The Slickdeals Approach to Negotiating the Price of a New Car (Updated July 22, 2010)

Oooh that sucks!!

Unfortunately there's no way to prevent that, but cross that dealer off of your list & don't talk to them again. I would say there's a very high chance that they did that on purpose. I mean, it's POSSSIBLE that it was a mistake, but I doubt it.

All of this "manager" versus "salesguy" talk is 99.9% BS. Salesguys know the price of everything on the floor; they know what they can sell it for & they know what their profit margin is. Managers do not magically set or approve any prices. The sales guy likes to make you think that there's this secret deal he's making in the back room with the manager, but he's really just getting coffee or taking a smoke break.

Read this, if you haven't already: http://www.edmunds.com/car-buying...esman.html

Quote from mrdd : Is there any way to avoid this from happening. I had this email conversation today and it wasted my entire evening 3pm: I asked him for a timetable for when that price would no longer be available (it was well below any other price i had seen so i was skeptical) he responded 4pm: this was quite a drive (2 hours away), but the deal was great. on the way we were in touch over the phone multiple times, he started filling out the paperwork with our information so we could get it right when we got there, because it would be close to closing. about 30 minutes out (around 7pm) we get a call from him telling us that he made a mistake and it was really going to be 28k+ and when i spoke to the manager he said that his employee was wrong and that wasnt the price and there is no way he is going to honor it

That is really a bummer. I would try a little higher on the food chain, though. It might be worth your time to try to determine who the owner is and write a polite, concise email outlining the situation. Something like:

Dear Mr. Owner,

This weekend, I was in contact with the internet sales department at your X dealership, regarding the purchase of car A. Via email (see attached conversation), your salesperson and I agreed upon a reasonable price. After agreeing on the price, I made the two hour drive from A to B. When I reached your store, I was told by your manager on duty that he would not honor that price, and he tried to sell me the car for nearly $x more.

The reason I'm reaching out to you, though, isn't because I immediately plan on trying to enforce that agreement, claim "bait and switch", or anything in that arena. More than that, I wanted you to be aware of this incident because I can't imagine that is how you want your dealership to run. Finally, I know that my perspective of the situation is obviously biased, so I wanted to give you a heads-up that once I "cool down" a bit, I plan to share my version of this story on Yelp, Dealerrater.com, and Cars.com/dealers/reviews. If you would like, I can send you a link to each of these so your team has an opportunity to share their version of the story with your future customers.

Sincerely,

X

Thanks for your feedback. I was going through the chain of events and I think i know the tipping point. I think it was the financing, we were doing the paperwork over the phone and giving them necessary information and finally got to financing, this is when we let them know we would be paying cash. A couple of communications later about possible problems that had to settled was when they called back and said "no deal"

Dear All,

First and foremost, this thread helped a lot and Thanx to all the contributors. I would like to add my experience and hope it helps. I discovered a new way they try to cheat you when you have a vehicle to Trade-In.

I went to a big car dealer in South Jersey with an intent to buy Nissan Rouge and trade-in my old car. As explained here and other places, I had done most of my negotiations for the new car already and knew the price at which I was going to bite the bullet. When I was there, inevitably, i had to do two more rounds and finally the sales person came back with $X for the new car and $Y for my trade in (best possible from their end). During this time, I received another quote by a nearby dealer for much lesser OTD price. SO told the sales person that they have to match this or else i am walking out. He gave me the B.S about how the other dealer will not pay the trade in price that he is offering etc. etc. I told him thats my headache and not to worry bout it. And just to tell me if he can match it or not. This triggered the "Manager" and some more attempts to convince me. When they saw I won't budge, the manager asked the sales guy to get my old car appraised (which they didn't do till then).

After 10 mins, the guy comes back with my registration and says "You can go anywhere but you won't get the price you want because there is a front frame damage on CarFax report". I had checked the carfax thoroughly when i bought the vehicle 2 Yrs back. Though I was pretty sure it was an absolute lie, I was taken aback by this (and honestly started doubting that something had gone wrong wit the car/its history). So I just walked out of there and drove away. After 5 mins, the same guy calls me and says, they can do it but only if i can finance through them for 4.99% APR. So that was another of their techniques to cheat. Beware if you have a trade in and carry a CarFax report yourself, if you have one.