A quick aside: I'm not sure there are good dealerships. My home town Ford dealership was pretty bad when I wanted to get my 2015 Fusion's window aligned as it needed a new camera. It's not that I had to wait for the part as I can appreciate parts being back ordered. That's not the dealership's problem. What IS a problem is them constantly telling me it'll be just 'one more week'. I never did get it fixed. Plus the sales manager there all but said I was an idiot for even considering moving from a Fusion to a Focus. Now, I like my sales guy there and I'll honestly give him the first right of refusal, but I can't say the dealership is good. Come to think of it, they even screwed me on some paint for my Focus.
I had a good sales experience at the nearby Ford dealership where I bought Ginger, but I literally walked in, test drove the car, and got a great deal on it. I never was there before and I've never been there since. My local Dodge dealership keeps screwing my brother R on is Jeep Grand Cherokee. The local Buick/Cadillac dealership wouldn't deal with my brother B and I when we wanted to buy a used Buick. B likes the local Chevy dealership, but I never had to deal with them myself.
Anyway, I think that dealerships just suck.
So, B goes to the Dodge dealership (the one that screwed Mom and I on the extended warranty for her Caliber). He test drives the Malibu and to no one's surprise, he likes it. He sits down to negotiate and needs them to come down by $300. Their first response is that they don't negotiate prices. They price them agressively, they can't be beat on pricing, they offer great service after the sale... blah blah blah. B shows them that he's already pre-approved for credit, and that he has other cars on his list. He finally comes down to an offer of exactly what he wants. $300 off. They come back with $200 off.
I honestly think that if this car had the smaller engine that would get him the same fuel economy on his older Malibu, he'd have come up with the extra $100. This car was everything he liked about his old car, plus extra features. But it had a bigger engine and got much worse fuel economy. So he walked.
His next stop was the Ford dealership to look at the Fusion Energi. He took it for a test drive and was happy with it's performance and ride. He liked the feature set as it was only missing cooled front seats and adaptive cruise control when compared to the Malibu Premier. The price was actually just about perfect. According to B's credit union, they'd priced it aggressively, and B just wanted a touch off. My father always said, don't pay sticker for a car. I've gone by that saying myself for every car I bought except for Tiffany. This Fusion was priced under the Malibu by almost $1000 so it was easily within his budget. He just wanted them to come down by a bit.
They wouldn't negotiate at ALL. Not one cent. B spent longer at that dealership than he had the previous one as he just couldn't believe they wouldn't dicker or deal. Now, there are dealerships that don't negotiate. Car Max is one off the top of my head. The price is the price and that's that. But this dealership didn't have any signage about that. Finally, B just left. We texted back and forth a bit about it, both of us surprised that he couldn't get any traction.
That night I did a little more searching. Surprisingly, I found another honest contender. It was a 2019 Ford Fusion Energi Titanium with 56,000 miles. It was in White platinum with a really beautiful black and brown interior. As an Energi Titanium that year, it had everything. It was a year newer, had about 14,000 more miles, and was priced $600 more than the Energi SE Luxury. It's biggest downside, to be honest, was that the dealership was almost 100 miles away. An hour and a half drive. To me that became a simple equation. Is it worth it? For $600, a price B could afford, it was a year newer, but had more miles. It had a better exterior and interior. It included adaptive cruise and cooled front seats. To me, it was a simple question with a simple answer.. yes! But to B it couldn't be that simple as he's a Chevy guy.
I didn't want to pester him about what he was going to do next. I personally thought a dealership about an hour away (NOT in the direction of the Energi Titanium) would be best. It had a Malibu Premier, a Malibu LT, and a Fusion Titanium. The Malibu Premier wasn't as good of a deal as the first one, the LT didn't have leather, and the Fusion wasn't a hybrid of any sort, let alone a plug in hybrid. BUT, they all met B's needs. The biggest problem with this dealership is that it is like Car Max. No haggle. That would put the Premier just a bit out of B's price range. If they truly didn't deal, he'd end up with a Malibu LT without leather seats (and we'd talked about that... sliding across leather is way better than scootching across cloth!), or a Fusion with worse gas mileage.
I gave B the information about the new Energi Titanium and he surprised me by getting the VIN. When he gets the VIN that means he's giving it to his bank and getting pre-approval for it. At least he's getting what THEY value the car at and offer as a maximum for it. I guess B was happier with the idea of saving so much gas and really enjoyed the ride in the Fusion.
