Deal 4 Car

Atricle on CanadianDriver.com

2005-10-03T11:34:00.000-04:00

How to lower the cost of your next new vehicle purchase

New round of ads in Russian newspaper

2005-09-09T10:49:00.000-04:00

Last time (July 21) I've posted ad to Russian newspaper. 2 guys called me (1st one wanted to know if I can take him to dealer auto auction, 2nd one wanted to rent car from me - ad was about "helping to buy new car for price close to invoice price"). This time I've posted it to 3 newspaper, hope it'll lead to some real customers.

I've bought 2006 Camry LE

2005-08-26T14:15:00.000-04:00

We've got to dealership, finalized color selection (my wife agreed about Titanium Metallic) and said to the guy that we're ready to buy. He told us that his boss can release car for $1,300 over invoice price (I let him know that I went to CarCostCanada before visiting dealership). I said him that other place is ready to sell it for $400 over invoice price (a little bluff), he said that he need to talk to sales manager. We went together to the sales manager, sales guy spoke to him couple of minutes and then invited us inside. The manager introduced himself and said that the lowest price is $700 over invoice. Then I've asked to take admin fee off (Manager: "Guys, you're ripping me off", me: "Don't worry, you will survive it") and said that I don't want Protector Plus program ($249, additional insurance). After that we were standing and discussed price with the sales guy, the boss passed and said: "I will take $100 off if you decide tonight". I told him: "Take $150 off and we have a deal". We shacked hands and proceed to rip-off (sorry, business) office to finalize sale.

So total amount is: $22,723 (invoice price) + $550 (dealer profit) + $370 (freight) + $695 (PDI, another rip-off, but we have to pay it) + $175 (Air and Gas taxes) + 15% tax (7% GST and 8% PST, I live in Ontario) = $28187.65

Price of leather seats for Camry

2005-08-19T10:04:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I've contacted both Katzkin Leather representatives in GTS and they gave me following prices:

Total Auto - $1,500 for leather seats, $400 for seats heater.
ASC/Mississauga - $1,400 for leather seats, $350 for seats heater.

Me and my wife dropped by to one of GTA Toyota dealership and asked for price. Here what we've got: $1,800 for leather seats, $800 for seats heater. At least $800 pure profit (+ taxes) for taking our car to 20 km trip. Another point: dealer shows you small piece of leather and it's hard to understand how it'll look in the car. When I've talked to Total Auto and ASC, they both suggested me to drop by to see how they do it, help us with leather selection, etc. My advice: if you're planning to buy car with leather, visit those guys and see what they have in store. You can save big bucks for 20 minutes visit.

Leather seats

2005-08-18T15:00:00.000-04:00

If you like leather seats in your car on of the options is Katzkin Leather. They have 2 representative in GTA area:

Steve at Total Auto, phone is (416) 251-3234
Nadheer at ASC/Mississauga, phone is (905) 624-7414.

If you know anybody else who is doing leather for cars, share your contacts. Thanks.

How to test drive a car

2005-08-17T13:40:00.000-04:00

Read this article (found through AutoBlog).

Top 10 car-buying mistakes

2005-08-04T16:41:00.000-04:00

Read here to avoid them.

My experience on Toyota dealership yesterday

2005-07-28T10:23:00.000-04:00

I'm looking for new Toyota Camry, visited Richmond Hill Toyota dealership yesterday (in Ontario). What you read in the book about dealer tricks, they try to do on you. I told to this guy that I'm ready to buy car for invoice (which is 22,716 for 2005 Camry LE) + 300 dollars mark-up.

Dealer Try # 1: Included 600 rust-proof, told him I'm not interested in this addition, and I'll take no extra stuff, so don't spend you time.
Dealer Try # 2: Put $289 in doc fee, when I asked what is that, told me - our dealership proud to install anti-thief system to every car that we sell. Told him that I don't need it, he told me: no way, it's coming like that to our dealership, so I told him that I probably should look for other dealership with no system pre-installed. Agreed to take it out.
Dealer Try # 3: Calculated price with $300 mark-up, come with ~27,200 on pocket calculator, computer show ~27,900. When I asked him why is a difference, he said that my invoice price is wrong (I've checked it on other dealership before), but didn't agree to show invoice price in his computer (so I assume my is proper one).
Dealer Try # 4: He told me that nobody will sell me car for this price, you'll spend your time to go around and eventually come back to us. I told him that I'll send e-mail to 20 Toyota dealerships in GTA and get back even better price. It was the last drop, he wished me good luck and we left office.

All of those tries was in 10 minutes range and I don't know how many more they have in their pockets, specially when you get to financing manager.

P.S. When I recalculated price today, I've got ~28K with 300 dollars dealer mark-up, so this guy doesn't know how to use calculator. :-)

P.P.S Here is how you get 28K: 22,716 (invoice price) + 300 (dealer mark-up) + 1,160 (PDI) + 100 (air tax) + 75 (gas tax) + 15 % taxes (GST - 7% + PST - 8% in Ontario) = 28,003.65

Ad in Russian newspaper

2005-07-21T11:21:00.000-04:00

Posted ad in Russian weekly newspaper. Cost is $8.56 ($8 + GST).

Dealer Invoice Price services

2005-07-18T15:15:00.000-04:00

All of following service help you to get invoice prices for car:

CarCostCanada - they charge you 39.95 and you can get 5 reports (with different packages and options). They give you address and name of the guy willing to sell for some fixed price over invoice, but sometimes you can get better deal by yourself.
EWheels.ca - price for 1 report is 19.95
APA

If you know any other site to get invoice price, please, share.

By the way, Car Buying Tips is excellent site full of advices about new or used car buying process and they even have Canadian page!

Books about car buying

2005-07-14T15:09:00.000-04:00

Following is a list of excellent books about cur buying process:

Don't Get Taken Every Time : The Ultimate Guide to Buying or Leasing a Car in the Showroom or on the Internet by Remar Sutton - excellent and entertaining book on car-buying process.
What Car Dealers Don't Want You to Know by Mark Eskeldson - another good one.
The Insiders Guide to Buying a New or Used Car (Insider's Guide to Buying a New or Used Car) by Burke Leon, Stephanie Leon - the best one I've read so far.
Car Buyer's and Leaser's Negotiating Bible, Third Edition (Car Buyer's & Leaser's Negotiating Bible) by William Bragg - interesting book, approach is different from others, worth to read.

If you know any other book, please, advice.

Business Idea

2005-07-14T14:32:00.000-04:00

When you buy new car, you almost always pay more that you need. Idea of my business is to help people to save money.

For cars, there are 2 prices:

MSRP (manufacture suggested retail price) - price recommended by factory to dealers.
invoice price (real price that dealer pay for car).

When you buy new car from dealers, often enough you pay something close to MSRP. Dealer taking huge profit to his/her pockets. It's hard to deal with people on the lot, since they make no decision (every 5 bucks change should be approved by manager). The idea of the business is to deal directly with managers (using invoice price as a guide).

I'll post more info about my progress as well as useful links related to cars and car buying process.