Buying a new car, need some advice

[Chimpy]

Well, my car was a previous model year car so if had been on a dealer lot for over a year so it had more miles than is typical. Most new cars are sold with as few miles as possible. But if I see a car I like at a lot, even if there are 4 of them in different colors they will usually let me drive the one I choose.

[jakonovski]

Might also be the high price of new cars here, people are really picky about them.

[Selby]

They're sold after a few months, usually at around 2k miles. 

Sounds more like a demo car, which can influence the price over in the US as well.  Cars here are the same way, some models get higher miles on them than you'd think and still be considered "new" while others have barely any.

[Viin]

We do have loaner cars here, especially for higher end brands (BMW, Mercedes, etc) that are given to folks while their car is in the shop. My Mercedes was a loaner car that I picked up with 8k miles, 1yo, and at a significant discount. Seemed fine and was dealer maintained. Didn't like how it drove though, so went another route eventually.

[Nerf]

Is there anyone who owns an M3 that isn't a complete douchenozzle? I thought that was one of the requirements?

Damn near every single one of my friends has at least 1 m3, and I've got a Z3M.

Wait, shit.

[jakonovski]

Holy poop, the scrape repairs came out perfect, the old car looks spotless! Now I can feel good about doing test drives and asking for quotes, which is good because the Nissan Juke Nismo is looking suhhhweet. Also, they stopped selling the CR-Z here because of low demand, and there's one last car in the dealership's inventory that's been sitting there for a year, 2k miles on it. All of the trim and 15% off the sticker price right now, I wonder how much further I could haggle. Assuming I like it of course, this is going to be a difficult decision.




 

[01101010]

Holy poop, the scrape repairs came out perfect, the old car looks spotless! Now I can feel good about doing test drives and asking for quotes, which is good because the Nissan Juke Nismo is looking suhhhweet. Also, they stopped selling the CR-Z here because of low demand, and there's one last car in the dealership's inventory that's been sitting there for a year, 2k miles on it. All of the trim and 15% off the sticker price right now, I wonder how much further I could haggle. Assuming I like it of course, this is going to be a difficult decision.

I adore the CR-Z look, but would rather them have a K24 series engine in them.

Then again, I really like the new Type-R Civic coming to a place NOT the USA soon.
http://jalopnik.com/next-honda-civic-type-r-harbinger-of-more-vtec-turbos-1467391006

[Soln]

Any have experience with brokers for buying a new car?  pro or con? 

[shiznitz]

I assume they charge a fee.  Why would you pay more?  Finding a car is not hard.  The time involved is directly related to how picky you are.

[Viin]

Was just talking to a co-worker about that. I love using a broker. Especially for new cars. The price they quote you includes their commission, so there is no extra on top.  And the price quoted is always better than I can get on my own. (On a used car, good ones will also do a mechanical inspection for you before they get the car and deliver it to your house - and even take your trade in!)

Great experience for me.

[Soln]

Well, one issue is that no one is giving me a straight price.  I was trying to ask about costs per model (Subaru Foresters) and costs per additional item, etc.  I visited one dealer, and later they still insist on me returning there to get quotes.  I do not have time to visit 5-6 dealerships.  Really I don't have the weekend hours to spare.  I'm not lazy.  I have family and work stuff.  Things are very rough time wise.  Add I don't expect to close a deal via email, but I think some basic price data beyond MSRP would be obliging.

So, ya -- I might need someone to fetch that deal data per dealer.  Makes sense?

[Chimpy]

Do you know which trim level/options you want?

Just look at something like autotrader or cars.com, then contact the dealer through there. It is how I found my GTI and my friend found his Outback. You will basically get the best price that way.

[proudft]

Foresters are currently in super-high demand, at least in our area.  There was like a two-month wait for ours to get here and they didn't even really care if we left a deposit because it was gonna sell to someone if we flaked.  I think when it arrived it doubled their inventory for the one day it sat there before we picked it up.

It's gonna be difficult to get price quotes if they're similarly scarce in your neck of the woods.

