Well, David, I went into a dealership last night with a renewed vigor, due in part to your post of people getting deals for less than invoice. I saw exactly what I wanted, in chicane yellow... the color is my favorite, but I was simply not willing to pay $500 for a color choice. In a nutshell, I told the sales manager I was willing to pay $300 of that $500 (essentially $200 below invoice), but the full $500 was out of the question as I would be happy with several other colors (none of which they had on the lot in the package I want).
It was obvious they would have accepted invoice, but they started to piss me off when they wanted to play hocus pocus with the numbers, continually asking me how much over invoice I wanted to pay (I couldn't have been more clear I was not going to pay a dime over invoice). Let's take a look at the kind of price crap they tried to pull with me, shall we? (Note: I knew exactly how much this vehicle and every option cost them for invoice, not assuming any extra dealer-specific bonuses for good customer feedback to Nissan corporate and such, which only helps them)
1) Showing me invoice price plus destination, calling that invoice, and trying to convince me that price was what I was calling invoice in my original calculations, making it appear as if I undercalculated the vehicle's value by $700+.
2) Taking my "out the door price" offer and working backwards to what they claimed I was actually offering them (any astute person knows that 6% tax on price 'X' is not the same as 6% of price 'X'+tax, a mathematical sleight of hand which makes it look like I'm offering about $120 less than what I really am). I'm an engineer that calculates pi to 50 places in my head without breaking a sweat, so don't pull that BS on me.
3) Pointing to my offer price and showing how much lower than MSRP it is. Well, duh!
4) Throwing out multiple figures while I'm trying to calculate in my head what each option is worth, even after asking for a minute to do just that in peace and quiet. You may make me lose count, but that just means I'm going to start from the beginning again, and now you've succeeded in pissing me off.
5) Trying to tell me the dealership would be losing money on the deal, especially right after I finished telling them I knew exactly how much profit they were making in holdback and "processing" fees (about $550).
6) Telling me how "hot" this car is and how selling it at that price would be crazy for such a great-selling car, leading me to shoot back with:
a) 2010s will be on your lot in a month and a half
b) This car has been on your lot for a while now (costing you, I bet, about $25/wk in lost profit)
c) upcoming models are 40th anniversary, meaning new colors (like black cherry) and custom badging
7) Other minor crap not worth mentioning, but still annoying, nonetheless.
In the end we couldn't make a deal, so I shook his hand, thanked him and the sales guy for their time, and hopped back in our new Cube and drove home. The search will continue today. Current deals end August 3rd, none of which include the 370Z, so hopefully we'll see some incentives show up after the new deal cycle kicks in.
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