Hacker News Reader

Comment by bstar77 | Hacker News Reader

In the early 2000's I was planning to buy a specific car. The salesman told me not to even think about for getting it under $20k. I came back the next day and told a different sales guy that I wanted the car for $16,750. He came back from the manager's room after a minute or so and said "lets do the paperwork".

I always wondered what part of my tactic worked the best... I wasn't sure if it was setting the oddly specific price or my terseness or maybe both.

View on HN

Car dealerships are a black box; feel like so much depends on timing and where they are with their sales numbers for the month.

I tried to lease a car last year and after some research knew what was a fair price for a well stocked model; when I suggested a range one sales manager laughed at me.

I emailed a finance manager at a different dealership with exactly what I wanted and told him I could get all of the paperwork done in the next hour if it was a good fit. They agreed and dropped the car off in my driveway a few days later.

That's just a car dealership. They're not necessarily out to screw you, but they are trying to make as much money as they can, so you can't (and you didn't) let yourself get pushed around. The first salesman thought you would buy at $19-20k, and the second one didn't (or he just wanted the sale, or his boss told him to just get rid of the car, or he wanted to scalp the sale from the first guy, etc).

I've personally had more success in salary negotiation with using oddball numbers. I think the presumption on the managers side is either 1) I have a specific offer from another potential employer or 2) I've calculated to the dollar how much I think the job switch is worth. (The latter is usually true, but with large error bounds).

I wonder if the second salesman assumed you had already shopped around and found a car of similar price to your offer.

The car was a Honda Insight... the original one from 2001, so there was nothing else like it. I think they probably felt only select customers were going to be interested in that niche car and that I had probably done my research so best to just accept and get rid of this weird inventory.

Sorry, I meant a similar car of the same make/model. I.e., another Honda Insight from another dealer.

FWIW, I've always loved the Insight and wish they made more of them :-)

Me too, getting 90mpg was no joke. I would fill up once a month with a 2 hour daily commute.

I'm car shopping now but it's the worst time to get one. My wife's car is dying so we have no choice.

My friend who's family runs a dealership says that just getting MSRP is good right now. In my negotiations I got MSRP plus the stupid dealer installed "options" which apparently are mandatory now. They were asking $34,000 out the door total price and I got them to knock off $2000.

Did I get a good deal? Who knows? I need a car and I'm getting it.

"Good" is such a relative term right now. It's really more of a "You didn't get screwed." Everyone is paying dealer options unless they're buying one of the few cars that isn't selling. Same with MSRP if not MSRP + Dealership Owner's Next Vacation markup.

I found buying new cars is an excellent waste of money. Young cars repossessed or returned early from a lease are good value, as are cars that are about 5 years old with a hair over 100K miles on them. That psychological 100K is enough to knock a good bit off the value.

This will be the first time in my life getting a new car. I usually go for used, but in this market, one or two year old cars are not much cheaper than new ones. So new it is.

I have to admit, I'm looking forward to the new gadgets like automatic lane centering.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com