[jakonovski]

Well fuck me, my car seems to be protesting my plans to sell it. I had the bulbs on the headlights changed, and already a week later one of them is burnt again. The customer service person was kind of annoying too when I called to ask them to do it again.

[jakonovski]

Woot, went and did some test drives. I also got offers on the Fiat, way higher than I'd anticipated. The race is now between Seat Leon FR 1.8 TSI and Nissan Juke Nismo (both FWD and manual).

The Seat is a refined thing inside. Fast but can give good gas mileage.
The Nissan has all of the electronics but feels a bit more working class. It's hell of fast but a bit of a guzzler because of the sporty gear ratios.
Both drive pretty much equally nice. Seat has better suspension, but Nissan has an awesome high driving position.

Prolly going to come down to money, so whoever can give the better deal wins. Or alternatively, whichever salesperson turns annoying first loses.

[jakonovski]

Well I guess the annoyance factor came up. Nissan's dude called me at work and was all like "hey I forgot to say the rate offer expires today", then I was all like dude I'm in the middle of something, call you in a bit, and now he's not answering the phone.

So unless he comes back groveling with an even better offer, Seat it will be.

[Chimpy]

The Juke is fugly, go with the Seat.

[Soln]

Buying a new car is going to be up there with getting your teeth drilled or passing a kidney stone for me soon.  I guess being unhelpful is a negotiation tactic.

[Viin]

Use a broker! (do those exist in EU?)

[jakonovski]

Welp, got the Juke Nismo. The sales guy gave me about 1k worth of extra discount and trim, so I considered that apology enough.  
Now I have to wait a month because of tax reasons.

Fake edit: and for Ingmar, the gas economy difference should get offset by smaller service and insurance costs.

The car looks pretty much like this:

[MisterNoisy]

Welp, got the Juke Nismo. The sales guy gave me about 1k worth of extra discount and trim, so I considered that apology enough.  
Now I have to wait a month because of tax reasons.

Fake edit: and for Ingmar, the gas economy difference should get offset by smaller service and insurance costs.

The car looks pretty much like this:

Congrats!  The Juke is a cool little car.

[Soln]

Well, we got a new car.  Sharing this because 1) I know nothing about cars, 2) I don't care to, 3) I don't like the sales process (prefer to play a card game), and 4) kind of a funny story?

Basically, I wanted a new Subaru Forester as a jumped up grocery getter (I've had one for years and years) and because of 1 and 2 I didn't want to do any real research.  I had called and emailed around and visited some show rooms. Nobody was helping me along; specifically, no one would answer how much the MSRP+ would be with x trim option.  One guy that was actually recommended to me spent literally 5mins explaining why the ONE trim option I wanted (GPS nav) was a bad idea.  Terrible speech rec, inaccurate maps, "PITA", "computers are complicated."  You know what?  Computers are dumb.  Getting through to people is hard.  I tried to explain that Lianka my SO made her living with ASR and was finishing grad work on ASR, and then I spent more time over the phone trying to explain what ASR was...  I know the limits of ASR, and I still wanted what I wanted. So, yeah the only guy that I was making progress with tried to talk me out of the one thing I wanted.  Not realizing that that ONE thing may have been important.

Friday afternoon I called back to the only woman salesperson I had met with but I had not replied to (my miss).    Instant sale.  She asked what I wanted, make/model/GPS, said there was "several around" (which recommended guy said there were none), asked me how much I wanted to put down, how much a monthly payment I wanted to make, talked to their finance guy, called me back, took my CC for a deposit, and less than 24hrs later I had the vehicle with only 71miles on it. 

I'm baffled.  I felt like I was trying to give my money to these other sales guys and they didn't get it.  Totally motivated buyer.  Didn't care about color, trim, other than ONE thing... Maybe the lesson is also look for the non pushy woman?  Definitely next time.

