stealership woes

so i went to my local suby dealer yesterday to inquire about an 09 sti. the new body style is really starting to grow on me and the hatch suits my needs.

so i go in to get an estimate of my 07 lgt. now this is the same dealership i bought the car from and feel like there may be some consideration on thier part for this fact. in the mail not to long ago we all got the GTP. (guaranteed trade program) listed the buyback price of 16,700. i am well over the mileage limit by leaps and bounds. so much that they say they can only buyback for 9k. what a joke. they said ok we can do 12500 without looking at it. i tell them no way ive checked edmunds, nada, and kbb, and even with the mileage should get at least 14,400. they said they would have to dump a bunch of money into it to get it "road worthy"and tried to tell me a brake job costs 800 therefore stickin to there 12500 price. needless to say i left.

thoughts?

LGT are low desire cars to Subaru dealers or really any used car dealer. Try selling it yourself and then dealing in cash to avoid the dealership antics.

If you want to get the lowest price possible bring your own financing unless Subaru offers something special, have no add-ons or extended warranties and never trade your car in.

Hey they offered $900 for my wife's 96 Civic with 180k miles. I sold it myself to some person who believed Honda is god for close to $3k in need of a timing belt and no major maintenance since 100k. Selling yourself though is a hassle.

You're never going to get good money on a trade-in no matter what. It's a trade-off and you have to figure out what route is best for you.

If you trade in, you'll have the convenience of basically walking in to the dealer with your old car, dumping it and picking up a new car. The downsize is the money part.

If you sell yourself, you will get more out of it but you have to put up with the hassle of selling a car in today's economy.

I recently had to go through this. We were trying to get rid of our ZX3 Focus and pick up a Mini Cooper. First of all the local market sucks, the one Mini at a dealer that was within our budget was an 07 base model that was going for 14K. They offered us 3500 trade-in for the Focus. It took us 6 weeks to sell the Focus but we got 6 grand on it. We turned around and found a Cooper S, just a year older, for 14K but we had to drive over 800 miles total to get it.

So the point is, if you want to make the best choice money-wise, you're going to have to work for it.

Dude that sucks. Stealerships all suck. I got one dealer trying to sell me a 2009 3.0 for 29k. Refuse to go down. Another trying to sell a 2008 3.0 with 47k on it for 23k. They don't like to make deals. The cars aren't worth what they are selling them for and you can get a 2010 for cheaper.

My advice is sell your car private and then use that money on a down payment for the new car. Only thing that sucks is you may be out a car for a day or two...

I'd like to know more about your LGT..miles, transmission, accident history/paintwork, color, etc.

I have a 2009 STI here (as well as a 2010) and within reasonable miles, we definitely wouldnt be scared of your 2007 LGT.

so i went to my local suby dealer yesterday to inquire about an 09 sti. the new body style is really starting to grow on me and the hatch suits my needs.

 

so i go in to get an estimate of my 07 lgt. now this is the same dealership i bought the car from and feel like there may be some consideration on thier part for this fact. in the mail not to long ago we all got the GTP. (guaranteed trade program) listed the buyback price of 16,700. i am well over the mileage limit by leaps and bounds. so much that they say they can only buyback for 9k. what a joke. they said ok we can do 12500 without looking at it. i tell them no way ive checked edmunds, nada, and kbb, and even with the mileage should get at least 14,400. they said they would have to dump a bunch of money into it to get it "road worthy"and tried to tell me a brake job costs 800 therefore stickin to there 12500 price. needless to say i left.

 

thoughts?

It's more than just Edmunds, KBB and other book values. Dealers will also look at what vehicles are doing at auction, how badly consumers want them and how much or little the market is flooded or not with a vehicle. The majority of people DO NOT get what they think they deserve for a trade in.

I had a 2006 GTI I sold after 14 months of ownership. The car was modded and had 65k miles on it. Book value was listed at 15,000x-16,500 for it. Subaru said they could give me $9,000 for it. I went to the private market and sold it for 14,500.

