New Car Sales

Jimbo18

It probably doesn't matter as much as it did during the great new car drought, but my daughter bought her Rav4 Hybrid through the Costco car program. She had to find a dealer that was part of the program and contact them about the price. She knew what she wanted, had test driven one already, so she could discuss the sale with them over the phone.

When new cars like hers were going for $3000-4000 over sticker, she got hers for $800 under. The dealer was not allowed to do a market adjustment if they sold to someone through the Costco program. She didn't have to negotiate, she gave her old car to someone, so no trade-in. Pretty hassle free purchase at a time when it was hard to find cars. She had to wait about 2 weeks for it to arrive but that wasn't a big deal at the time.

billbillw

H9,
Does VW allow you to place an order or have the order banks already been closed? I haven't followed VW cars much lately because I have been waiting for the last ~8 months for a 2023 Ford Maverick truck. It finally arrived yesterday.
For some vehicles, this ordering and waiting will be the new norm for a long time. If you walk into a dealer without a retail special order, expect to pay a significant dealer markup for any of the short supply/high demand vehicles. I was lucky to get below MSRP due to family that works for Ford, and also because I ordered and waited.
Good luck!

audioluvr

^^^^ This. Order exactly what you want on the VW website. Wait for delivery. If it arrives and you love it, take it home and sell your old one for private party retail. If you hate it, the dealership will probably take it back for the same price as you bought it. By the way I agree with your GF. That color yellow is yucky but a better choice than the other 3.

billbillw

audioluvr wrote: »

^^^^ This. Order exactly what you want on the VW website. Wait for delivery. If it arrives and you love it, take it home and sell your old one for private party retail. If you hate it, the dealership will probably take it back for the same price as you bought it. By the way I agree with your GF. That color yellow is yucky but a better choice than the other 3.

Most car manufacturers require you to go into a dealership to place an order. VW lets you create a build, search inventory, and request a quote, but you can't actually place an order.
I'd also say, if you hate it, don't go through with the purchase when it arrives. Just let the dealer sell it at a markup to someone else.

heiney9

These cars were not orderable. They produced (1500) 2023 -40th Anniversary Editions, half are stick, half are dual clutch auto's. In 4 colors that are pretty evenly distributed. So, roughly 375 of each color.

Once the dealer was notified by VW of an incoming car (so far around here a dealer has only had 1 or 2 for sale), they put it on the website and then a customer could work a deal put it on hold until it reaches the dealer. Many are still in transit.

I don't know if VW released all 1500 at once or are staggering the batches, maybe half now, half in 30 days. The GTI reverted back to being made in Germany, so the journey is a bit longer....lol.

I am happy to say I was able to buy the car at MSRP, which isn't really happening many places. They gave me $4900 less than what I paid for my GTI 6 years ago for a trade. In Illinois you pay tax on the difference between the cost of the car and your trade, so that saved me some $$$ too.

I put a deposit down and need to finish filling out paper work. This is the same (non-local) dealer I bought my current GTI from. It was so easy, no drama. Did it all by phone, text and email. Even the trade appraisal. I sent photo's of the car.

H9

heiney9

audioluvr wrote: »

^^^^ This. Order exactly what you want on the VW website. Wait for delivery. If it arrives and you love it, take it home and sell your old one for private party retail. If you hate it, the dealership will probably take it back for the same price as you bought it. By the way I agree with your GF. That color yellow is yucky but a better choice than the other 3.

This car wasn't orderable and I can still get my deposit back if I hate the color, but I'm actually starting to like it in (real) photo's and on Youtube.

H9

pitdogg2

Congratulations Brock👍

txcoastal1

Congrats Brock, I assume you got the red you wanted?
Stick or auto? Gonna be a fun car to drive.

You have an ETA date??

Oh....and pics when you get it, or it never happened

heiney9

pitdogg2 wrote: »

Congratulations Brock👍

Bought it at Elgin VW. Man, I can't say enough about how drama free they are there. 2nd purchase I've made with them. No BS.

H9

Kex

heiney9 wrote: »

… They gave me $4900 less than what I paid for my GTI 6 years ago for a trade …

$4,900 for SIX YEARS of motoring is an absolute bargain! You’ve done very well! 🤩

P.S. I’d also have chosen that color. It’s my favorite of the options available, but…

…although I probably wouldn’t have ignored the GF/wife! 🤣

heiney9

txcoastal1 wrote: »

Congrats Brock, I assume you got the red you wanted?
Stick or auto? Gonna be a fun car to drive.

Thanks - no, the Pomalo yellow one. DSG (dual clutch auto) this will be my 3rd DSG GTI and for me I gave up on the stick awhile ago. Nothing wrong with a stick, I drove them my entire life until recently. I just prefer the flexibility and dynamics of the DSG.

H9

Kex

DSG is the best of both worlds, as it’s really an automated dual clutch manual. No downsides and no lag.

