you find a deal.
Loaners are a bit tougher as they are each unique so you may have to visit the dealer to close at a decent price. But you can still play them against each other as there is always another dealer up the road with a similar loaner.
The last 5 days of the year are a great time to cut a deal - go forth and conquer!
and even if I offer less discount, they will not budge above 15%, which I think is unreasonble considering a brand new 2019 C300 is being leased with discount around 12%.
and even if I offer less discount, they will not budge above 15%, which I think is unreasonble considering a brand new 2019 C300 is being leased with discount around 12%.