NGL I actually laughed at the last one. It wasn't intentional, just as they made a specific comment about part of the drivetrain, I couldn't take them seriously anymore.
They didn't really know what to do about that, which helped things out.
> Everything else aside, buying a Tesla was refreshing because I was able to buy a new car on the internet like I'd buy a new blender on Amazon.
Saturn did this. I think Scion did too, but could be wrong on that. My first 2 car purchase experience were at Saturn dealerships and TBF it left me ill-prepared for the 'typical' dealership experience.
I will say that Truecar was pretty helpful in purchasing one of my cars; at the time I wound up getting invoice on a custom order without a bit of haggling about price. They did do the F&I bit but honestly it was fairly low pressure, (helped it was late in the day and the end of the month so they wanted it on the books.)
My last purchase, I was referred by a friend, the salesfolks were up front and didn't upcharge. Yeah they did the F&I thing but were otherwise as close to the Saturn experience as I ever could have wanted.
> with a healthy dollop of scare tactics to get you to buy "protection plans" you don't need.
Some of them are kinda useful, but case dependent.
- My WRX, I opted for the special windshield coat due to my work route at the time being -terrible- for windshields (I went through 2 in one year on my previous car...) And sure enough that crap worked. Between coating applications you could see the dimples. I also opted for Rim protection on that car. In my case it paid for itself, because #PureMichigan
- I've -never- opted for an enhanced warranty. I typically take the cost of replacing the most expensive component that could fail within 5 years (and/or the mileage I'd expect to drive in that time) and not be covered within the provided warranties, and compare to what they want for an extended plan. It's almost never worth doing.
> "the price is this if you finance and that if you don't,"
Finance/incentives are weird on the surface, but If you think about 'X$ cash back OR Y% APR through <financing arm>' (where Y is better-ish than common rate,) It's really just buying off the extra interest, like points on a mortgage. Depending on where your credit is at, that financing-arm option may be a better one than others anyway (always shop around though.)