n8236

I'm guessing, like most people, did their research online and then walked into a dealer to negotiate for their Z. The day of purchasing a Z is drawing near and i would like to know how well I can do w/ internet negotiations compared to walk-ins.

Should I be faxing my offers to dealers all over my area and see what I get and purchase from there? Are the negotiating emails a binding cotract of any kind? I don't want to walk into the dealer w/ a price given by internet manager to later tell me that's not what they want to sell me the car for just so they can get me into the hot seat in the office. How realistic is it? Thanks for any advise.

05-Z

iTrader: (4)

I wrote down all the internet prices from all the dealers in my area, and then used that as a negotiating point. I would get "X" dealer to give another $400 off that price and then go to the next dealer and asked if they'd match it for the color I wanted.

I let them go through their whole pricing process and was patient, but I was ready to walk and go back to the first dealership.

It was either white or yellow, whichever was cheaper.

Good luck-

TLHASTZ

iTrader: (1)

Just try to get a hold of the internet fleet manager and deal with them, so you don't have to deal with a salesman->closer->manager and up the line. Bring printouts of your price quotes and such, know what you want to pay and remember you are in charge.

Lastly don't mention a trade in until you have negotiate your price on the Z. BUying my Z was my first experience on my own, and i am giving you advice I got and stuck by.

Good luck

n8236

So, u did all that w/o walkin' into one dealership until ur final purchase? If I am reading ur reply correctly, you basically fowarded the price of the lowest dealer to the other dealers and had them fight out the lowest price?

paperjohn

I started out the same, built my car on the Nissan site, did a search of dealers in Northern CA to find out who had the best match. I already knew I didn't want to buy from the local Santa Cruz dealer because the salesman told me he wouldn't negotiate the sticker price and" if I could afford this toy I shouln't buy it" Jerk!!!

Hayward had the exact match so I emailed them and got a responce back from the internet sales guy. He called me on the phone. I ask him can you make it worth my while to drive to Hayward. He told me that he would sell me the car at invoice price. I made an appointment . I emailed him to confirm the price.He did not respond.

I took an old friend with me to drive my truck back if the deal went through. I was glad I didn't have somebody drop me off. I test drove the car and said I'll take it at the price we had agreed (about $2000+) below sticker.
Then he said "let me take this over to my Manger" same old car dealership trick, the long wait, they are so phoney, then he comes back and says "he needs at $500 over invoice to make it work"------ My friend and I stand up and start walking to the door. ---- He asks me to come back to the table, he is sure we can still make a deal. I said we had discuseed the deal, didn't take long after that to close it up and get the agreed price.
That my story of Dec1,04 for my silverstone 05 touring. Hope this helps.

Z BOY

iTrader: (41)

damn, faxing quotes to different dealers and letting them haggle for your $ without ever leaving your house? Priceless.

BigMike

I bought my '05 Z 3 weeks ago. I used Pricequotes.com. I knew I wanted an Enthusiast 6MT in PPW and entered that information. Within 24 hours, I had 5 dealers emailing me with prices. I ended up getting mine for $100 under invoice. Definitely deal with Internet Manager and get an OUT THE DOOR price.

I can't believe I forgot to do that and it ended up costing my an extra $199. See, most dealers have a "documentation fee" which is complete bullsh*t. They wanted $499 and I told them if they need 500 bucks to document the purchase, I needed to find another dealer. The finance manager said its dealer profit and after 15 minutes of negotiation, I told them to knock it down to $199 and they did. You just have to be willing to walk away and with the car sitting outside all prepped and ready to go, it was tough and I caved. But what's $200 anyway. It was more principle than anything.

If you have a trade and you want the best deal, take the time to sell the car unless you're so upside down and need to roll in negative equity. Even then you're better the sell the car for whatever you can get and throw in the extra money to pay it off. Because if you trade, the dealer will never give you the rock bottom price on the car.

Good luck with your purchase!

Badfish25

iTrader: (3)

bought my 05 Z a few weeks ago too. I dealt with a bunch of internet managers before one eventually mailed me back a price quote at $50 below invoice! (according to edmunds) I went in the next day and bough the car. I took a wash on my trade in but that was bound to happen after owning it only 6 months (and being a vw) What sucks was 3 days later after having my car up for sale for 4 months, I got a serious bite from someone wanting to buy it!

Just be patient, if you pay much over invoice dont get it.

and bigmike, I"m amazed they came down on dealer fee's, I actually walked out for an hour waiting for them to call me because i wanted them to knock off $200 from the dealer fee. I never got a call so I went back and paid another $200

capnfrantic

Internet works just use form at www.nissanusa.com

n8236

Thx for all the info! Mike's story is exactly what I'm looking for. $100 under invoice is a pretty decent price w/o haggling w/ sales people. It would prolly take hours to negotiate a under $100 invoice in person, lol.

One last question, where do you guys sell ur trade-ins? I currently own a 2002 RSX and been looking for places to sell it. Autotrader charges $80 bux for unlimited ads, but it seems though it doesn't have much listings except dealers.

forgeur

When buying my Z, I created an email account to handle all my car search based email so I didn't end up with SPAM in my real email when I completed my search. I then proceded to request pricing from every dealer in the area, I went as far as 100 miles out, I figured if it was a good deal, it was worth driving a bit to get the best deal I could. I then went to http://www.Intellichoice.com and http://carpoint.msn.com and looked at the invoice pricing for the Z. These two sites are pretty good references for not only vehicle pricing but for the price of the options you will want.

