taylor192

I'd kick you out of my showroom.

"The customer is always right" is pure BS. Selling a car to a terrible customer (ie threats, yelling, rude, ...) only ensures more terrible customers and probably further disapointing interactions for service/warrantee. So making $500 to sell a car that is eventually going to cost the dealership 10s of hours making that customer happy isn't worth it.

Furthermore this is an example of capitalism at its best. If you sell one car for $1 profit, others expect it, and then you're not making any money. So its advantageous to walk away from $500 one-time than risk losing $500 on every purchase from then on.

Employee pricing is great. Haggling is the worst aspect of purchasing a vehicle. I'd prefer to pay a reasonable price that makes me happy and gives the dealer a profit. That ensures both buyer and seller are happy and makes for great relationships during service/warrantee or future purchases.

Service can cost a small fortune, at about $100/hr labour in some places, having an open, honest, and friendly relationship with the dealer eventually doing your service might mean the difference in saving a few $100s later than upfront.

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kbyrd

You must mean "no-haggle pricing" or pricing for actual employees. Not GM's "Employee Pricing for Everyone" marketing spiel. It is my understanding that dealers will still haggle. I like Saturn's no-haggle pricing (do they still do this?). No, I didn't buy I Saturn, they still don't make cars that I want.

Look, I deal on cars because the system lets me do it and I get to save $1,000+. I'm not particularly good at it, but I walk away feeling I've gotten a good deal and the dealership presents itself as if they're happy with the deal. Every time I've done this call/fax/email thing, I get no response from most dealers. No hard feelings, they have every right not to deal with me. A few call me back but it's clear they don't want to deal. Again, no hard feelings. The calls end graciously. At some point the deal gets "good enough for me", I won't go back and forth pitting the last two against each other for tens rounds of "well, she'll give me the car for invoice minus $10,000, can you beat it?". During these phone calls, I've always found a personality that I like. I'm sure it's just good salesmanship, but when they make me like them enough and the deal is similar to what others are offering and I call it good enough.

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XxAndyxX

That's why I bought my car from a place caled CarMax... No haggle pricing, and great service. You might pay a little more, but it's worth it in the end.

fonseca

Carmax is so overpriced it borders on the ludicrous. "No haggle" is synonymous with "no deal". You are paying more, period. If you don't want to put forth any effort to find the car you want at the best price, then Carmax is a good choice, they're sometimes cheaper than buying the same car from a dealership without negotiating, and are easy to buy from. But you're definitely paying a fat premium for that convenience, and the average Carmax salesman is filled with just as much BS as any other place.

My last three cars all came from state and repo auctions, and friends and family have bought at least 30 cars that way over the years. These auctions are where many dealers (including Carmax) get their used cars from. I see the manager of one Honda dealership there all the time, and sometimes Toyota dealers. They buy Hondas and Toyotas with low miles and resell them as certified used. This is the best way to buy if you have some mechanical knowledge, and aren't in a hurry to get the car you want. I have sold every car I purchased for more than I paid after driving it for years.

I think kbyrd's method is a great one for a new car. Another method often mentioned is to offer $100 over invoice for the exact car and options you want, and is usually less work, but you can do better if you are willing to put in the time.

A friend who works at a local Nissan dealership says they still make at least $1000 on all models selling at invoice, but I don't know how accurate that is.

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