Before I get into the actual car shopping, I should talk about car shopping techniques and the differences that B and I utilize.
Me, I find exactly what I want. I research, research, research. Not many people can help me with this part beyond maybe pointing my research in a direction I hadn't considered. For example, when I was training my desirous eyes on a sports/muscle car I knew it would start and end with the Chevy Camaro, the Ford Mustang, and the Dodge Challenger. All coupes, all available with huge power and at the same time available with smaller engine options. Research helped me eliminate the Challenger quickly as it was just so much bigger than the other two. It was old school muscle with no sport. Both the Camaro and Mustang had intruigingly close option in their bigger options (The Camaro SS and the Mustang GT) without moving on to their truly super version (The Camaro ZL1 1LE and the Mustang Shelby GT350R). They also had close versions in their entry levels (The Camaro V6 and the Mustang Ecoboost). I'd build them on the online configurator and figure out what options one had that the other didn't, what features were hard to find, and I couldn't find a striking difference. But before I ever sat down in either, I finally eliminated the Camaro as all reviews talked about it's severe lack of visibility. Not TOO bad for a sports or track car, but as I was going to daily drive it, that killed it as an option.
That's how I came down to wanting a Mustang.
Brian, on the other hand goes for whats in his head. He had two Traverses before and liked them, so he wanted another. Nothing else was considered before the Traverse was eliminated and it was only eliminated when trying to find a used one in his price range. So when he moved on to full size sedans, he got stuck on what he'd had and went straight to the Impala. The only reason he even considered a Buick was because I found one at a good price, told him it was just the Buick version of an Impala, and sent him on a trip to check it out. Once he sat in it, drove it, and liked it, he was more or less set on it. He hadn't even tried the newer Impala which would be very similar, but he had a new winner and had one of them in his sights.
So when we lost out on the one Buick, I tried to open his eyes to other full size Sedans. Buick LaCrosse, Chevy Impala, Ford Taurus, Chrysler 300, Dodge Challenger. The 8 cars were all those as I wanted him to sit in one of each and figure out if it was perfect. One town had the Buick, an Impala, a 300 (far newer than the one he'd sat in before), and a Challenger. The other town had 3 Tauruses and a 300.
I'll give you one guess which town he wanted to start in, and one guess which car we looked at first. Yup, the town with the Buick and the Buick was first to be seen. I personally didn't see a good reason to start with a car that he knew was a good option. Try the others and see if they're any better. If they're not then we can move on and check out the Buick. We had all day, so we could afford several test drives.
Nope. B wanted to test drive the car that was a mirror to the last one he'd driven. The differences in the Buick LaCrosse he'd driven in town and the one we were going to look at were small. The home version had the 3.6L V6 engine. This next one had the 2.4L 4 cylinder mild hybrid engine. They were different exterior colors (home was red, away was grey), and interior colors (home was tan, away was black). That's it that mattered. The home one had a moonroof, but B isn't interested in that.
But hey, this is his decision and I'm just there to help and be a 'finance guy'. So, we went on to the Buick dealership in the nearby town and visited the 2014 Buick LaCrosse with 66,000 miles. My first impression that it was a good looking car. I knew it was a model style behind, so it would never be looked at as new, but that wasn't a consideration for B. The gray was nice, if a little bland. Especially when accompanied by the black interior. The only thing that stood out to me, style wise, was the black fake wood trim on the interior. It honestly was really nice looking. When the salesman came out and unlocked it, we took a good look at the interoir, started it up, looked at the engine, and listened to his quick presentation. It seems that dealership had sold this very car new, had accepted it as a trade in a couple years later and sold it then, and had just accepted it back as a trade in. They had all the service records for it and he could show them to us when we went inside (like a good salesman, he was already pushing the assumption that we were going to go in and sit down to talk about the car). All of that sounded good, but I figured ultimately we were there for a test drive and we finally got the keys and drove it off.
The drive was fine. After driving Nina for over 8 months now, the Buick felt like we were riding on a cloud. I'd compare it very closely with Belinda, my 1990 Town Car from years and years ago. The biggest difference is that the Town Car was that classic 70s/80s/90s boat like car feel. The Buick was soft and comfy without feeling like it was an out of control boat. The steering was so freaking soft, but again I'm used to the tight 'Sport' steering mode in Nina. Overall, it was nice. The mild hybrid wouldn't be too bad and while it's not fast by any measure, it can get to and keep up with traffic, so the gas savings will cushion any loss of 'sport' acceleration.
The last stop on our test drive was to purely test everything. Step outside and check all the lights (LED lights are SO expensive if they need to be replaced!), check all the door locks, windows, HVAC, infotainment, and stuff like that. I was surprised when B started talking about negotiating strategies. I figured our next step was to turn in the car, get the guys card, tell him we might be back later but that we're looking at a lot of cars that day. Then kindly drive on down the street to the next dealership. Seriously, the next cars on the list were all less than a mile away at a different dealership.
But he was sold.
The negotiation, in my mind should be easy. Especially if he values the car. The previous negotiation literally had B against his payment ceiling. Unless he comitted to paying more per month than he had in his budget, he couldn't afford to go up to their asking price. Even though it was only $250. Hell, he'd already exceeded his original ceiling by $250! But this car, assuming an interest rate of 9% or lower, could be had with all the taxes and fees, and no discount in the sticker price. Of course, no one in my family has ever paid sticker price for a car, and we weren't about to start now. But it shouldn't be hard to get to a price that was good for everybody.