Once I had a good pricing structure to base my decision on, I started comparing the prices I got from the dealers. The one thing I did was request that they only contact me via email until I was ready to make a decision and then I would contact them. As I dealt with the Internet/Fleet sales people, I found those that were easy to work with (replied to emails and didn't call and harass me). My decision came down to two dealerships, one 20 miles away and one 50 miles away. I negotiated price down to invoice with the one 50 miles away by saying I had to drive further to buy from them and my time was worth something in this process. Once I had a dealer willing to sell for invoice, I then called the dealership that had the best salesperson to deal with and told them the dealership 50 miles away would sell the Z to me at invoice. The local dealership matched that price and once I had the price of the vehicle to an acceptable price, I then negotiated the trade of my 2003 Expedition, they gave me just below wholesale according to http://www.intellichoice.com and http://www.kbb.com. Once I had all of the prices negotiated, they took all of my credit information via a phone call and setup all paper work and financing for me two days ahead of time. The dealership was so nice, they called me to postpone the sale of the car to the weekend so I could qualify for a 2 point better interest rate on the deal I thought this was exceptional customer service. The 2 points allowed me to help the dealer out by buying the gold instead of silver extended warranty which they sold me at invoice according to the research that I have seen from others on the forums.

Once everything was done, they called me, to come down and sign the paperwork to complete the deal. My total time at the dealership was 1 hour. Most of that was waiting for the F&I manager to reprint all the papers to be signed due to a bad printer.

This was the best car purchase I have ever been a part of. I have purchased 7 or 8 cars in the last 12 years and the next time, this is the way I will do it.

Forgeur.

PrimeX

iTrader: (22)

New owner here and I will NEVER be a walk in buyer again. You will most definately get better deals as an internet customer. I've been reading this site for well over 3 months trying to decide if I wanted a used Z06 Vette or a new Z. I enjoyed my Xterra and love the new line of Nissans on the road, and after reading this forum and seeing the excitement you people had when driving your Z's, I made the choice.

I am a moderator on the Xterra Owners Club website, and just last week I found someone linking this link http://www.new-nissans.com/ in one of the threads and decided to give it a try. They did get back to me within 48 hours and offered me $500 under invoice as advertised on a 2005 6-speed Touring Pikes Peak White with aero package and XM radio. I then took this quotation and email to my local Nissan dealer while I was test driving on Friday. I had ONLY planned to test drive as I hadn't sold my X yet. Not only did they match the quote due to their $1000 price match promise (saved me money on shipping from Washington State) but they offered me $1500 more than I owed for my X, therefore I didn't have to go through the BS of selling a used vehicle. Although I am still shocked I own this beautiful vehicle, I'm still surprised how easy it was to get this car, fully loaded, for under $33,000.

And yes, I'm am completely in love with this beast and I highly recommend that link.

CelticPride2

When I bought my Z about two years ago, I did almost all the haggling with the dealer I ended up buying the car from over the internet. Priced out a Z on the Nissan website first with all the options I wanted, and then I e-mailed the dealership for a quote. The internet sales manager e-mailed me back and invited me in for a test drive, so I took him up on that. After the test drive, he presented me with their initial offer in writing, but I didn't respond right away...Instead, I went home and let him twist in the wind for a few days before making a counteroffer. From there, all the haggling was over the 'net until I got him down to an acceptable price.

Overall, it was a much better experience that the one I had at another delaership where I didn't haggle over the internet. I just walked in after work one day, and they totally gave me the runaround...told me that all Z's are sold at sticker, and that I shouldn't even bother making a counter offer. Then the salesman had the nerve to tell me that if I find a dealer selling Z's below MSRP, I should let him know so that he could go buy one himself. Needless to say, the first dealer got my business.

The other thing I really liked about haggling over the internet was the fact that dealer can't take one look at you and immediately form an opinion on how serious you are about buying. I'm still in my 20s and pretty young-looking, and I think the bonehead at the second dealership figured I couldn't afford it and was just trying to haggle a free test drive.

Armitage

iTrader: (15)

I did my research first and walked in second. I asked for $500 over invoice and thats what they offered. Considering I was ordering an '05 Track, I didn't think they would go any lower. I'm happy with how it worked out.

I just wish I had her already.

n8236

How come no one seems to use an otd pricing? When I bought my RSX 3.5 yrs ago, that's the one and only number I used on my dealer.

When you buy a car in-state, do they calculate the taxation rate via the city you live in or the city you bought your car? Cause at San Francisco, the sales tax is 8.50% >.>

FLZ_Boy

Just do your research and you'll come out on top on walk-in buys. Plenty of tricks you can use to get the price you want.

Internet buys is also a good alternative if you don't like face to face confrontations and just want to buy a car without listening to all the mumbo jumbo sales pitch. You can pretty much get the prices you want if your willing to stick it out with e-mailing.

I chose to buy my Z walk-in, since I like to .

forgeur

In California, they calculate based on the county you live in. If you live in San Francisco county, then you pay that tax rate, if you live in Sacramento county then you pay Sacramento tax rates.

R

lunartick13

Damm... 8.5% tax rate?.. that is a killer, I *****ed and moaned about 4.2%..
but then I paid $500.00 under MSRP for my Ethusiast, I negociated all the local dealers within 80 miles and that was the best I could do for the model, color, and options I wanted.. I`am happy! LOVE my Z..all is good

thepress83

That's odd that your VW depreciated so quickly; must have been a 2.0L gasser. I test drove a 350Z and the RX-8 before buying a Jetta TDI and I don't regret my purchase. I routinely see 2003 Jetta TDI's selling for what I got my 2004.5 for must be the area up here in Canada VW TDI's hold their value VERY well and get great milage.

n8vz

Internet buying is the way to go. You go directly to a fleet sales person and the price is all rearranged. In and out the dealer with new Z in 30min.