The next morning, this morning, B got a call from the "we don't negotiate" dealership. It wasn't to negotiate, but they wanted to thank him for coming by. A nice move. B, never wanting to miss out on a chance to haggle, reminded them that they were only $200 away from makiing a deal. That if they could do that before noon, he'd drive away in the car today. The sales guy reminded B that they don't negotiate, but said he'd talk to his manager and would call back.
I figured he was going to wait about a half hour (talk to his manager or not) and then call back and say that he couldn't negotiate, BUT that they could extend the loan out through one of their finance companies by a couple months which would actually take is monthly payment down a bit without reducing the price. Or something along those lings.
As B and I were texting back and forth, I suggested he call up the dealership with the Energi Titanium. Hell, maybe he could get them to come down a bit over the phone and use it as a negotiating stance with the closer dealership. B took the advice, called, and talked to a salesman who seemed all to eager to negotiate... but wouldn't talk exact price over the phone. He did say that he'd stay late, understanding that we lived so far away, and that he'd love to talk about it in person.
As B didn't get a call from the Energi SE dealership in time to make a deal work anyway, he packed up his car (my Tiffany!) with his wife and drove up to the far dealership.
At that point, I kind of checked out. My migraine was seriously banging and I needed to sleep to 'reset' my brain. I got awoken about an hour and a half later with a text. The text was from B and had a photo of the car he went to look at. I replied, asking him how it went and he answered that that was his new car.
Evidently they really were ready to negotiate. B wanted them to knock off about $300 and would have accepted $400. He figured his first request would be to ask them to knock off $600, but he didn't even get that chance. Their first offer (and a quick aside... who ever heard of a car dealership's first offer NOT being sticker price!?) was $500 off. B was happy enough that he thought dickering over $100 was useless... she he shook the guys hand.
Now, the car isn't perfect. It has some scratches and some dings. I'd have been shocked if it didn't. My Lincoln with 8000 miles on it had a couple scratches and a ding or two, so this Ford with 50,000 miles should be given that leeway. It has some scratches on the internal screen. It sucks, but it is what it is and that piece costs like $1000 to replace. Even to B, it's not a dealbreaker. One thing that IS a dealbreaker is that it pulled a bit to the left when getting on the highway. Going down a regular street or any constant speed, it didn't pull at all. But accelerating hard to the highway and it pulled to the left. Just a bit. it probably just needs an alignment. But B pointed it out and said he'd never buy a car with a problem like that. They sales guy said he'd get it into their service center (this was on sale at a Ford dealership thank the Goddess) on Monday and get it fixed.
Now, this is late on a Saturday afternoon. B's credit union had been closed for several hours and wouldn't be open until Tuesday. To hold the car, B put down a $500 deposit. He was going to put $500 in cash anyway so that he'd get the monthly payment he wanted. On Tuesday he'll put his credit lady in touch with the sales guy at the dealership. They'll handle all the paperwork and B will only have to sign (digitally) a few things for his credit union sometime that week. On Friday, he'll drive up and finish all the paperwork at the dealership. I'm sure he'll be accosted with all the warranty and tire coverage and paint protection and upholstery paint crap, but B knows what he wants and knows what he doesn't. At that point, the deal is done and he will drive home in his new car.
Speaking of warranties, since B is finally getting a Ford product he can shop for a warranty like I did. He can get the 'bumper to bumper' premium Ford Care extended warranty that is from Ford itself. I priced it out at the same place I got the warranty for Tiffany from and B can cover his car for 4 years and up to 75,000 miles (those are both from the time of purchase!) for $2500. He'd have to finance that outside of his car loan, but I think it'd be worth it.
I'll be honest, I'm going to have a very hard time not thinking of B's new car as Isabella. It's the same color with the same grille as my Isabella had. My Isabella was a Platinum trim, but all that means is 'the highest trim available'. That was 2017. In 2019, the year of B's Isabella, they didn't have a Platinum trim. The Titanium is the highest trim available and included everything. Beyond the trim name, the interior is different and the wheels are different. My Isabella looked better on both, but its not like it's a huge difference.
So... maybe Bella?
And one final little thing. I hate to admit it, but I CAN admit that it crossed my mind. B was looking at a lot of cars from 2020, 2021, and even one from 2022. All of them would be newer than my Tiffany. This one, being a 2019 is the same age so I can still say that "I have the newest car in my family" even if it's now only by a technicality (technically we're tied).
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