V
Victor Roberts
We did all our shopping online, and through the Subaru Web site I could
see which dealers had the Forester we wanted in stock and in which
color and with which accessories. I then got email quotes from the ones
who had what we wanted.
This can take all the fun out of buying a car When I
bought my 97 OBW and perhaps even the 2002 Passat, buyers
could not get a firm quote unless they went to a dealer with
a specific model and accessories in mind and were "ready to
buy".
We wanted a 5 spd with premium package so there
weren't that many to choose from. You still get some shenanigans this
way as one dealer didn't include the delivery fee--he said his
customers like to see all the extra fees broken out so he didn't
include it in the quote. We ended up going to the dealer who had the
car we wanted in the color we wanted, but we brought the email quotes
from the other dealers and showed him the lowest quote. There was some
of the "how can they stay in business selling cars that low!" etc.
moaning and groaning but they eventually came down to within a couple
hundred dollars of the lowest quote (which wasn't in the color we
wanted anyway and was a considerably further drive away). Since they
also gave us quite a bit more than we expected for our trade-in, and
waived the installation fee on the couple of accessories we wanted, we
thought we got a satisfactory deal.
Even before the price switch I was upset that the salesman
said I would have to pay MSRP for the trailer hitch plus a
$160 installation fee, which I thought was rather excessive
- especially after he said during the test drive that he
would be willing to "come down a bit" on the
dealer-installed accessories.
I am surprised this dealer let you walk away. Often that's enough to
bring the sales manager out to offer you a better deal.
Well, I did tell the two salesmen that since they tried to
bait-and-switch me I wasn't interested in buying a car from
them any more even if they gave me the price they had
originally quoted. (I will pay another dealer a higher,
more reasonable price, but will not pay that higher price to
them!) Since they were clearly not going to give me that
price they had nothing left to negotiate with and I'm not
surprised they let me walk.