A Blue Eyed Buddhist

So on my breaks at work over the past couple of days I’ve been working on the car thing. I made a list of all the Ford dealers in western WA (there’s a lot) and have been calling them up.

At first I would ask for “the X-plan administrator” because that’s what the web pages about the X-plan say to do, but it seemed like a lot of the time the receptionist would just send me to any old salesman. When I asked if they were selling the 2009 Escape Hybrid on the X-plan, the answer was usually either a flat “NO” or more typically the schmoozy “well, I can sure handle that for you, come on by and take a look at them- we’ve got some 2008s here”.

When I would ask the second guys “um, so do you do the X-plan on the 2009 or not? I don’t want a 2008, I want the bigger engine and I’ve already got the X-plan PIN” they would usually start hemming and hawing a bit. I’d pin them down and demand if it was on the X-plan price and that’s when they’d usually take a number to check on it or whatever.

Jerks. How tough is “yes” or “no”? Just answer the damn question!

Anyway, I got smarter and started asking for the new car sales manager and asking them directly. Usually they’re a lot more blunt, simply say “no” because nobody wants to do it. That’s fine, it doesn’t bother me a bit. A few offered to check and did call me back, which is cool.

One guy was funny. We started chatting a bit and I told him that through the Costco car-buying plan I already had one dealership that had offered to sell it to me for $500 under MSRP. He said “wow, that’s dumb of them, we’re going to sell every one we get for at least MSRP if not more.”

I liked him because he was very honest. I think that because he could tell I wasn’t a BSer and knew how the game worked, he didn’t care what he said to me- and therefore told the truth. He said he thought I’d be lucky if I found a dealer that would do the X-plan and I said “well, anywhere within a two or three day drive is fine with me- I bought my last car in Kansas City and drove it back in two days. A two hundred dollar flight saved me eight grand.”

He said “wow. Well, you’ll find someone then, no problem.” It truly didn’t bother him because he is confident that his dealership (which will remain nameless) will sell all their rigs at more than that. He’s probably right.

Anyway, Saturday I’m supposed to go to the dealership and sign the paperwork for the car. I don’t know if they’re going to want the full cost, a deposit, or what; most places seem to take a $500 or so deposit on it and then go from there.

I’ll post their name and so forth if they say it’s okay as long as the deal goes through. I do have a meeting with another (closer) local dealer (the other one is a bit of a drive away from Seattle) tomorrow and if they make me a solid offer, within around 500 bucks of dealer invoice, I’ll just buy it from them.

The car industry is a fascinating one to me, because buying a car is such a giant pain in the ass for so many people. And lots of us get outright skinned at the dealerships. Last night I found a great article called “Confessions of a Car Salesman” sitting in another area here at work. I picked it up and started reading it, and it was so on-topic for what I’m going through that I wound up staying over 30 minutes later than normal at work to finish the article.

Edmunds.com hired a writer and sent him to work for some car dealerships and write the article. It’s awesome and I highly suggest you read it.

The easiest way to deal with all of this (or, more correctly, to not deal with it) is to just use Costco’s car buying program. On the majority of cars they’re going to give you a VERY solid price. In my case the Escape Hybrid isn’t officially on the plan because it’s so popular, but the Ford dealer that the plan referred me to was still willing to order me one at 500 below MSRP, which is actually a pretty good price considering that Pierre Ford was trying to jack me for 9 grand OVER the MSRP.

By going through Costco, you’re protected because they have so many members that any dealer getting into their program doesn’t want to piss Costco off- they’ll lose a ton of sales leads that way. So if they get too aggressive in trying to take moolah from the customers, Costco will find out and terminate them (Costco is known for being tough-but-fair with its vendors.)

Of course, if you want to skip the Costco plan you can do it yourself… or you can do what I’m doing, which is to use both. Get the Costco deal and then see if you can do better; you can always default to it (which is my backup plan) if you have to.

I’ll report more on Saturday or tomorrow if anything comes out of that meeting.