I feel your pain. I wrote three dealers a couple of weeks ago about specific VINs, asking for specific pricing and incentive information. In one case, I provided a control number, hoping that would get me further. In zero cases did I ever get a direct answer. One dealer sent three separate emails from three different people within 10 minutes. And, they wonder why we won’t come in or give them our phone number? If they would just answer the freakin’ question straight off of the bat instead of acting like a damn puppy, I would certainly be more likely to share other means of contact or even come in and give them a treat!
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Sending out copy-paste emails to sales managers is one strategy I’ve tried and lots of times, like @Hawk, I didn’t get any response period. I think dealerships really want their sales managers and salespeople to “follow” their dealership’s “process”. What I mean by this is that they don’t see you as a “real” lead if you just send the sales manager an email with a lease proposal. The last lease I worked, I submitted the vehicle I was looking for to TrueCar with many different zip codes covering the area I was interested in. After their internet people sent me some vehicles, I would respond back telling them I’m interested in stock# XXXX. I then contacted dealers that didn’t pay for TrueCar leads and told them what I was looking for.
Because they’re responding to a TrueCar lead, they know that you’re getting other quotes. In some of my copy-paste emails, I think the dealerships just (correctly) presumed that the odds of them actually making the sale were very low because I would be contacting 15-20 dealerships. Of course we want the lease worksheet, MF, etc., but sometimes it’s good to start getting some monthly payment #'s. Once they start with that, you can start squeezing them down. Once you get to an area you’re pleased with based on the sale price, you can start squeezing on the MF. One bonus of using the various websites i.e. truecar, cargurus, etc. is that often you’ll get a generic email from a sales manager or the general manager offering their help. Sometimes I’ll add them into the email conversation once I’ve gotten a quote from the internet sales rep.
I think there are lots of ways to skin this cat. Some advise to “control the deal” from the beginning and others are willing to “walk it in”. Obviously controlling the deal requires a lot less contact, but I think the response rate is much smaller. Maybe this is dependent on the market you’re looking at, but I didn’t have much luck with this approach.
Generally, this community is looking for unicorn deals or the replication of them. Sending a dealership an email asking them to accept a unicorn deal on the first communication with them didn’t work well for me, especially when the dealership was far away and they knew they wouldn’t be getting any service business.
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I have been unable to get dealers to agree to quote over email. Plenty of discussions. It’s not like I get no response, but they are flatly refusing to quote so that I can evaluate a deal unless I come in. Definitely don’t want the 90 minute dance with the dealer removing items from their paper in their office. Any advice on how to avoid such nonsense?
Move on to a new dealer. Also, make sure when you contact the dealer that you’re talking to the internet sales manager, not just some random salesman
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If you submit an offer/inquiry on the page of the car you want, you’ll get a response. Which car you trying to get?
If you can’t get email quotes on those cars after contacting multiple dealers, you’re doing something wrong. You might need to start calling, ask for the internet manager, tell them you’re ready to lease, you don’t want to waste their time or yours and you need a quote via email.
Unless you’re in some strange market, you should be getting something back, I assume you’ve contacted at least 9 dealers at this point, and if you’re really diligent I’d say triple that since you’re looking at three different cars, might want to narrow your target down to one or two cars. I’d say ditch the civic, won’t lease as well as the others
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Here is the email letter that worked for me:
We are currently nearing the end of 2 vehicle leases.
We plan to lease 2 Equinox LT’s.
Our plan is to lease both vehicles for 24 months/10k miles per year.
We are not interested in any extra equipment or services.
We have GM Supplier/Friends numbers for both leases.
Cash at closing = 1st-month payment, tax, and plate transfer.
The target date for completion 10/28/18.
One of our current leases is a GM Financial lease the other is a VW Lease.
There are no vehicles to be traded in for this transaction.
Thanks in advance for your interest.
Please reply to:
We leased 2- 2019 Chev. Equinox’ for $200/month, due at closing approx $450 each car.
I tell dealers that I’m out of town for work and need to have a deal worked out by the time I get back. Eliminates all possibility of ‘come in for our best deal’ games.
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Hello [Dealer], I’m in the market for a pickup truck and am coming across some great lease deals on Tacoma’s. My research suggests I can get a ~$40k 2019 Tacoma TRD Premium Off Road Double Cab 4WD MT w/Premium and Tech for $225/mo using MSD’s (plus tax and tags). Any interest in getting me into a similar Off Road (ie Stock #191146) around the same price?
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So, I’ve seen a lot of people here getting amazing deals on BMW loaners (20%+ off MSRP, lots of incentives, tax credits, etc).
