On average, how much lower from sticker price can you get

[FCDub]

I thought it was cars from the start. Our culture doesn't haggle on most items and the price on the tag is the price.

Agree. I understood what the thread was about. You can't walk into a grocery store and negotiate the price of a can of beans.

 

[tvguy]

I went through the car internet sales department when I got our 2009 Odyssey. Best experience ever! Everything was done over email. It might of taken 4 days but when it was done we went and got our van. I kinda forget all the different things I did, but I know someone told me to learn about dealer holdback and I did. I also somehow saw the dealer invoice, but not the one they show you, there is another one that is the real one, but dang I forget how I did all that. Oh well maybe someone can fill us both in.

We got a lot off our van but cash for clunkers was a big part of that too. But still the whole experience just dealing over the internet and not wasting a whole day sitting at the dealership just made it pleasant.

This was my first attempt to try the internet sales department. But I don't agree to buy any car without seeing and driving it. 3 dealerships, started the process online through the internet sales guy. 3 times, the car I wanted mysteriously disappeared when I got to the lot. But another car with lots my options was there. Hmmm. Never again.

 

[Anthony1971]

When we bought last year, we looked at 2017 Odyssey right around when the 2018 were coming out with a significantly different design.
While we got some off sticker price, the dealer had already discounted off sticker price when we approached them. We looked at two different Odysseys at two different dealers. Neither dealer would go down much from their initial (published) offer. I mean, maybe we are lousy negotiators and they called our bluff, but we after a few small price drops, both dealers came back with "this is what it is buy it or buy the other one at the other dealer you are talking about."

We did get a better "deal" offered on the upgraded model, but in the end went with the less expensive vehicle as we decided we didn't "need" all those features.

This is why I said check out Edmunds forum and pay attention to the states..... Sometimes there are few of what you are looking for in your area as they sell and in that case you will get little discount or none... but if you are willing to drive or fly to a different state you may save $$$$.. My buddy walked into a Toyota dealer in NY and offered the salesperson 2K less than sticker on a top line 50K Sienna cash and they guy told him to take a hike... sticker only... he left is info never got call so he did not buy it... My Brothers sister in law ironically bought an Odyssey and got over 6K off the sticker a few years back... If everyone in your town drives Honda you will do better at Toyota if everyone drives Toyota you will do better at Honda...if you care you can read there are what is know as Honda states and Toyota states just like every other brand Ford vs Chevy... BMW vs Mercedes etc ... around me and in a lot of metro areas 5 or so Years ago People were picking up Mercedes E class for 30K do to a total redesign... Amazing price if you were willing to pony up for the maintenance...

 

[Anthony1971]

This was my first attempt to try the internet sales department. But I don't agree to buy any car without seeing and driving it. 3 dealerships, started the process online through the internet sales guy. 3 times, the car I wanted mysteriously disappeared when I got to the lot. But another car with lots my options was there. Hmmm. Never again.

you can always drive before you buy...
Almost every dealer has their entire inventory online..... check to see what they have and how many before you start this process... yes work but if they have 10 top 5 mid lines and 1 lower model... well you know the outcome... so you start with the high model as they obviously are not selling and play their game... walk in with quote drive it and say hmmm maybe I don't need all these options can I see the mid lines inventory sheet in hand.... Yes it can backfire as they may say the midline is only 500 off the sticker... so play their game... I am going to check out the similar model by... and make sure you have a manger involved... if it fails you go look at the other model and say I came from... hey you may like it and get an amazing deal... its all how bad the dealer wants the cars off the lot... HOWEVER If you are stuck on a Honda CRV with X then find the best price and be happy that is perfectly fine... but if you are open you can always get a better deal.. if you download the McDonalds app you get Big mac for 1.00 most days but if you like whoppers and will not be happy with a Big mac then it is worthless to you....and that will only last 10 minutes of you life not 10 years...

 

[tvguy]

you can always drive before you buy...
Almost every dealer has their entire inventory online..... check to see what they have and how many before you start this process... yes work but if they have 10 top 5 mid lines and 1 lower model... well you know the outcome... so you start with the high model as they obviously are not selling and play their game... walk in with quote drive it and say hmmm maybe I don't need all these options can I see the mid lines inventory sheet in hand.... Yes it can backfire as they may say the midline is only 500 off the sticker... so play their game... I am going to check out the similar model by... and make sure you have a manger involved... if it fails you go look at the other model and say I came from... hey you may like it and get an amazing deal... its all how bad the dealer wants the cars off the lot... HOWEVER If you are stuck on a Honda CRV with X then find the best price and be happy that is perfectly fine... but if you are open you can always get a better deal.. if you download the McDonalds app you get Big mac for 1.00 most days but if you like whoppers and will not be happy with a Big mac then it is worthless to you....and that will only last 10 minutes of you life not 10 years...