Yea it's all about negotiations. Wait until the last day of the month when they are desperate to make quotas and try ALL dealerships in the area.

Plus make sure they have the car you want on the lot...otherwise the dealer has to take an extra hit on swapping with another dealer.

Try to be cool with them so they will want to do business with you. Yet be firm about the deal you are looking for...ask higher be willing to counter-offer.

Wait....your 07 LGT is a lease right? I am making that assumption since you talked about mileage limits.

If that's the case, then the trade in program doesn't apply, since you have contractual lease payments.

No I think he's referring to the Guaranteed TRade in program which only guarantees the value if you have below a certain number of miles

OK. My bad. Thanks.

Yea it's all about negotiations. Wait until the last day of the month when they are desperate to make quotas and try ALL dealerships in the area.

The "last day of the month" business is an urban legend afaik.

Dude that sucks. Stealerships all suck. I got one dealer trying to sell me a 2009 3.0 for 29k. Refuse to go down. Another trying to sell a 2008 3.0 with 47k on it for 23k. They don't like to make deals. The cars aren't worth what they are selling them for and you can get a 2010 for cheaper.

 

My advice is sell your car private and then use that money on a down payment for the new car. Only thing that sucks is you may be out a car for a day or two...

got mine for a little under 21k brand new. the end of the month is certainly not a urban legend, seeing as i got mine on the 29th and we got them to drop their price very substantially

I priced out Genuine Subaru brake parts, 4 rotors and 2 sets of pads. With the parts and 2 hours of labor (Which is an extremely generous amount of time for a certified Subaru tech to do a brake job on a rust free car) at $80/hr would cost about $760. Here's the kicker... They don't have to pay retail for the brakes, they pay wholesale. The labor would probably be about 1 hour, and they would have no trouble getting the technician to do that, since they don't have to pay him $80/hr. They just have to pay him his normal wage for 1 hour and bite the bullet on shop time. I'd say it costs them no more than $350 to put 4 new brakes on that car including the technicians wages and parts at wholesale cost. They're trying to screw you.

Plus, the car probably doesn't even need brakes to begin with. I'd say tell them where they can shove it and go somewhere else.

The "last day of the month" business is an urban legend afaik.

Yeah but it varies on which month, promotions, inventory, etc. End of quarter is better or a dealer that has a ton of inventory. Another wildcard is credit score. If the buyer has crap credit or even mediocre credit - there is not any leverage.

Word of advice if you're trading in your car. To get a good deal on the STI, deal on the car itself first, don't tell them you have a trade in. This is because they know if they sell you the STI for a cheaper price, then they'll bone you on the trade in.

Get the best price you can for the STI first, then say "oh, I have a car I might want to trade in, lets see how much I can get for it". Look at the differential in prices!

~Dan

I priced out Genuine Subaru brake parts, 4 rotors and 2 sets of pads. With the parts and 2 hours of labor (Which is an extremely generous amount of time for a certified Subaru tech to do a brake job on a rust free car) at $80/hr would cost about $760. Here's the kicker... They don't have to pay retail for the brakes, they pay wholesale. The labor would probably be about 1 hour, and they would have no trouble getting the technician to do that, since they don't have to pay him $80/hr. They just have to pay him his normal wage for 1 hour and bite the bullet on shop time. I'd say it costs them no more than $350 to put 4 new brakes on that car including the technicians wages and parts at wholesale cost. They're trying to screw you.

 

Plus, the car probably doesn't even need brakes to begin with. I'd say tell them where they can shove it and go somewhere else.

It doesn't quite work that way, but close.

The used car dept pays internal pricing for parts and labor. So the technician gets paid his normal flatrate time regardless. They just don't pay as high a labor dollar per hour. They also pay their internal pricing on parts. Working at 3 dealership and dealing with a used car dept. They will do the bare minimum so they can pocket more. They won't put shit on a car unless it wont pass inspection.

OP- For us to put brakes all the way around on a LGT with new pads and resurface the rotors is well under $800 retail. In fact it is under $600. So I think they are just making that up to justify the offer.