Congratulations on a fabulous purchase. A no brainer with that trade-in price.

heiney9

Kex wrote: »

heiney9 wrote: »

… They gave me $4900 less than what I paid for my GTI 6 years ago for a trade …

$4,900 for SIX YEARS of motoring is an absolute bargain! You’ve done very well! 🤩

P.S. I’d also have chosen that color. It’s my favorite of the options available, but…

…although I probably wouldn’t have ignored the GF/wife! 🤣

I'll be honest, I wouldn't even be in the market for a new car if it weren't for the insane value of used cars. Full disclosure my 2017 GTI only has 31,586 miles and is 9 out 10 condition. They told me it' the lowest mileage GTI (for sale) in the Country. So I got about the most one could get for the car at a dealer.

How can I not put that equity to work for me.........

LOL - the G/F always has input, but in the end it's my car, I drive it so the final decision is mine. Same goes for her car, even though we drive her car way more than mine she gets to say what she wants, etc.

H9

tratliff

Congrats man. Great choice.

DaveHo

Be prepared to get the shaft once they actually see your car. They'll find all kinds of reasons why it's not worth what they quoted you. Hope I'm wrong.

tratliff

DaveHo wrote: »

Be prepared to get the shaft once they actually see your car. They'll find all kinds of reasons why it's not worth what they quoted you. Hope I'm wrong.

No reason to think this if both sides have been honest. Done this many times.

heiney9

DaveHo wrote: »

Be prepared to get the shaft once they actually see your car. They'll find all kinds of reasons why it's not worth what they quoted you. Hope I'm wrong.

Hope not. I don't get that feeling from them at all. Doesn't surprise me that this would happen though. Some of the sales people I've interacted with are shady and deceptive.

I love it when a manipulative GSM tells me, "it sure looks like you've done your homework". Hell yeah I did. I know as much or more than you do about this transaction and all the crap you can pull.

The deal I'm doing, I get good vibes and no reason to think they'll renege or modify. I pointed out the main flaw. A girl backed into me at a stop sign (long story). Scratched some paint off the bumper and a scuff or two. I have the insurance money and had an appointment for repair. They told me don't bother, they will fix in house.

Tires have less than 8K miles, new battery. Nothing is broken inside or out. Everything works as intended. No excessive wear and tear. I'd challenge them to find a single thing. Not even a single door ding or scratch on the entire car. Perhaps 3-4 tiny rock chips on the hood. I did drive it for 6 years.

The only area I didn't mention and I had forgotten until tonight is on 2 of the the original wheels there is some minor curb rash. I bought brand new different style VW wheels for the car about a year and half ago. I told them those were staying with me and I'd put the original wheels back on, forgot the minor curb scrapes.

H9

billbillw

Sounds like things have worked out. Glad you have an honest dealer that respects repeat customers.

Milito

heiney9 wrote: »

These cars were not orderable. They produced (1500) 2023 -40th Anniversary Editions, half are stick, half are dual clutch auto's. In 4 colors that are pretty evenly distributed. So, roughly 375 of each color.

Once the dealer was notified by VW of an incoming car (so far around here a dealer has only had 1 or 2 for sale), they put it on the website and then a customer could work a deal put it on hold until it reaches the dealer. Many are still in transit.

I don't know if VW released all 1500 at once or are staggering the batches, maybe half now, half in 30 days. The GTI reverted back to being made in Germany, so the journey is a bit longer....lol.

I am happy to say I was able to buy the car at MSRP, which isn't really happening many places. They gave me $4900 less than what I paid for my GTI 6 years ago for a trade. In Illinois you pay tax on the difference between the cost of the car and your trade, so that saved me some $$$ too.

I put a deposit down and need to finish filling out paper work. This is the same (non-local) dealer I bought my current GTI from. It was so easy, no drama. Did it all by phone, text and email. Even the trade appraisal. I sent photo's of the car.

H9

Congrats and good to hear your former dealer treated you right. There are good dealers out there, you just have to find them. When I was in the car business I use to say that I wouldn't work for 80% of them. You don't have to be dishonest to sell cars.

I always tell the dealer I use to work in the car business a long time ago when I'm car shopping. It always gets me mad when one of them starts trying to BS me when I'm shopping for a car. I always tell them I know the tricks so stop trying to BS me. If they keep doing it I walk. I have told a few sales managers off in my car shopping experiences.

Also some of the salesmen I have dealt with don't know anything about the product they are selling, I don't know how they sell anything. When I sold cars, product knowledge was very important to me and I took pride in it. Same approach when I sold Freightliner and Peterbilt trucks.

maxward

It is amazing just how little many of these sales people know about the products they represent! Glad you were able to get the GTI you wanted. The yellow actually looks great in person.

Emlyn

I was reading the other day that a yellow version of a car holds its value better than any other color because of the limited number produced in comparison to the usual white-grey-black colors.

