Used Car Deal

This summer I bought a Volvo V70 car only a few years old for my wife from a nearby dealer. Now, let me first say that my wife tells me there are many blog stories available in this one day of shopping I could share. But rather than go through them all, I am more or less just going to tell you the story for you to enjoy.

Buying a car from a dealer is actually fun for me. I did the research I needed ahead of our excursion so my negotiation would be prepared and we knew pretty much what we wanted. I spent time preparing my wife for her role in the negotiation and how things would likely play out. We checked around online for inventory then we headed out.

Our event took approximately 10 hours. One of the greatest things that made my negotiation easiest was the ability to use a loan calculator on my iPhone. I was able to immediately evaluate every offer and counter offer on the spot. If it didn't get me where I wanted to be, I said no. It was awesome. I was surprised that more salespeople didn't have something like this themselves while we were looking at the cars. I kind of felt like it gave me more influence in the negotiation at that stage.

The hard part for most car negotiations seems to be saying no. I warned my wife about this. We talked about keeping in mind alternatives and that there are many cars out there we would be happy with not just one. But once my wife starting driving some, all of that planning changed a little. She certainly didn't want to walk away and say no. At that point she wanted a car. And I found myself in negotiation with my wife and the dealership. My original plan was to let my wife try to do the negotiation, but I quickly realized I needed to take it over. And as I said, I kind of enjoy it whenever I have to do negotiations anyway so it was probably better for both of us.

So with my iPhone in hand, I hammered out my scenario and prepared my wife that I would walk away without the car she selected if the car dealership didn't meet me there. She readily agreed. Then it all fell apart. They offered $1500 less for our trade in. They were $1000 more on the price than I wanted to be at. The interest rate I was offered was 1.5% more than I thought I could get. The dealership manager said he could not move my trade in for the price I wanted. He couldn't give me the interest rate I wanted unless we bought a new car. And he already discounted the price to cut halfway through his margin so could not go any more. My wife would have signed the deal right there. But we didn't.

One thing I have noticed in my career about negotiations is the influence time has. The more someone invests in the negotiation, the more they are willing to make concessions. We spent another 3 hours at the dealer working out our deal. We drove cars again. Held to our number. Asked for more. When told by the manager he could do no more for us, we went to our car to leave where we were followed by our salesperson, who had about 4 hours invested in us. I have to say, at that point my wife was begging me to just buy the car as we were only $250 away from my number. I said no and was perfectly fine with driving away in our undervalued trade in vehicle.

To make a long story short. My wife was mortified at the end of the day, and probably embarrassed throughout the negotiations. But near 5 hours after our first offer by the dealership manager we drove away in the car my wife wanted. I received the additional $1500 for our trade in to get the full value, I got the additional $1000 off the price of the vehicle we were buying and I locked up an interest rate 2% lower than we started. Now let me be clear, the dealer made their money as well, though maybe not as much as they had hoped. And they certainly wanted me off the lot (they traded salespeople on us several times). In the end, we got a fair deal and they sold a car. When both parties keep working at it, a good negotiation can be reached in most situations.

My wife said if we look, the salesperson probably wrote their own blog the next day and would be telling a different experience. It would be interesting to read that one. She also said after reading my blog entry, it sounded more mild than it was. As I mentioned, it was pretty obvious the salespeople and manager wanted me off the lot. The manager, after handing us off to another salesperson, made every attempt to avoid us. I don't know if he was worried he would have to give up more or what, but he steered far clear of us until we signed the papers. There was a document fee of $10 that the dealership forgot to tell me about. Both my wife and the dealership were visibly concerned that I was going to walk away due to that $10 when they told me. I reached into my pocket and pulled out $10 in 1 dollar bills and told them I didn't want to finance that. I thought it was funny even though I kept a serious poker face. No one else did, in fact they all looked at me in shock. So I put the money back in my pocket and said it was ok, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. When we finally got into our new car to drive off, there was a vehicle warning light about a bulb that had just burned out. The salesperson was calling the manager over to help but he refused to come over. I think he was exhausted with us.

Finally, I should add the detail of the story that I purposefully wore my black t-shirt that said, "No, I will not fix your computer..." that day. I think in some small way wearing a shirt that said "no" on it helped send a message that I wasn't going to easily say "yes". I can't quantify it, but I would do it again next time I go shopping for a vehicle.

I don't know if this was a helpful blog entry or not, but it was sure fun to write.