Went car shopping today and haggled with various dealers. Right now I'm looking at a base v6 mustang, torch red, with a sports appearance upgrade (rear spoiler, black mustang stripes) and an interior upgrade for $18,900 including the $1,000 rebate. I also get $500 rebate for being a college student so that brings it down to $18,400. This is including an additional charge of $350 to go get the car from another dealership 200 miles away, and a $312 Ford advertising fee.

I turned it down. I told him $17,900 and I'd sign right now. He said no. I'm considering accepting the $18,400 but I'm hesitant.

Just curious how much you paid for yours, and what upgrades you got.

PS: The shaker sound system upgrade is a R-I-P-O-F-F. $1100 for that? Ha! I can put a better quality stereo system in myself for far cheaper. Shoot yoruself if you bought a mustang that came with that

 

He said no???!!! LOL over 500 bucks??? on principal i wouldnt go back there.... they usualy dont let u walk out over 500... or even a grand.

i would look for a used one personaly, but i dont kno ur financial position.

Paul

 

mine with pony package came to an invoice of 23000 i think, i got the 1000 and 500 that your talking about, and put down 8500. Paying 272 a month for 5 years...

 

In order to understand the car business you must understand sales and profit. Being that I work in sales, I have some leway when negotiating because I know the game.

The dealer buys the car from the factory at a set price. This is the invoice price. The invoice price on a base mustang is $17,700. That's what THEY pay for the car. They also pay a $720 destination fee to have the factory ship it from the factory to the dealer, so in total, the dealer is paying $18,420 for the car. Note: This is on a car with no upgrades at all. If you added upgrades (such as the pony package or stereo system) those have an invoice and sticker price as well.

When they sell you the car at the $21,000 sticker price, they are making $1,600 profit off of you, and that's not including the profit they make off of their BS ad fees or processing fees that they tack on, so really they are making over $2000 per sticker price sale (sometimes more.) That's more than 10% profit on a car. You got suckered if you paid the sticker price. Keep in mind that most stores survive on 3-5% profit on sales.

In addition, sometimes the factory offers the dealers rebates and incentives to increase sales. It's just like if I buy a computer for $1000 that comes with a $100 rebate, the invoice of the computer is still $1000, but the computer only cost me $900. Same thing here. Right now Ford has a $1000 rebate on all ford cars. So we take that $18,420 and subtract the $1000 rebate, and now the car only cost the dealer $17,420. In addition, Ford gives a 3% holdback rebate to the dealer per car they sell off the STICKER PRICE. So they get 3% off of $21,000 (not $18,420) which is a little over $600 back, dropping their cost to $16,820.

Some of you might be mad now that you realize the dealer took you for a ride

Do you understand why the dealer would gripe over $500 yet? No? Well I'll keep going then

My car had $700 worth of upgrades, bringing that $16,820 up to $17,520. Plus they are chargiing me $300 to go get the car = $17,820. Plus the $312 advertising fee that they refuse to drop = $18,132.

They want $18,900 giving them a profit of almost $800. I offered $18,500 giving them a profit of $368. But they are also profiting $312 off the advertising fee, plus profiting off the $300 to go get it (come on, it doesn't cost a dealer $300 to ship a car.) PLUS profiting off their BS processsing fee (it doesn't cost $300 to process paperwork.) So I think I made a fair offer. And this is assuming their are no secret factor to dealer incentives that aren't disclosed to the consumers.

Now then.. what did you pay for your stang? Be honest.

 

i paid a little over 26,000 but that was the month they came out so there was NO negotiation on price....

 

I feel really sorry for you. Boy were you suckered. That's a common sales tactic and lie dealers use to get you to pay sticker price.

They tried to pull the same thing on me today by saying "well there are no red torch base model v6's in virginia that have a 5 speed at all. this car is in demand! we have to get one out of philadelphia to sell it to you!"

I said "well, I guess I'll wait for the 07s then", and I started to get up and leave, and he stopped me and said "whoa whoa whoa now, I didn't say we couldn't work something out... have a seat..."

 

Your actualy right, on NEW cars there isnt much negotiating that can be dun... except for trying to get a higher price for ur trade in.

Used cars is a different story, my father wanted 11 for the trade in, they were only willing to offer 6, we father was walking out of the door when the manager RAN over and started hagling again, ended up agreeing to the 11k in the parking lot.

same happened with the next truck we bought at a DIFFERENT dealership. but again, new and used car buying is chalk and cheese.

Paul

 

I paid 18,900 for mine, used with 2k on the odometer, it's got the shaker 500, interior upgrade with leather seats, just what I wanted (now i kinda wish it had the pony pkg.) thisi sounds like a bad deal, but they gave me 2,800 for trade in value in a car that i could not have sold for that... so I feel like it was decent.

 

I paid 17,500 for an 05' with 20,000 miles but it has every option available. I have no complaints.

 

Actually new cars is where the MOST negotiating can be done because you go in knowing how much the dealer paid for the car and can offer them a reasonable 5% profit.

On used cars you don't, so you have to kind of guess. They will quote you blue book value like it's the bible, but truth is, dealers pay $3000-$4000 less than Bluebook value on tradeins they have on the lot.