The Flex we were dealing on with the Internet manager was midline. The ones they were pushing us to were top of the line. We drove out with a stripped model. Literally no options on it. But had everything we wanted and more. Some of us are old enough to remember when a car with no options had a manual transmission, no radio, no heater, no carpet and dog dish hub caps.

 

[MillauFr]

I don't understand why we can't buy the vehicles directly from the manufacturer. Cutting out the middle man would save money. I like how Tesla doesn't use dealers to sell its cars.

 

[CookieandOatmeal]

We always deal with the internet sales department and like PPs have done, we pit dealers in our area with each other. We basically tell them exactly what we want in terms of options and only go into the dealership when a price has been settled. I do admit that we have better success dealing with BMW dealers then Honda dealers. We also custom build the BMWs which may be the deciding factor in our case. With incentives and negotiations, we were able to take a little over $11,000 off the total price.

 

[buzznina]

The best rule of thumb is NOT to look for a discount off sticker price, but to see how little the dealer will take OVER wholesale price. And wholesale price is NOT dealer invoice. It is lower because dealers pay invoice price for a car, THEN when they sell it, they get what is known as a holdback, usually 1% or so of what they paid for a car at invoice price as a commission of the automaker for actually selling the car. You can get the wholesale price from people like Consumer Reports.

This I never start negotiating from sticker down, I always start at the original invoice amount. Also; I have no problem getting up and ending the negotiations and leaving the dealership. It's amazing when you get up and start leaving how they can cut the price even more. You have to put in the time and do your homework before going to buy a car, I have so many friends that brag about getting 10-15% off sticker. I just SMH My last vehicle, I dealt with my local dealer and then I found a great deal from a dealership 7 hours away. I then went back to my local dealership and asked them to match it and after an hour of "there's no way they can offer us that price" and "we would take a loss" etc. they came within $400 before I said okay.

 

[MillauFr]

Many car dealerships are going to cease to exist if they don't clean up their act. I think car salesmen rank below politicians on the honesty spectrum. Why don't car manufacturers throw money into state politics and get rid of the anti-consumer laws that prevent car manufacturers from selling direct. Buying a car shouldn't be any different that buying a computer. Tesla has been able to sell direct. Why can't other car manufacturers do the same thing?

 

[tvguy]

Many car dealerships are going to cease to exist if they don't clean up their act. I think car salesmen rank below politicians on the honesty spectrum. Why don't car manufacturers throw money into state politics and get rid of the anti-consumer laws that prevent car manufacturers from selling direct. Buying a car shouldn't be any different that buying a computer. Tesla has been able to sell direct. Why can't other car manufacturers do the same thing?

Because the automakers don't want to have ANYTHING to do with retail customers.
Take Toyota for example. There are 1,500 Toyota/Lexus/Scion dealers in the us. So Toyota deals with 1,500 customers. They sold 2 million+ cars last year. You think they would rather deal with 2 million customers? No way.
And Tesla is another example of why automakers don't want to deal directly with customers. What a mess that has been. So much so that the Tesla board is discussing switching to selling through dealerships/

 

[robinb]

Many car dealerships are going to cease to exist if they don't clean up their act. I think car salesmen rank below politicians on the honesty spectrum. Why don't car manufacturers throw money into state politics and get rid of the anti-consumer laws that prevent car manufacturers from selling direct. Buying a car shouldn't be any different that buying a computer. Tesla has been able to sell direct. Why can't other car manufacturers do the same thing?

I just bought a new car a couple of months ago and spoke to over a dozen car salespeople. I did not feel that a single one of them was dishonest. One really annoyed me, but that's because he was working on the sale way too hard and way too early. Just show me the freaking car, I don't want to talk about payments in my first 5 minutes! NO, I did not buy from him.

Exactly how do you think that buying direct will help consumers? The car lots still need to be there and the employees still need to be paid so there will still be real expenses. Also, who is to say that the profit taken by the car dealership owners will go into the consumer's pocket instead of the manufacturer's pocket? Frankly, I think if the manufactures sell direct cars will be priced like any other commodity and haggling will be a thing of the past. If you don't like the haggle, then that's fine for you. But others of us are OK playing the game to save some money.

 

[DLgal]

Check to see if you have any memberships that have auto sales programs. We bought our last car through our bank's car buying service (USAA-TruCar) and it was a Honda fully loaded Sport Touring Civic hatchback that we basically got at wholesale price. The dealer BEGGGED us to finance through them so they could "make SOME money off the sale." They matched our bank's financing offer(0.9%) so we let them have it. Our final base price was $2500 under MSRP and almost $5000 under "sticker price" because they had preinstalled an alarm system and included Nitrogen filled tires.

