One of my ardent followers of this blog (thanks, Mom!) suggested today that I contact a Toyota dealership in Bloomington, since she had read my last post... It had only recently occurred to me to check outside the fiefdom of Indianapolis, and it hadn't yet occurred to me to look south... So I checked their website, and lo and behold, they have the exact same van that the Faraway Dealership has! So I e-mailed them, and a few hours later (seriously? Do car dealers get THAT many e-mails that it takes them so long to answer?), they got back with me... They'll match Faraway Dealership's sale price, and they'll install a DVD player for $350 less than Faraway Dealership will...
At almost the exact same time, the sales lady from Faraway Dealership e-mails me... She wants to know if I got her voice mail message... Not sure how she'd leave me a voice mail message when I never gave her my phone number, but whatever... I'm sure Chapter 15 of the Shady Car Salesman Manual taught her that stupid tactic... But she has good news: Faraway Dealership will give me $700 more on my trade-in than we discussed on Monday... No, I write her back, I didn't get her voice mail, but in the time she left me hanging out to dry, I did some shopping around, and now Bloomington is telling me that they can do the DVD player for $350 less... Any thoughts on that?
Meanwhile, I'm also updating the salesman at the Local Dealership on the goings-on between the Bloomington Dealership and the Faraway Dealership... The Local Dealership pretty quickly throws in the towel...
So now I know that I'm getting down to an area where a pretty decent deal is being worked out... When dealerships are bowing out, that's a good sign for me...
A few hours go by, and the Faraway Dealership lady e-mails me back... They'll match Bloomington's $950 installation, so that, combined with the $700 increase in my trade-in means that I'm really only paying $250 for the DVD player now... She is correct...
But $950 was Bloomington's first offer... And they haven't seen my current van yet to be able to give me a firm trade-in number, so I'd have to drive an hour south to do that... So I e-mail them, tell them that Faraway Dealership is matching their $950... At this point, Faraway Dealership has the lead by a nose, since it will save me a trip to Bloomington to do the whole trade-in thing... Can Bloomington go any lower, so as to justify my time and gas money to go down there?
Several hours passed, and no response from Bloomington...and they closed a couple hours ago... So maybe the same aliens that snatched the Faraway Dealership's manager yesterday have snatched the Bloomington Dealership's manager today... I don't know if Bloomington is calling it quits already, or if they're trying to apply some sort of pressure, but we'll see what happens in the morning...
In the meantime, I'll try to decide if paying $250 to have an overhead DVD player installed is acceptable, since I really wanted it for free... The Mrs. raises a good point that I now cannot purchase my own DVD player and have it installed for $250...so I'm money ahead in that aspect... But I can't help but think that Bloomington is going to try to undercut the Faraway Dealership in the morning, and I might be able to squeeze another hundred or two off the price at either place...
The Mrs. also thinks I'm getting some sort of sick pleasure out of pitting car salespeople against each other...
She may be right...
something else to consider...i have verified this with several individuals in the car business...the end of the month is certainly the best time to buy...so maybe stringing this along until the 29th or 30th may get you that free dvd player...if $250.00 is the "block" then then tell them you walk...i'm certain it won't take anytime at all for that $250.00 to "go-away"...don
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