I’ve contacted all the BMW dealerships within 3 hours of me. (Central Texas).
They either will not come close to this discount, or will not separate discount from incentives, or just will not even come close to a reasonable deal. And if we can agree on a price, they jack up the MF by 4x and won’t budge.
I can’t make physical appearances at all these dealerships around the state. I’ve emailed and followed up with phone conversations and I can’t get anywhere. They just will not budge. I tell them I’ll drive over and sign today if they will make a reasonable deal, but the deals aren’t even good deals, let alone great deals.
Am I doing something wrong?
What should my approach be? Is it possible to cut one of these deals without endless haggles? I see so many deals on this forum from BMW San Antonio and their Courtesy Car inventory is overflowing, but I can’t get better than a borderline sucker offer.
I ran into that problem and practically gave up. Are there brokers around? I’d suggest with brokers, you might not find a unicorn but you may get a much better than average deal.
Somehow also suggested check out cargurus and find cars that have been on the lot for months. It worked for some, didn’t for me.
Seems like every time I reach out to a dealer, they’re $200-$300 higher than what I’ve researched and it feels like a waste of time to try to negotiate. What are ways you level set to get dealers to reply with an honest price of the bat?
Did you expect them to give you the price you wanted right off the bat without any negotiating? They will always shoot high. What do they have to loose some people don’t negotiate. I always counter asking them if I can see the specific details as to how they came to that price. When they send it I tell them the money factor is marked up or the discount is to low are I’m not paying for any crazy add ons, whatever the issue is. As long as they respond with pricing via email you are on your way to negotiate.
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I prefer to start the conversation by telling them the deal that I want, not wait for them to tell me the deal they want.
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Because everyone wants a no-haggle, best price and then proceeds to haggle afterwards.
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Hi guys. I am a new member to this website, although I have been lurking for several months in preparation of my first lease hack. I have not started contacting dealers, but I have put together an introductory email that I hope to send to dozens if not hundreds of dealers across the United States in order to secure a good lease deal. I was hoping you guys can review the proposed email that I plan to send below. Do you guys have any feedback on it? Do you think it needs any work or any changes?
To simplify my lease hacking, I have considered putting together a spread sheet that includes the name and contact information for all the dealers in my state and the surrounding states. With this information, I can use the mail merge feature in Microsoft Word to pre-populate the emails and to send dozens of them at once.
Pasted below is my proposed email. Please let me know your thoughts.
"Greetings BMW Dealer, my name is Steve Johnson and I am in the market for a new vehicle. Please note that I am a completely serious buyer. I will not waste your time, and I am ready to pick up a vehicle in the next few days if we can work out a price.
As an initial matter, please note that email is my preferred method of communication, and I have no intention to visit your dealership in person or speak with you over the phone until you can provide me with a satisfactory and reasonable quote over email.
To be quite straight forward with you, I am looking to lease a demo BMW. I would like a price that is around 22 percent off the MSRP before any incentives are added. Please note that the deal must have base Money Factor (MF), so do not mark it up. If applicable, I can put down the maximum number of Multiple Security Deposits(MSD).
Although I am open to considering any loaner vehicles in your possession, I am specifically interested in VIN X-XX-XXX-X, which per my research on cars dot com and car guru has been sitting in your inventory for approximately 325 days. I can take his vehicle off your hands and help you move inventory if you are open on the pricing. Please note that I am located in New York City from Area Code 10021. I am flexible as to number of months and mileage, and would just like the cheapest deal available.
I am not interesting in putting any money down other than potential tax, acquisition, and government fees. As a proud member of the LeaseHackr community, I am well aware that my conditions may seem a bit difficult and extreme to work with. However, please be aware that I am a serious buyer who is willing to pick up a vehicle ASAP.
If you believe we can work together on this deal pursuant to the aforementioned terms, please send me a simplified deal sheet that specifically includes the following: (1) MSRP, (2) Selling Price that does not include any incentives, (3) months, (4) miles per year, (5) residual, (6) money factor, (7) taxed and untaxed incentives, (8) drive off, (9) taxes, (10) acquisition fee, (11) government fees. I will review the deal sheet and pick up the vehicle if you are able to meet my conditions as to to the lease.
I look forward to working with you, and hope to hear from you soon.
Best Regards,
Steve Johnson"
Thank you guys for reading my thread, and I look forward to your feedback.
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As a dealer, I would immediately delete that.
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You will get responses at least 4% of the time to that manifesto.
Edit: and we just had a massive thread about this which I’ve merged this into.
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As a non-dealer, I would immediately delete that.
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