Their first offer was as expected, sticker plus a bunch of fees and tax. B's first offer was sticker... out the door. No taxes and no fees. Their first counter was... nothing. The sales guy came back and said his manager didn't want to move on the price and that they had it set very competitively. B, to his credit, took it in stride as it's an obvious maneuver. Get the customer to negotiate with himself. It's actually a really good tactic on their part. Most people start with a low ball and then expect to approach the dealer with halves. Let's say the car starts at $5000 total. Our first offer is $4000. Their offer should be around $4500. We go $4250. They come in with a last one of $4400, and everybody goes home happy.
But if they make you negotiate against yourself first, they get a better deal. Same starting of $5000, and same first offer of $4000. They refuse to move, so you offer $4250. They come back with $4750. You come back with $4500. They come back with a final $4600. Just by skipping that first step they got an extra 5% compared to your first offer. The percentage remains the same whether you're talking about a $5000 car, a $50,000 car, or a $500,000 house.
B's response was "if you aren't going to move, then I'm not either" and made the guy go back to his manager with the same price.
I won't go through it step by step, but I figured (and told B) that I thought a fair out the door price was between $13,500 and $13,700. When they came back with $13,745, B's offer was $13,500 and that was accepted.
Of course, everybody knows that negotiating the price is the first in many steps to buying a car. The selling period wasn't done yet. Next up was getting financed. We were prepared and didn't even ask if B could get financed on his own. We both signed the paperwork and the finance guy took it and ran. Our only mistake was answering his question of what monthly payment we were looking for. Damn it.. oldest trick in the book. We should have just said that we're looking to have it paid off in 5 years and we'll see what the monthly payment is.
When we were directed back to finance guy's office he came across as smarmy. The standard finance guy. He explained that he got us financed through a semi-local credit union because they didn't combine our FICO scores (B's was 530, mine was 760), they just used mine. He got us financed at 3.74%. DAYUM!!! I doubt I could get us financed with B as the primary and me as the cosigner at my own credit union with that low of an interest rate.
But then he laid out his sales. The first row showed the car with gap insurance. The second row added on a 3 year, 36,000 mile power-train warranty. The fourth row added on the rust protection and scotch guard. All of them were at 66 months.
B and the finance guy went about 6 rounds on gap insurance as B insisted he got that through his Progressive insurance company and didn't want that to change, while the finance buy insisted that his gap insurance was better and that B was mistaken. It only ended with B telling him that he'd had an accident in his Traverse, got it totaled out, owed another $5000 on it, and that Progressive paid that off with his Gap protection.
The finance guy, at that point got a little pissy and said, mostly under his breath, that since they'd worked so hard to get us financed, we should at least buy some of their good products.
I, as well as B, completely ignored the comment as it was just pathetic. Any comment would have taken us into a fight, especially if he tried to defend it. I mean... is buying a $13,500 car NOT buying some of your products? Fuck You!
Anyway, we ignored it and went on. He FINALLY got us a price over 66 months at 3.74% interest and B was doing the calculations on his phone to confirm there wasn't something hidden there. The guy got a little miffed and kept trying to interrupt B's work. I knew that B was going to get his own satisfaction, but also wouldn't stop looking up at the guy whenever he spoke, so I grabbed the guys attention as he was starting his hard pitch into the warranty. And I threw him the best curveball that guaranteed his full attention. I told him we had no interest in a 3 year, 36,000 warranty as that wouldn't even cover it until it was paid off. But instead of refusing anything, I asked him what a 5 year, 65,000 mile warranty would cost.
Oh his eyes lit up excitedly as he went to the computer and started running numbers.
Another quick aside about extended warranties. I actually like them on cars. It's just a surefire piece of mind when your combined insurance and warranty will make sure your car keeps running while you are paying it off. If I get hit? Bam, the car's either fixed or paid off. If the engine fails? Bam, fixed or paid off. On cars, I specifically like the warranties backed by the manufacturer. Ford warranties for Fords or Lincolns, or FCA warranties for Dogde/Chrysler/Ram. The problem is, GM doesn't offer those as aftermarket sales. You can get one when you buy the car new, but you can't add it on later. At least not with any car like this that I've seen. So, obviously this warranty's value was held entirely in our trust that it would put out. That we could get the car fixed. The sales guy had the best answer, especially considering it was coming from a dealership that sold Buicks, in addition to GMC, Mazda, and Volvos. THEY could fix anything under the warranty.
Here's my reasoning. If they failed to live up to the warranty, a customer won't hesitate in making a big stink about it. Most dealerships would just run with that as part of the business. But a near luxury dealership selling Volvos and Buicks? Reputation is practically everything to them. If we make a stink about buying a warranty from them and then having THEMSELVES unable to stand by it... well that's putting them over the barrel. If he had said there was a list of places to get it fixed, I wouldn't have been impressed. As is, I though it was worth it at the right value.
So we went around a little bit on it as he gave us a combined price WITH the gap insurance at first. We're not idiots, so we called him out on that tom foolery and made him give us a straight price of the warranty in addition to the new monthly price. He said he couldn't go any lower (I don't think he realized we weren't even negotiating over the price of the warranty at this point, just looking for the cost) and showed us the invoice. According to his paperwork, they 'paid' 1998.75 for the warranty and were selling it to us for $2000. I could care less what they paid for it. $2000 is a reasonable price in my eyes, especially when laid out over 66 months. It kept the monthly payment lower than what either B or I had thought it could be.
About an hour later (damned paperwork!) B drove off in his new (to him) car. Now I don't know her name yet, but I've heard her whisper to me and if she doesn't tell B her name soon, I'll tell him what she told me. And unless she tells B something else, her name is Persephone. And boy, she's a beaut!
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