LEJ ZO6
LEJ ZO6
I wanted to share our C7 buying experience with members of the Forum.
First off I want you to know I don’t trade vehicles often but I’m not a novice either. I have bought 10 new cars and about as many used cars over the last 50 or so years.
My family had a friend that owned the local Chevrolet dealership. He told us early on what kind of a deal he could give us and still keep the doors to his dealership open. After he retired I still used what he had taught me to get the best deal I could and still afford the dealer the profit he required.
Some of the helpful things he told me were not to expect the best price at the beginning of the sales cycle for a new model. The demand for the model may just be too great for the dealer to accept less than MSRP. The typical markup on a new car is somewhere around 16% plus the dealer receives incentives and bonuses on top of that. Now that we have access to pricing info on the internet I feel he was not too far off on this. You will always do better if you sell your trade in yourself. The dealer expects to make a profit on the trade in and there is risk involved on his part so he can’t give you retail for your trade. There were other things too but that’s not really what this post is about.
I have always tried to keep this advice in mind when I purchase a new car. I have purchased 6 Corvettes over the years from local, internet and Forum dealers. I have always sold my trade myself. I wait until the new series has been out a while so that I can get a discount from MSRP and try to buy the car somewhere around “dealer cost”.
We have some good friends that we met through the local Corvette Club 25 years ago. They always buy a new Corvette as soon as they are available and trade in the old one to the dealer. My wife and I always thought that was a poor way to do business. Well, they put their order in for a Z51 C7 coupe in April 2013. They picked it up at the C7 unveiling at the local dealership the first day the C7 was released to the public. They stopped by to show it to us on the way home. What a beauty !
I got to talking to him about his buying habits and he shared his view with us. They are Corvette nuts. They are anxious to have the latest and greatest Corvette technology and they want to enjoy it as early and as long as possible. That is what comes first and cost comes second. They have their new Corvette and are enjoying it long before the rest of us have figured out when and where to buy.
My wife and I loved our friend’s C7 and talked about their buying philosophy several times after they left. We decided to change our approach a little and jump the gun in getting a C7 convertible. We aren’t getting any younger and you never know how long you will be around to enjoy something like that.
When we bought my wife’s C6 we had great difficulty selling her C5. It was a great car but the economy wasn’t good and we felt we took a beating on it. We didn’t want to go through that again. The C6 had developed a couple of problems that would be costly to fix. We didn’t want to spend the money to fix them if we were going to buy a C7. We didn’t feel comfortable selling a used car that was less than 100% ourselves. So, we decided to trade it in this time. Then the dealer could decide whether to wholesale it, fix it and sell it or just sell it the way it was.
We were actually surprised how much the dealer would give us on trade. We dealt with 3 area dealers and one offered several thousand dollars more than the other 2 so we went with him. We received a state tax break on the value of the trade in that we wouldn’t have seen if we had sold the car ourselves.
The dealer told us up front that they had to ask MSRP for the C7 but they weren’t trying to sell above that. From Forum posts we understood we would have to wait some time if we were to find a deal below MSRP. Especially on a Z51 convertible with carbon fiber dash.
When you plan on buying at MSRP and spending that kind of money it is amazing how nice the dealership personnel treat you. We dealt with 2 salesmen during the course of the transaction. Both of them had been to C7 Corvette training, had driven the cars on the street and on the track and were very knowledgeable about them. They were friendly, prompt and courteous and the buying experience couldn’t have been any more pleasant.
They kept in touch with us throughout the sales cycle so that we understood that the order had been placed, accepted, scheduled, on hold due to constraints, released for build and shipped. It took a while since we ordered early and had items on constraint but the dealership did everything they could to move it along and to keep us in the loop.
We picked up the car last Tuesday night. It was prepped, clean and ready for us on the showroom floor when we arrived. The salesmen went over a checklist of features and showed us how to work everything. They had us inspect it and drive it around to see that everything we wanted had been installed and was in working order. When we got back they had us sign the final papers and sent us on our way.
The amount of paperwork for a new car sale is mind boggling. There are order forms, insurance forms, lemon law forms, emission forms, warranty forms, license application forms and on, and on, and on. I think it is almost as complicated to buy a new car in today’s society as to buy a house. When we were done the finance guy had a whole folder full of paperwork. And that was on the front end. All that paper had to be followed up by office personnel in the back room. I’ll never complain about a dealer doc fee again.
They didn’t try to up-sale us with a lot of dealer add-ons or services and even gave us a great deal on financing. I had the financing pre-approved at our credit union at 1.99% before we went to the dealership to pick up the car. I thought 1.99% was a great deal. The dealership asked if they could try to do better than that and we said sure. They checked our credit and said they could give us 1.49% through BB&T and save us some money. When we told them we wanted the extended warranty they said they could do even better and quoted a 1.09% rate. What a deal !
Even though we bought at MSRP we saved $1750 in state tax by having a trade, $3056 in GM Card points (the card from their original offer with no dollar limit), $500 with a Farm Bureau discount and $1000 in financing cost.
The paperwork and window sticker showed the price increase for the base car and for the Z51 package. I didn’t think those were being applied in 2014, I thought they went into effect for the 2015 model. Anyway, since we had signed the deal before the price increase the old prices were honored.
Thanks Frank and Nate for the pleasurable purchasing experience.
