I'm trying to find a white F-250 Lariat Super Crew with tan leather interior, 8' bed, 6.2L gasser, FX4 package with 3.73 gears and the 360* camera package with trailer camera. My trade is about $5,000 and I'll give them about $2,000 cash. Of all the Ford dealers in and around Tulsa, I can't find a truck that I "love" so I might have to order it.


How much haggling can I do if I order vs buy off the lot?

 

I'm in Tulsa area. Which dealers did you go to? You need to remember to not even discuss a possibility of a trade-in until you negotiate a deal. I'm just guessing not knowing the msrp, but you should get around 3k off sticker, plus all rebates. Right now you'd get 2k in rebates, so about 5k off the sticker price, maybe a little more. I ended up at Jack Kissee in Claremore.

 

I will check them out, I went to Bob Hurley, Joe Cooper and Bill Knight in Tulsa, Matthews in BA and Doenges in B'ville.

 

"Parachuting the trade" does NOT gain you anything other than a longer sales process. Too many "how to buy a car" lessons from the internet. Though keeping total transaction in mind is wise. Waiting to talk about the trade will only make it a longer process, not get you a better deal.

Just use TrueCar, it gets you awful close to the bottom dollar on the new truck, then you really can just focus on the trade. Don't shop across state lines unless you read all 2000 post I've written on the topic.

 

You're right about price, but how many big city car dealers snooker unsuspecting buyers when all the numbers get twisted. It's about the same as a salesman asking you what you want the monthly payment to be before you negotiate price.

 

And a smart consumer would benefit from using the payment method. If you do the math before you go in, you can't agree to a higher payment than you ought to. Payment X Term is the absolute purchase cost. So fees, tax, tags, more fees, warranty, products, hair spray, pin stripes, headlight fluid, and everything else, that fits in the payment X term you want is a good deal. Just focusing on price is get you burned many times.

You should go in being a smart consumer! But, the quickest way to the best deal is to find the truck you want and go in ready to buy that day if they give you the right deal, follow the process they lay out, and then just say "yes I will buy the truck, but that deals not good enough" a few times. Normally by the third offer the dealership is pretty serious with figures if your salesperson is at all competent. If they know you're actually serious, they won't let you left with money on the table. If you're going to "shop", they'll get you out of there as quick as possible. Why waste time when the next guy can pull one over on you in one way or another. A customer who wants to shop a ton is an uneducated customer, so if I'm honest with you I know someone else won't be, and you'll believe them more. Knowing that, I will be polite, give vague figures, and wish you well, never to follow up with you at all!

 

I can tell your a good salesman Frantz, but the last thing an educated consumer wants to hear is the whole payment speel. It's not about what I can afford monthly, it's how much is this truck costing me, I can do the math on the monthly in my head. I'd run if the salesman pulled the monthly pep talk, before you know it your in the finance office getting the 4 square demo drawn on a piece of paper. I go in having done my research on price and know fairly close to what I consider a fair deal for both sides, and I'm ready to buy the day I show up with a checkbook in hand. Rarely do I comparison shop, it's just not worth my time. On the truck I just received I went in to one dealer only and ordered it. They gave me an offer and I countered one time with what I thought was reasonable. After that let them know I'll give the finance guy a check and I'm not interested in any extras like extended warranty.

 

Edit I had a typo. I meant to say you are a decent salesman lol!!

 

Most, and I mean 95% or more, customers ask what their payment is after they negotiate a price. Even in my world with commercial trucks (which might be more out of curiosity than an actual need to know). Most folks have not figured out how much the truck will cost even as simple as window sticker / the term they want. Most customers WANT to talk about payment, because that is what matters to them. Most customers would start with price and then find out the truck is still too much for them to afford. Would five minutes of research on their own have done this ahead of time? YES. But honestly, MOST don't. The process is set up to make the MOST money too of course. But if you go in hard nosed you're less likely to get what you want easily. If you let the process roll, you'll get what you want rather quickly, and having done your homework ahead of time, do you really care if they over allowed on your trade vs give a heavy discount on the new one? Of course you'll see the numbers. But if you know what payment and term you should have, the rest falls into place and you really don't have to know every single detail.

