Posted on 08/12/2016 6:28:30 PM PDT by SoFloFreeper
FREEPers, I need a little advice.
I am in the market for a late model used car.
We have had good success in our family with Toyotas; owned three or four of them in all and are quite happy with their track record.
Also, it has been about six years since I bought a car, so I don't know if the "game" has changed much.
I have bought from the "Carmax" guys before, and I know they don't haggle.
But I found what was supposed to be a "Dealer Certified" car from a Toyota dealer a few miles from home. We went to see the car based on the price advertised on the web.
We take the car for a drive, like it, and decide to see what it would take to get the car.
Suddenly the nickel and dime crap starts. Turns out: "Certified" is not what was advertised. If I wanted the car CERTIFIED it would be an extra $1500.
Then, a "dealer fee" of $1000.
Then, the sales tax of about $1000 (I knew I couldn't get out of that!)
After that, they wanted to charge about $500 for something called "electronic title transfer"...huh?
And a couple of other things...nitrogen in tires, tag fees, etc.
suddenly, with all of this, the price on the web site was far far away and the bottom line was almost 5,000 dollars MORE.
So look, is this NORMAL? I felt like they were really pulling a bait and switch on the price, but maybe I've just been out of the game too long.
Any advice would be helpful.
What I don't need is someone telling me not to buy a Toyota. I'll listen to alternative car suggestions, but the success we've had with that Japanese car is pretty good.
Thanks in advance, FRiends
my kids have had great luck at CarMax.
They don’t like the mechanics there (at CarMax, story follows), but you can take the CarMax warranty to any mechanic. My son took his car to the BMW/MiniCooper dealer to have a vacuum thing redone, and they found the wrong brake sensors on it (that CarMax installed). Replaced them all and they honored CarMax warranty.
I was impressed. If I have to buy a car, I think I will do CarMax, just for their warranty service.
You are not going to get that on Craigslist.
Other thing, my daughter wanted a very specific VW Turbo (I don’t know the model). She found it online at the CarMax site and had they shipped from WI to Illinois for her to test drive. She bought it that day (it’s in a recall now, a turbo diesel of some sort, but that’s not CarMax fault).
Cars like real estate, trade at prices based on “comparables” more or less.
With cars some dealers will assume the buyer doesn’t even know what they should pay, and will do like your dealer did with this vehicle.
Do your homework, know what the vehicle should be sold for and make your offer.
Be prepared to walk away if they refuse to negotiate a fair price.
I have a Nissan auto, and the dealer will fill my tires with nitrogen for free (I don’t use it because we have a compressor in the truck yard)
My Ford truck has regular air, I don’t think the Ford dealers offer that service. Maybe they do.
I also go to a tire store where we get our heavy duty equipment tires, and they will do nitrogen for free, if you bought tires there (saw the sign on the wall) (Kelly Tires)
I’m glad you too have had good service with CarMax. I’ll never buy another new car......we’ve had to have the dash board replaced on the Avalon on a recall but that’s about it. It’s a dream car.....beautiful to drive but it’s so much easier to get up into a truck and slide out than it is to squat down into the car and pick yourself up to get out especially now that my old joints are blown......sigh.....;)
Reg compressed air =
Nitrogen 78 percent
Oxygen 21 percent
Argon 0.93 percent
Carbon dioxide 0.038 percent
You won't regret it.
My dream Car is a Truck, Manual Transmission and windows that you Crank up ... Metal Key (no auto locks) and a radio that has a simple dial
Guess I will have to find an antique
Oh Yeah ... Old Diesel without a computer
I have no idea what the makeup of compressed air is, I just use the compressor at our yard, and we have regular compressors on the job site at all time for our equipment.
Not sure what the value in nitrogen filled tires is, unless maybe you are a top fuel dragster or something (and even then I have no idea what they use to be honest).
But, again, around here, it’s kind of a free complimentary thing if you are a customer of the tire shop or the dealers.
Makes the white collar types feel like they are gear-heads or something I reckon.
We just use “air”.
yeah, I was over new-cars many years ago
I don’t have to show off my success with new car smell anymore :)
And yeah, I have bench seat in my truck and I like em, easier to get in and out of, and I have 2 laptops, 2 phones, a hard hat, 3 2-way radios and aluminum clipboards spread out wide on the seats, I can’t do that in fancy bucket seats.