VR3

I've spent ten years in sales. Product knowledge help but the truly successful salesman are a master of achieving a personal connection with the customer and making them feel at ease with their transaction. Product knowledge doesn't sell things, it can help when dealing with customers who know what they want but 90% of customers don't know what they want or what they are talking about

Emlyn

Sales 101... identify what the customer wants. If someone says they want a 2023 Golf GTI 40th Anniversary edition that makes the salesman's job easy because the customer is obviously well informed. After that knowledge is obtained it's just details. If someone says they want it in red but it's not readily available it's just a matter of saying what's available and what the price is for that. If someone walks into a VW dealership and says they're looking at buying a Hyundai but they don't know if they want a minivan or a sedan and want to spend as little as possible that makes it much tougher and could be a waste of the salesman's time. And time is money.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbQPxhIcFaQ

aprazer402

Establish a little rapport with your client.

"You like animals don't ya? Of course, I have three dogs of my own."

Milito

Yes, of course you have to have a personal connection and also show them the customer benefits of buying your product and how it applies to what they want or need. In sales most of my career, over 20+ years.

Also if your customer has a problem, make it easy to find you. Nobody makes a perfect product, but it's how you handle their problems that makes them repeat customers along with a good deal.

heiney9

Love all the input. It's extremely rare a sales person has to "sell" me on anything. By the time I'm ready to buy I probably know as much or more about the product than the sales person does. I research the living crap out of most of my purchases. a) because I'm a sponge for knowledge b) I've been told this has or does this or that and after I bought, they didn't c) I have to have all the knowledge before I spent my hard earned $$$. I HATE knowing nothing about the product. Or relying on someone who is getting paid to sell the product.

So I agree making that connection and making me feel comfortable I'm not being taken for a ride. As soon as I smell BS I call it out and/or if they try to lie about features or other aspects of the product to enhance the sale.

There was no reason with today's tools available to the consumer that what happened to me at the local dealer needed to happen. The car was pretty much sold if they had it and weren't marking it up. But they jerked me around and I bought elsewhere.

The original dealer did follow up with me yesterday and I told him how offended I was about how I was treated and I bought elsewhere. Of course he was going to tell his manager so this kind of thing didn't happen again. Yeah ok........lol

pitdogg2

heiney9 wrote: »

The original dealer did follow up with me yesterday. Of course he was going to tell his manager so this kind of thing didn't happen again. Yeah ok........lol

Right! Brushed you off like a 2 dollar horse!

mhardy6647

On the bright side, the technology shift to EVs is poised to wipe out the archaic auto dealer infrastructure that dates back a century or more...


I freaking hate buying cars. Not my idea of fun.
I'd be happier if they had vending machines and you could just do it in the middle of the night, with no one watching.

Milito

When I got out of college in 1975 I interviewed for numerous entry level jobs for people with a degree. The starting salary level was needless to say not that high. I had made more money working on the freight docks working during the summer months. I decided I would check out car sales as I always like cars and the people I talked with were making a lot more money than those jobs I interview for.

I got a job with one of the largest Oldsmobile dealerships in the nation. I had never sold anything in my life, however my father had been in sales all his life so I knew something about sales.

Well I went through a one week training class and started selling cars. I didn't realize when I interviewed that they ran a system type selling system as they didn't tell me that in the interview process. If you couldn't sell the person they would keep bringing in more experienced salesmen to close the deal.

I didn't like how they treated people so I went in the Sales manager's office that Friday and told them I felt like they could sell more cars if they treated people better. I told them I wasn't sure if I wanted to work there. They told me to think it over and let them know the following Monday. I went in that Monday and told them I didn't like their "system" and was going to find a more customer friendly dealership. They said they thought that was a good idea. Needless to say I found one and worked in car sales from 1975 to1981 with some breaks in between.

When I'm shopping for a car and I run into a dealership that runs a system type selling I leave as I want no part of that dealership. However I have no problem with the Sales manager coming in to close a deal if the salesman can't, but I do have a problem with numerous salesman coming in to high pressure a customer into buying a car.

I will say this people talk about how car salesmen lie all the time, but they don't talk about how much the customer lies to them. That was the hardest thing I had to wrap my head around when selling cars as I've always tried to be honest with people I was dealing with.

billbillw

mhardy6647 wrote: »

On the bright side, the technology shift to EVs is poised to wipe out the archaic auto dealer infrastructure that dates back a century or more...


I freaking hate buying cars. Not my idea of fun.
I'd be happier if they had vending machines and you could just do it in the middle of the night, with no one watching.

Not until all the state legislatures around the USA change the laws that require car manufacturers to sell their vehicles through a franchise dealership. That probably isn't going to happen universally.

We will still be dealing with dealerships. Ford is requiring a new franchise contract with any dealer that wants to sell their E-cars going forward. This may have somewhat tighter control over the order process and fix pricing, but there will still be a dealer in the middle of the transaction.