Look at the folks posting on the forum here. It's a generally highly educated consumer group. The folks here probably represent the top 1% of the market in many aspects. But folks still talk about monthly payment and getting the most truck they can afford. I've yet to see one person ask "How much truck can I get for $50,000". It's always "how cheap can I get this". To me, that represents backwards thinking.

 

They always try the Monthly payment thing 1st and then 2nd and try not talk total price of the truck. In a monthly payment you can hide so many things. Get the final price of the truck worked out and the Monthly payment will follow knowing your interest rate. Then go in for your trade. Most dealers will say that will affect the deal.... yes the Monthly payment but not the cost of the truck which some say it does... I get they are in business to make $$ but some ....most will do anything to separate you from it fast.

 

How I would buy a chevy:

Figure out what truck I want.
Find out what my bank would offer for rate.
Go on KBB and look up fair value of my trade.
Walk into dealership I wanted to do business with, agree to buy truck at invoice minus rebates if they would give me a little over fair trade value. Let them beat my banks rates, and order the truck.

That's it. That's simple. They'd make about $2k off me tops, mostly in the finance department, but I wouldn't care because my bank would have made $1500 of that off me instead and I'd be just as happy to let the sales guy get a little bit. If it was a very expensive truck, I'd work out under invoice, but those are not the trucks I'm interested in. Any effort more than that is wasting time.

 

I agree that's basically how I've approached it. Try sitting in a Toyota showroom on a Saturday going back and forth with a salesman because they want to sell for full sticker price lol.

 

I sell trucks, I wouldn't know anything about Toyotas.

 

lol.......... it was a Camry for my wife. Say what you want about them they are dependable.

 

So, I did all of that a couple weeks ago. Go to the 'city slicker' dealer since he is the only one around that has 6.2 Lariat CC's in stock and I want to drive one. So after digging the damn thing out of a snow bank and putting gas in it, we take it for a spin. Sales guy has never heard of adaptive steering, doesn't seem to know much about the truck in general. Recommends I look at F-150's.... I'm impressed with the SuperDuty and offer to show him my scale ticket proving my 'little' camper overloads the rear axle of any F-150 he has on the lot - so let's go talk numbers on the Superduty.


We drove a Blue Jeans short bed. I want a white gold, caribou two tone, long bed, 4.30 gears, extended running boards, ultimate camera package.


"Why don't you the one we just drove, isn't it nice?"


No, I want what I want and you need to order it. "well let me do search." Now, I've already done that and even though the Ford website isn't the best, I know this truck is not out there.


Guy finally gives up that and says we need to order it. Now - "How about your trade?" Again, already did my homework - its an '05 F-150 (in decent shape) with 140K. He don't want that and I already know I can sell it myself easily and not complicate the deal, but he insists on having the sales manager give me a value...


At this point, A. Its kind of funny and so I have an hour to kill before I pick up my wife, so have at it B. I know for sure where I am NOT buying a truck.


So, they screw around for a while, give me a bottom line price that includes the trade and the discount from MSRP in 1 number. Claims the sales manager didn't give him invoice price when I ask for it.


So we go a few rounds and their offer if $4k off MSRP discount and trade (KBB trade-in alone is 5K) At this point, I need to get the wife in 10 minutes, so I say, well if that's the best price I can get an X-plan pin from the Mustang club and do a clean deal. So I said call me back with the bottom line on a clean deal, X-plan or otherwise.


He e-mailed me a build sheet with MSRP and a hand written X-plan number. Still no reference to invoice price.


Bottom line in this long story - next week I go down to the local dealer. Very small, no sales people except the 3 family members that own it. Sit down, list the options I want, he says we can order it - no problem. Asks about a trade - I say nope, unless you want an 05 F-150. He says no, prints the build sheet with X-plan, A-plan, etc right on it. Says "nobody will sell it for less than I will." Slides the paper across the table - $1600 under invoice plus the $1,000 rebate. Wow! done deal. 15 minutes start to finish.




So Frantz - to your point - not doing your homework and wasting people's time can come from both sides of the table! Still very happy with final outcome though.