So the wife and I went looking at new cars for her recently... and we're thinking of getting the Audi A4 Cabriolet.... I've never bought a car at this end of the market so I'm not sure what sort of negotiating room there is if any... the salesman said he could take $2k off any 2004 model but that is all they can do.. as we were not ready yet to actually buy a vehicle I didn't bother getting into haggling/negotiating... I know how to haggle with less luxurious cars.. but have no experience with this market... so any advice or tips? or are you pretty much stuck paying what they tell you when you are talking about a $40k car??
Edmunds.com will give you a good idea of market value and the message boards there sometimes include the recent buying experiences of others. I think you will have more room to negotiate than you might think, especially if you wait a couple of months.
also price it out on carsdirect.com. they will give you a good idea what you should expect to pay. you may end up paying even less than what they quote there, but carsdirect usually includes all of the incentives. autosite.com also lists all incentives for each manufacturer.
You should also call around to Audi dealers in other cities. If there is only one dealer in a city they tend to be less flexible and the guys in the other city know they have to give you a good deal. I don't have experience with the Audi but I know several people who have done that with BMW's in Austin/San Antonio.
Like with all negotiations, do all your prep work before going in, and give them a low, but reasonable number. If you're trading in a car, make that one of the issues. Don't settle on a low purchase price and get screwed on the trade in, options, or financing, etc. Lots of issues to talk about, so be prepared to spend some time. Lots of tricks in negotiating, I highly recommend reading some books before going in.
bah... I know the tricks to negotiating the purchase of a new car.. I've done it 4 times now... what I'm asking about is a new car that is on the higher end of the market... there aren't many of these cars out on the road or in dealerships... they basically are selling what little stock they are receiving, whereas the salesman told us that he'd wheel and deal on a new TT if we were interested... they're having a harder time moving those and seem to have plenty in stock... I'll check out edmunds and such to get an idea... but other than the regular negotiating tactics I was wondering what else if anything to expect from trying to deal on a vehicle that is expensive and not easy to find... Franco... trust me.. we've looked for low mileage used A4 cabriolets... there just isn't much out there... it is a new vehicle that they aren't pushing tons of out onto the streets... NONE of the Audi dealers in Houston have any on their lots right now that are used..
Are Audis that hard to find? I bought a comparable vehicle a couple of years ago and negotiated quite a bit. BMW and MB have reps for not negotiatiing, but that is no longer the case with the 3 series BMW and a lot of MBs due to their recent quality issues. I think most Audis aren't selling well now, so you should be able to negotiate.
I bought a Lexus in May, and got around 4K off the sticker. We looked at Audi's and could have got around 3K off the sticker. This was not a Cabriolet. I'm not sure if we would have gotten the same offer for that model.
I bought a BMW 3 Series in 2001 and I bought it out of town b/c Austin only has 1 BMW dealership. They corner the market here and refuse to negotiate. Found the car I wanted in Ft. Worth and cheaper than here in Austin but because of the demand/lot supply, I knew not to expect negotiating like it was a Ford Mustang or something of that nature. That being said, take your time and LOOK around.....
GatePratt.. the problem is that the Cabriolet is hard to find... sure a regular A4 or even a TT now is easier to negotiate... hell they had some 2004 A6s on the lot marked down $6,000 on the window tags...
Idogg, Weren't you the one who was looking to buy a pimp boat? Sounds like things are going well. Congrats!
I have 2 BMW's and can tell you price is set by how badly you want the car vs how badly they want to sell it. If you don't need it and they need you to have it it can be had for a nice deal. They always play hard ball up front. Be patient and you can get a deal with which you can be happy. Shop around too if you are in Austin. Check Houston, Dallas, SA. Seems most dealers in Austin a pretty jackassy.
from my limited experience -- I shopped for BMW, Acura, Jaguar, etc. at one point, but bought a used Tahoe -- and from what I have heard from family who have purchased mostly Lexus vehicles, there is some but not much wiggle room. These dealers move a lot less cars, so the margin is much more important. I've heard of dealers at Dodge, Chevy, etc. moving vehicles for $300-500 over sticker just to get their volume up for manufacturer allocation purposes. Certainly not the case with higher end stuff. If he says he'll knock $2K off, be ready to buy and say make it $4K and I'll sit down right now and sign on the dotted line. If he says no, walk away and come back in a day or two (although the end of the month is upon us). If he negotiates, see what he'll offer. All he can do is say no, so there's little harm in asking for more. Of course, that assumes no trade in, financing is taken care of with no deals expected from their financing company. The other factor working against you, you're buying a luxury car. The dealer assumes you have the money to burn, and some buyers do. Most act like they do. The point is, the customers they usually face walk in and pay the full price because they 'want' the car, not because they 'need' it.