We have a Nissan as well (bought pre-certified from the dealer), and getting into and out of it (I’m a big guy and old) can be like crawling into a space capsule. But the car is great, runs great, no fidgety problems like I get with my ford (window buttons and stuff), I mean it’s a great car.
and, like I said, the kids had a great experience at CarMax, if I need a new car, I will go there for sure.
*** We just use air ***
That is what “air” is, compressed or otherwise
Nitrogen 78 percent
Oxygen 21 percent
Argon 0.93 percent
Carbon dioxide 0.038 percent
(at Sea Level the “air” we breathe is compressed to 14.7 psi because of all of the “air” above it, us humans are most comfortable with at least 10 psi which is about what you have at 10,000 ft elevation which is what high flying planes cabin pressure minimum usually is)
so, I have to ask, what is the benefit of nitrogen? I’m assuming it’s 100% nitrogen.
The only thing I can figure, is there would be less loss or gain of pressure during temperature changes.
That’s why I could only imagine it would be worth while to bother with if you were in a top fuel dragster (or maybe a plane, I have no idea what they use).
I mean, I know our tires deflate when it’s cold, but I am not buying tanks of nitrogen for our vehicles. We just put more “air” in the tires.
Am I missing something here?
Am I missing something here?
By volume, dry air contains 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.039% carbon dioxide, and small amounts of other gases. Air also contains a variable amount of water vapor, on average around 1% at sea level, and 0.4% over the entire atmosphere.
The talking point $ is that nitrogen doesn’t leak out of the tire as fast in theory...............
Note how little CO2 is in the atmosphere also.
run
no oxygen = no internal oxidation for us everyday folks ... but the outsides of the wheels and tires are still in contact with the 21% oxygen that we love and need
I don’t know if there is a tremendous difference in expansion rates between Oxygen and Nitrogen (I am sure that there is some)
Top Fuel dragsters or vehicles trying to set speed records also make sure there are nothing but smooth surfaces on their bodies ... it makes a super slight but important for them difference ... us regular folks don’t care if there is a seam line all the way around our door or that our rear view mirror is flat instead of bullet shaped
If you bought a bottle of nitrogen ... how would you know it was 100% nitrogen (it would be the cheapest inert gas) but how could you tell?
All in all, it really is pretty insignificant benefits to be realized at optimum utilization (except for the Dragsters and Land Speed Folks where a bunch tiny things add up)
That’s kind of what I figured, but I have seen these “free nitrogen fill” signs at various places over the last few years, and the poster in this thread mentioned it.
Just seems gimmicky to me.
But was curious as well, do certain sports car tires require nitrogen or you void the warranty or something?
I’ve never driven a Ferrari or anything like that (probably never will) but maybe that’s the thing, or is it just a pretentious thing that the average Joe is getting suckered into?
We get our gas from a gas supplier and it is certified, and they sell nitrogen (and we use it for forcing air out of pipe lines that we have to flame test, I guarantee there is no oxygen in those tanks) but never thought to hook it up to fill a common tire to be honest.
I think my yard mechanic would look at me like I was nuts if I told him to fill the grader tires with nitrogen, lol. But... I might, just to see his reaction... :)
Find a trusted mechanic and buy private. You should be able to narrow down your choices of Toyota then pay the mechanic $100 or so to do a full diagnostics. Dealers have always been, and always will be, a ripoff. $500 to transfer the title? What BS.
Read this book:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1459719409
Either go to your local library or buy a copy. This is the single most valuable book every written for used and new car buying guidance.
Figure out what models and model years you are interested in and then google what you are looking for. A hundred mile radius is reasonable to look at.
Zero in on a dealership or two that have what you are looking for. Use the CarFax history for used cars to figure out how long the car has been sitting on the dealer’s lot, which will tell you how desperate they are to sell it.
Call and talk to the dealership manager (never a floor salesman) and agree to a bottom line price, less ONLY sales tax. Then drive to look at the car.
I bought a GREAT very low mileage Honda Accord LX luxury sedan certified preowned auto that had a one-lease user with great Honda factory warranty for $16,000.00 that way from a dealer located about 4 hours from where I live.
I had the service manager put the car on the rack so I could look underneath. The thing looked brand new, not even any scrapes on the front cowling, and the service manager was a WAY better salesman than the nimrods milling about in the showroom, showing me all of the great mechanical features of the car.
Bttt
Yup, they are right. I have an Opel......
Absolutely not, no regrets here! I got a good deal on a 2 yr warranty on mine when I got it, and as hard as I ran it, going on 4 years later it hasnt broke anything other than traction. Mine is modded a little, and I love seeing people talking to God in the passenger seat.
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