We needed some accessories, and they tried to get us there. We wanted all weather mats, a cargo tray, and wheel locks. They quoted me $500. I looked up the items on EBay and counter offered $250 for everything and they agreed. Best car buying experience ever.

Our out the door price with taxes and registration fees was $30000. Sticker price was around $32000. Sticker price is irrelevant these days.

 

[nordkin]

We used AAA Trucar car buying service for a Honda Accord Sport with Honda Sensing safety features. Best experience we ever had buying a vehicle. The lowest price was a hour drive away, but saved several thousand dollars. We paid ~21000 for the car and didn’t have to haggle for anything.

 

[Klayfish]

Haven't had a chance to read all the responses, but a few things, OP.

First, if you're looking at "sticker price" you're going to get ripped off. Sticker price is as meaningless as a WDW crowd calendar. Don't bother with it. You need to look at market value. What does that market support? You want to shoot for the low end of that bell curve. I can't tell you how many cars I've bought...many sight unseen from 1000 miles away. Just doing some research on what cars are actually selling for will tell you what the market will support. Ignore the sticker. Internet sales or in person sales really don't make a difference...internet is easier to deal with if you're planning on shopping far and wide like I do.

Second, if you like the versatility of a minivan, do yourself a favor and don't go with a Pilot or Highlander. They're nothing remotely close to as family friendly as a minivan. Yeah, it's super trendy to buy an SUV or crossover, but they pale in comparison to minivans for practicality.

 

[tvguy]

Then there are the times when the automaker is offering incentives that you will never know about to a specific dealer for a specific reason.
A friend was the Business Manager of an imported brand dealership that was building a new building. The manufacturer was offering them $100,000 if they sold 30 cars of a certain model in a month. They met the goal by selling all 30 of those cars below dealer invoice AND below their cost after holdbacks. But that $3,333 per car the manufacturer kicked in offset that. And no secret here to most folks. She said the used cars had a higher profit margin for them than selling new cars. But the service department is where they made most of their profit.

 

[_19disnA]

I don't understand why we can't buy the vehicles directly from the manufacturer

Part of the reason has to do with dealer franchise laws. Dealers put up their own money for the property/building/equipment to sell/service vehicles. If a manufacturer could put up their own 'dealership' in that area and sell for a lower price, it would put the others dealers out of business. No one would ever become a dealer if that were possible. Tesla has legal issues in some states for that reason. Most people expect to have a dealer within a reasonable distance when you need service. Very few people will be willing to drive 300 miles to the nearest 'dealer' if you bought the car from some showroom that just handles sales.

Buying a car is a lot different from buying a toaster or vacuum sweeper. Service is part of what you also need to consider with a car purchase.

 

[MillauFr]

Part of the reason has to do with dealer franchise laws. Dealers put up their own money for the property/building/equipment to sell/service vehicles. If a manufacturer could put up their own 'dealership' in that area and sell for a lower price, it would put the others dealers out of business. No one would ever become a dealer if that were possible. Tesla has legal issues in some states for that reason. Most people expect to have a dealer within a reasonable distance when you need service. Very few people will be willing to drive 300 miles to the nearest 'dealer' if you bought the car from some showroom that just handles sales.

Buying a car is a lot different from buying a toaster or vacuum sweeper. Service is part of what you also need to consider with a car purchase.

Government laws shouldn't be passed to favor one business (dealers) over another (manufacturers). If the car manufacturers want to use dealers they should be free to do so but they shouldn't be forced to do so. I don't understand your service argument as it fails to recognize that any mechanic can service cars. I have found the dealers service department charges far more for the same level of service.

 

[scard192]

last car I bought I paid $150 over the dealer invoice. I told them I would only pay $100 over the invoice and I wanted to see the invoice. I walked out and told them I was going to the another dealer in the next town. Salesman came running out and said "how about $150 over invoice" and I said fine. This was in the summer as the model year was coming to an end, it was close to end of the month and I took delivery of a car on the lot before the end of the month.

 

[_19disnA]

Actually, many laws are designed to protect BOTH parties. Car manufacturers like Ford/Honda/Toyota, etc. design/manufacture cars & trucks which are sold through independent dealers. If there were no dealer franchise laws, no one would invest $2M of their own money to buy the land/buildings & equipment needed to run a modern dealership for the reasons I mentioned above. Car manufacturers would also lose when they couldn't find anyone willing to be a dealer. Warranty work is done by an authorized dealer. Once the warranty has ended you are welcome to take your vehicle anywhere you choose.