Low volume car with mass appeal and targeted market with large gobs of money = close to sticker price. They will move off sticker if they have a need to move the car, but otherwise they will stick to near the sticker until Mr. Moneybags walks in with his secretary to buy her the car. The best time to buy these cars is at the end of the year when there is a major model change coming up. At that time, you can negotiate from invoice (recognizing the dealer holdback is around 7% of invoice, i.e., if they sell at invoice, the dealer is making 7% of invoice automatically). They will deal to get it off the lot, especially if they "punched the ticket" or bought the car so they could get a better allotment of the new model year. If you are going to be buying a car for that much, you owe it to yourself to look at the Mercedes CLK 320 or the BMW 3 convertible. The Germans love to steal a customer from the other German makes, so make them compete against each other. At one point, BMW was giving incentives to their dealer for nabbing Mercedes customers. At a minimum, it provides some competition and so price pressure. And don't be surprised when the BMW or Mercedes salesperson says Audi is just a luxury Volkswagen. Good luck.
Audi A4 to be redisgned in early '05 Ldogg - You may want to see if it would be worth waiting on the new A4. If they are not willing to deal on a '04 A4, it may be worth waiting. We were looking at the Lexus GS, and the dealers are really looking to unload their inventories due to the new GS coming out in Feb. We were offered almost $7K of the GS sticker price.
If you absolutely have to buy a new car.... #1) Wait unitl the end of the year to buy. You will get a MUCH better deal on cars they are trying to move. Rebates will be MUCH higher at the end of the year. #2) Sell your car on your own if you can. Put that money aside for your down payment. #3) Finance your car thru your own bank. Go to your bank before you even go look at cars and see how much you can borrow and at what rate. #4) Be a hard *** when negotiating and be prepared to walk away. If a car dealership will knock off $2K now without rebates, then why can't they kncok off $2K with the factory-to-dealer rebates? They will still make the same amount of money. #5) Like others have said....DO YOUR ONLINE RESEARCH and come prepared to do battle with knowledge and facts.
thanks for the suggestions guys... I think the timing on this deal might end up being perfect for us... it'll probably be another month before we're ready to buy, so then for sure we'll be closer to the release of the '05 models... plus we'll be 2/3 of the way through the next quarter so they might deal even more... washpark... the wife already has a Mercedes and doesn't want another one... I lie.. she'd take an SLK but they are a bit out of our price range and don't fit our needs for a vehicle... the BMW is a possibilty, but she doesn't like them as much and there are tons on the road... all the same I think we can play like she's interested in them.. COhorn... that is why I asked on here for people's experiences.. the dealer we went to last night seemed to have an over abundance of A6s and had $4-6k discounts on them advertised on the vehicles... I'd like to think I could work more than the $2k he mentioned for the A4 cabriolet.. although they only had 3 in inventory.. and I've only found a total of 10 more in Houston right now...
I sold BMW's for a couple of years. We use to tell cutomers that if they wanted to haggle they needed to go buy a Kia. The thing to do is to make them an offer and tell them you have perfect credit and your bank will give you 7% interest and if they can match that rate you will finance with them and also tell them you want a warranty. If they agree to your offer the dealership thinks they are making their money on the back end so they will do the deal. The next day go to your credit union and get a loan for 4% and cancel the warr. Its kind of funny because after they rip your head off on interest rate and warranty they think they made a killing.
what i have done is WALK AWAY, but make sure the salesperson has your number. they will call in a couple of days, just remind them of what you wanted to spend and why their car is not in that spendable amount. i have bought from dealers = i.e. bmw used cars. this usually helps with inclusion of warranty on the car. bmw has free oil changes, free check-ups, , free brake changes, free roadside service, etc, if within the warranty and they offer the extended warranties. i don't know if these re-sellers offer this or can offer this. treat a trade in as a seperate transaction, whether it be with the same dealer or selling on your own. i try to negotiate my purchase and when we are doing the dotted line stuff, mention my trade in, but don't take less than what u are set to accept. thus, they know u are ready to buy and not giving u what u want shuts it all down. once again, if u must WALK AWAY. THEY WILLl call u in a couple of days.
