Wife bought a car today

[bjl584]

Only a few new car dealers around here have fixed pricing, and they're not always the best deal. They can be an OK deal, but it really depends if you have a trade and how strong their offer is.

The longest part of working a car deal is usually after an agreed price and before signing paperwork. The finance desk is usually backed up with deals either needing financing, or needing signed. I don't know what the people who spend hours and hours working a deal are doing. Maybe they can't get financed or get wrapped up in silly games? IDK.

Mostly silly games. People think they are getting one over on the dealership, but you know as well as I do that a dealership isn't going to take a loss on a vehicle sale.
The math always ends up working out about the same in most cases.
They drop the price of the car and give you less on trade, or some other trickery

[Smilinggirl]

Just keep oil on hand. I have an older forester and they eat oil. Coworker has a 2016 outback and even that eats oil. Has to add before oil change.

This is so true. I have a 2018 Outback and I’ve learned to carry two quarts of oil, some paper towels and a funnel with me at all times. A friend with an Outback told me there are forums on the internet that talk about the problems Subarus have with running low on oil. I won’t get a Subaru again because of this problem.

[jenn_jenn]

I can confirm that traditional dealers are still haggling!

We bought a new car a couple of months ago. We thought it was going to be an easy process since it seemed like dealers were selling at MRSP and we were fine with that. Nope, only MRSP if we wanted to order and wait 6 months. Cars on the lot were $7k over MSRP (along with other additional fees) and they didn’t tell us this until after we sat down to sign paperwork. I said no thanks, this is a complete want, not a need. We’ll wait and do business elsewhere.

They called us two weeks later on the last day of the month and offered us MSRP. We talked them down $500 below and agreed to come in that night to purchase. Then when we sat down they had again tacked on a bunch of fees and they tried to insist they were mandatory (spoiler: they were not). I will say it was pretty fun to decline and say “Nope, that’s not what we agreed to. Either fix it or no deal.” And they sheepishly came back and caved.

Another note: They would only do the deal if we financed even though I wanted to pay in cash entirely. They do third party financing but get a kick back as long as it’s not paid off within 3 months. I was very transparent about my desire to pay cash and made sure there was no early pay off penalty for me. They said the loan documents would “come in the mail”. Two weeks later they still hadn’t come so I called the dealer to inquire. They gave me a runaround story about why I didn’t have the documents yet and how I couldn’t pay it off anyway because of title processing. So I called the bank explaining my situation and asked if they might be able to help - 5 minutes later they had all the info to me and I paid off the car.

Dealers suck. But I do like my new car.

BTW congrats to your wife and your daughter on their new cars!

[rennigade]

This is so true. I have a 2018 Outback and I’ve learned to carry two quarts of oil, some paper towels and a funnel with me at all times. A friend with an Outback told me there are forums on the internet that talk about the problems Subarus have with running low on oil. I won’t get a Subaru again because of this problem.

Yeah I don't know what the deal is with Subarus and oil. We actually thought about a new outback wilderness. It's a tank and had all the bells and whistles you could want, except pre programmed seats where you save seat position and hit a button instead of fumbling around trying to get seat right. Also, those seats are trash. Very uncomfortable. For $45k, why did they skimp on seat material. Throw some leather in there ffs. 99% of people buying the wilderness are using it to go to the grocery store. They're not headed to the mountains, (the seat material is some plastic sh*t...look it up, it's called StarTex)

We ended up with a Mazda cx-5. I couldn't believe how much more comfortable it was, and yes, it has the pre program seat position thing. It was only $34k so it didn't sting quite as much.

I'm still a fan of Subarus. They are literally tanks in pretty much any weather condition. They're just becoming too expensive for what they are.

[ua_guy]

I think the Subaru oil thing needs to be taken with a grain of salt. It may affect certain engines, but not all. Before telling people all Subarus have oil consumption issues, maybe find the specific engine series and which models it can be in, instead of use scare tactics like saying all Subarus consume oil.

I think leather as an interior medium is quickly falling out of favor with most people, in fact, some carmakers are advertising "vegan" interiors and I think it's great. I love authentic leather seats that wrinkle and age to perfection over years of care and conditioning. 99% of "leather" seats these days are plastic-coated, and those coatings fail prematurely. I'd much rather have a more durable synthetic medium that requires no care.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Don't pay full MSRP prices on new cars. This is my actual new vehicle purchase in 2018 for this Dodge Journey which I got for the $16,307 sale price, not the MSRP price of $23,890.

[ua_guy]

Don't pay full MSRP prices on new cars. This is my actual new vehicle purchase in 2018 for this Dodge Journey which I got for the $16,307 sale price, not the MSRP price of $23,890.

Those are the ones to watch for. Typically they are aging inventory that the dealer wants to move, so they put additional cash incentives on the hood. "Loss leader". I've bought a couple different cars this way and buying a new car with this strategy can really change the typical new car depreciation curve.

[disneysteve]

Don't pay full MSRP prices on new cars. This is my actual new vehicle purchase in 2018 for this Dodge Journey which I got for the $16,307 sale price, not the MSRP price of $23,890.

The car buying world has changed dramatically since 2018. Supply chain disruption from COVID tanked production and spiked demand. It became commonplace for cars to be selling for over MSRP.

[jenn_jenn]

The car buying world has changed dramatically since 2018. Supply chain disruption from COVID tanked production and spiked demand. It became commonplace for cars to be selling for over MSRP.

Yes! Was going to say the same thing!

It’s not as bad as it was during the height of COVID but dealers still have very low inventory. Depending on the make and model, selling for more than MSRP has become the standard.

[disneysteve]

Yes! Was going to say the same thing!

It’s not as bad as it was during the height of COVID but dealers still have very low inventory. Depending on the make and model, selling for more than MSRP has become the standard.

Reports I've read say they don't expect supplies to normalize until sometime in 2023, if then. I know some manufacturers have even started shipping cars with features missing just to get them to market, with the understanding that when the chips become available, the owners can bring the cars back to have the chips installed and the features activated.

[Petunia 100]

I recently made my third purchase from CarMax. I think they have a great system. Sadly, I did not get to skip the finance part. I financed with them, then shopped for a better rate and could not find one. So, like their car pricing, I feel that their finance terms are a fair deal.