[TheWalrus]

A safe bet is that they had models on their lot they were trying to get rid of and wanted to push you into one of those instead. I worked a short stint for a dealership, and the car buyer was convinced that people only wanted silver, white, and tan cars because that was the majority of sales. Pointing out that that was also the only colors he purchased didn't really make sense to him. He specifically had his sales people push to sell cars on the lot instead of ordering in what a customer wanted, so your story sounds real familiar. It's a dumb way to do business, especially with the quantity of dealerships available.

[Jimbo]

Well, all that extra overtime paid off :)
I was on my way to Brazil to work some extra shifts and saw this yellow Jeep in the used Ford lot. Had to stop the next morning, and ended up buying it that day! Was what I wanted (2000-2004 Jeep 4.0 Wrangler with under 100,000 -has 82,000 on it and it good shape).





Wasn't planning on getting it, had been driving an '89 Mercury Cougar that kept having goof shit break, like a month ago the right automatic window motor went to hell so I couldn't roll down the right window, then 2 weeks ago the air condition went out along with the blower motor for the A/C, so I really didn't want to keep it and didn't want to dump more money, and this came along :)

[TheWalrus]

Pretty please change the coolant regularly. Thank you.

[Jimbo]

Amen to that on regular maintenance. I used to do my own fluid changes and flushes, now I usually pay my friend who is a shop owner to do it. One of my friends from work wants me to go wheeling with her, so eventually I'll have to go stomping in the mud with her.

[Chimpy]

Is that a euphemism? 

[Hutch]

Why can't it be both 

[Yegolev]

Is that a gnome?

[Hutch]

The thing in the yard, in the second pic? I'm going with rain gauge.

[Yegolev]

Hmm.  Not a gnome.

[Jimbo]

Gnome is up by the front door. The house is the one I grew up in, it is my Mom & Dad's farm (except we don't farm much any more...).



http://40.media.tumblr.com/d97daf8762d53aa22e278705e49b6d3c/tumblr_nqdn6hDEje1skz7tyo1_500.jpg











Gaston the Gnome is outside our door here, and I've got one near my front door too (house Gnomes :) ). No rain gauge, it is a decorative flag by the flag pole. The Jeep has been pure fun, amazed at the amount of Jeep owners who don't wave...

[Jimbo]

Hey Sky and any other FJ Cruiser owners, any real complaints on them? It is sad as hell Toyota stopped making them  My son's Liberty is freaking nickle and dime'ing me to death, so I'm thinking of just getting a used 2007 FJ that is really sweet. He doesn't like the Wranglers, so the other thing might be a pickup for him, which case would be a Toyota or Ford (but Ford stopped the Ranger and manual transmissions...grrr).

Oh TheWalrus, you were way right! I changed everything as far as oil and coolant and the damn head still exploded on a trip! Then I found out the 4.0 had an imperfection in them that made them prone to overheating and blowing gaskets and warping the heads...ugh..so advice is if you're looking for a 1997 to 2006, look for 2003 where they fixed it or go ahead and pay to upgrade the cooling system and/or head. I love driving it, but this 2000 Wrangler has been a full of gremlins, little shit keeps breaking on it. How is the 2007 and up Wranglers holding up lately? My friends that have them don't seem to have the troubles that I do.

[Selby]

How is the 2007 and up Wranglers holding up lately? My friends that have them don't seem to have the troubles that I do.

Electrical problems and suspension issues.  They aren't terrible, but more and more electronics over the years and they're now hitting the age where nickle and diming is going to be coming on and hitting you.  If you're fine with that and able to fix it yourself or know a trusted mechanic, go for it.

[Jimbo]

Thanks, hell that is one of my issues, I have frame rot on both sides of my Wrangler now, that and replacing the water pump, radiator, & heater core (& thermastat, & hoses/clamps), are pressing issues on my Wrangler. I should have crawled under & tapped & poked all over the frame, but hind sight is 20/20. I used to be able to tackle a radiator no problem, hell we did one on a 85 thunderbird in our clinic parking lot back '93. But now I get frustrated working on them like I used to... Bith of us are Volunteer Firemen & need something for all weather response & ability on the farmy parents have.