Used Car Shopping, Day 1

I’ve been shopping online for a bit, looking for a used crossover so we can haul Eve and her belongings around more effectively.  I came across Automotive Avenues, which is highly rated on DealerRater.com.  My experience begins on Friday, where I contacted them regarding some cars that I found via their webpage.  It took them basically no time to send out a welcome email, pairing me up with a sales representative who promptly called to introduce himself.  He asked a few exploratory questions about what I wanted, so I sent him the stock numbers for the cars that I found on their website.

He told me that they work with credit unions to buy vehicles, and they are actually located at dealerships all around the Denver area.  They’d have to get some of the vehicles to their location so I could look at them, he said he would arrange that and find me some vehicles that would also be in my price range.  I explained that I wanted to shop (and potentially buy) on Monday and that I would prefer it if he could make that happen.  He said he would get back in touch with me once he got the vehicles available.

We waited around all day today, trying to find the title for Tasha’s car.  About 2:30 pm, I got sick of waiting around so I called him on his cell phone.  Funny… it seems today was his day off and he was working in the yard.  I guess the whole “we want to do this today” thing was lost on him.  I told him we were going to go over there anyway and look at what they have in stock.  So we did.

We test drove a Honda CR-V, a Chevy Uplander, and a Chevy Trailblazer.  We quickly eliminated the Trailblazer, it was a little too big and used for our taste.  The CR-V was looking attractive, but they were asking higher than we wanted to pay at $12,990.  They asked how we wanted to finance it, we told them that we were paying cash and for that reason needed to work on the price a little if they wanted to sell it.  I quoted a price I found for a similar vehicle at $10,500 and said we could start talking around there.  They told me another couple was test driving the vehicle and we had to wait so the appraiser could look at it again.  In the meantime he worked up what sales tax and title would take for this, about $1000.

After waiting some time, they told me the other couple had walked away.  He said that with our trade (which he could add another $500 to if it would help) that would bring the overall price down to $11,300 out the door.  I told him I still needed to get it down to around $10,500, which would require them to come down around the Edmunds suggested retail price.  Final offer.  He said he could do it, so we walked away.  I took the opportunity to mail the sales rep we were supposed to work with today to inform him of the proceedings, adding that he would have to do better than this when we got together or they wouldn’t get my business.

It comes down to this: if you offer no-haggle pricing, that is an option that people can provide.  You can’t make money from me on my trade in and still not budge on the overall price of the car.  You get to make money off of me in one place, not both.  If I’m coming to you and I’m paying cash, I expect a deal.  We’ll hopefully get to test-drive some Saturn VUEs tomorrow and have another crack at negotiation.  I’ll make it perfectly clear that I don’t have to spend any money here at all, so they’d better start dealing or I’ll go elsewhere.  Oh yeah… and I’ll write them a scathing review on DealerRater.com.