Quote:
Originally Posted by Sr. Mints
We're planning on paying cash for a car: how best to go about this? Can we expect any sort of discount?
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I can help with this one.
Maybe or no.
Car dealers don't want you to pay cash, big myth. We make money on the financing through an interest rate reserve, and it opens up products on the loan not available on a cash sale. Specifically life and disability insurance, also it makes the sale of add-ons much easier because they now become a monthly instalment, not an upfront cost. In fact many dealers will give you a BETTER deal knowing you will finance, as they can bank on some back end profit. You usually see a financed customer again, and they are easier to retain, I believe the re-visit rate is something like 70%. Where as 80% of cash customers you never see again, so unless you are trying to unload overstocks or distressed inventory, you may be better to just let them walk.
This is my advice. Go to car-cost Canada, and pay for a quote for exactly what you want. Use that quote to get your best deal. However, DO NOT walk into a dealer with the quote in your hand, or let them know you are a car-cost customer. Just say "I can get this deal elsewhere, will you match it."
Dealers typically have terrible experiences with car-cost customers because:
A) they believe the quote is a legally binding document (which it isn't)
B) Car-cost customers are typically not friendly in the sense they don't believe the dealers should be allowed to make a nickel. Personally, I would never deal with them. Yeah, they were a guaranteed sale usually, but the customers were so unbelievably unreasonable sometimes, they weren't worth the brain damage.
The biggest issue with them is they never see value in quality service. All they see is the bottom line number and have zero loyalty. All they typically care about is "How Cheap?" and will always go that route for their service needs. So really they bring nothing to the table for the dealer besides moving a piece of inventory and making 3 or 400 bucks to do so. The average dealer spends $350 in advertising, to bring each customer in the door.
One of our sales people just got into with a Car-Cost customer DEMANDING we sell him a Golf R at cost, or he would take his business elsewhere. Made a big scene, and said because the site generated the quote, we were legally bound by it. Really? LOL. A) they are a third party, and we are bound by nothing. B) The car is sold out at every dealer in the country as they only built 500 of them. C) I have a waiting list of 30 people with deposits willing to pay full retail for the thing if anyone drops out.