Posted on 02/08/2022 6:36:02 AM PST by devane617
Thinking of buying a car? Kimberly Walker, a mother of two in Columbia, S.C., can tell you exactly what that's like these days.
She recently found herself having to shop for two vehicles on opposite ends of the market. For herself, she wanted a late-model electric Audi, and after looking around, she was able to find a used 2021 e-tron at a local dealership.
The price? An eye-popping $68,000 with no room to negotiate.
"We went back and forth. We were there for four hours," she says. "They did not budge on that price."
For her teenage daughter, Walker was looking to spend just a few thousand bucks on an old car. The experience wasn't any better. For four months they tried private sellers and kept losing bidding war after bidding war. CarMax didn't have a single option under $15,000.
They eventually found a car. There was just one catch.
"We ended up purchasing a 2009 Toyota Camry that actually was not running at the time," Walker says. "But the mechanic agreed to put a new engine in it and gave it to us for $3,500."
(Excerpt) Read more at newsbreak.com ...
I enjoy the process but I wouldn’t attempt it right now.
I bought a new car at the end of December. I called the dealer in mid-November and found out that two of the model I was looking for had just entered into their inventory. I had the salesman attach my name to one of them. A few weeks later I had a VIN and shortly after that I was able to see the Monroney sticker online. At the end of December I checked in with my salesman and he stated that a delivery truck had just pulled in. A few minutes later he confirmed my vehicle was on the truck and he would put it at the front of the PDI queue. I drove down, wrote them a check, and drove home with my new car two hours later. No fuss, no muss, no unwanted add-ons, and no jacked up additional dealer markup.
I’ll keep that in mind.
This shouldn’t be “shocking” to anyone.
I was shopping for a new Truck last spring. The chip shortage back then put me in a position where it took weeks—because I wanted to wait for the right vehicle.
That said, the only reason I was able to make the deal work is because I had a truck to trade. Pick ups were in high demand—so the trade in value far exceeded my expectations.
But, go onto any car lot’s web site and look at current inventory. My dealer usually had dozens of vehicles—new and old. Now there might be 20-25 on the lot at any given time.
Thank you for the info. Very useful.
Are you kidding me? I have a strong suspicion that you are getting screwed.
Buying a car sight unseen is a huge risk. And now you are getting jerked around with the paperwork? They are not returning your calls? Don’t be surprised when a defective car shows up, if it shows up, leaving you disappointed.
You need to immediately cancel the deal and get your money back. If you don’t feel like that’s a possibility then immediately travel in person to that dealership and complete the deal that day or get your money back and walk away learning a valuable lesson.
I wish the best for you. But what you’ve said leads me to think you are getting screwed.
“...the bottom will fall out...It’ll take a little while, maybe 6 months, once sales truly tank.”
I tend to agree with you, but the US economy has been able to provide everything in abundance since the end of WWII. I am convinced what is happening now has been planned and engineered.
I am old enough to remember when every new car dealer had at least one or two on their lots to use as bait and switch cars. Usually the didn't have AC and only had an AM radio if they had any radio at all. Sometimes they did not have bumpers.
They would run an ad for it at a ridiculously low price in the Saturday newspaper. If you got there before they opened, they would steer you to a model with automatic transmission, AC, a radio and bumpers. If you got there after they opened, the advertised vehicle had invariably already been sold.
In the 1980s, my father bought a new Honda Civic with manual transmission and no AC, radio or bumpers because he got to the dealership before they opened and refused to be steered to another model.
Capitalism.
Get yourself a car dealership and start selling electric Audis for $25K.
I know. I was just using your joke to make a general announcement to whom it may concern.
Its a real dealership. Full online presence. Listed by BMW as one of their official dealers. Registered on cars.com. Etc etc.
https://www.bmwofridgefield.com/
Once the chips start flowing to new car manufacturers, these insane prices are going to come back down to earth.
OBAMA closed do many dealerships that dealer loyalty is gone.
I drove my last one for 22 years. I can’t see me trading this one anytime soon. 😁
When I buy a reasonably good vehicle, I drive it until it won’t go. My old 22-year-old truck was still running fine when I bought this SUV, but I was making a lot of trips to Knoxville to the Orthopedic Specialist and an old truck is bound to have trouble sometime or another.
We still have it and it’s still going strong. I didn’t trade it. I gave it to my husband to finish wearing out. It just won’t quit! It’s 22 years old with almost 300,000 miles and is going as strong as it was the day I bought it.
My advice is to look beyond your hometown. Check Craigslist, AutoTrader, CarGurus and Cars.com. You can choose how far from home to search. To me, search at least as far as 100 miles.
I’ve found that CarMax and Carvana are about the most expensive places around to buy a car.
No, it’s because new cars are in very short supply due to a massive chip shortage. Furthermore, the longer a used car sits on the used car lot, the price drops because it is costing them money. It does not keep rising in price.
Good luck. Sometimes the minor annoyance and inconveniences like these can be overlooked when you get the final product in your driveway. I hope it’s everything you want and you can enjoy it for years to come.
EVERY county has a contract with a company that buys the vehicles that have reached their ‘maximum’ miles that the County demands.
I have a station wagon that was a County Sheriff’s department car-—It was sold to my friend’s company with 50,000 miles as a ‘turnover’. I bought it from him with 55,000 miles on it in August 1981. Heavy duty radiator & suspension. 403 Olds engine.
Car now has 221,000 & I won’t sell it.
Maintenance has been usual stuff-—and I paid more for my new (2001) 4 horse trailer than I paid for that car. In fact-—I paid more for car AND 1976 Chevy 1 ton truck than I paid for that trailer.....which is a simple 4 horse slant load.... steel over wood floors with 12’ X 7’ hay rack on the top....NOT aluminum.
Check for binding arbitration and mandatory out of state jurisdiction and venue provisions in the paperwork they sent you. Even if it is a well established, reputable dealership, I think there is a 90% chance that they sold the vehicle to someone else for more and will be eventually get back to you, apologize for the confusion, and offer you a "discount" on a different vehicle.
Bought a stick shift Tacoma new in 2018 — I don’t recall the price being lower than a comparable automatic.
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