Buying a car?

Quineloe_sl said:

Never understood why it's just VW that is Hitlermobile to you people, yet BMW, Porsche, Audi and Mercedes, the companies that actually built engines for tanks and fighters, are fine. Is it the socialist aspect of a cheap car that even the working class could have afforded that offends you?


and on topic, are Peugeot in the US a thing? Didn't see the name come up even once.

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lol it's Vinen, he's just a WNF (white noise faggot), not worth responding to.

Besides, he only understood half the equation.

BEHOLD. THE RESURRECTION OF THE AXIS.

My current car is a 2007 BMW 3.28i. Its starting to get to the point that something is going to go wrong and costs thousands of dollars every year to maintain, which was the case last year. Ordered a 2015 Subaru WRX with a CVTthis weekend. Live in LA and with all the hills and traffic, a manual would be a headache. Just wanted something fast and wouldnt cost a ton to repair and maintain like a German car so went with the WRX. Dealer said it should be in sometime in April.

Also I guess this means in the spirt of the above posts that im moving from one Axis car to another. Germany, Japan, and in the super car range Italy make some great cars.

^ That's the same line of thinking that made me trade my 328xi in last week. Fucking incredible car, but no fun to sink money into once things start going wrong.

Sinking a few grand per year into repairs on a car still isn't as much as throwing ~$400-$700 a month towards a car payment though. But there is definitely an inconvenience factor, if you don't have a backup vehicle to get by for a few days while your car is in the shop then it doesn't really matter how much less the repairs are, the reliabilitly of the new car wins out.

Yeah, keep fixing it is cheaper than a new car payment. But I just cant stand the feeling that im getting ripped off when I pay for maintenance on a BMW. It really got me pissed off at the whole brand. There is a reason why they offer no cost maintenance for 4 years/50k miles. Hopefully a new Japanese car will last much longer with fewer issues and reasonably priced maintenance. Thats my thinking anyway.

CaughtCross_sl said:

My current car is a 2007 BMW 3.28i. Its starting to get to the point that something is going to go wrong and costs thousands of dollars every year to maintain, which was the case last year. Ordered a 2015 Subaru WRX with a CVTthis weekend. Live in LA and with all the hills and traffic, a manual would be a headache. Just wanted something fast and wouldnt cost a ton to repair and maintain like a German car so went with the WRX. Dealer said it should be in sometime in April.

Also I guess this means in the spirt of the above posts that im moving from one Axis car to another. Germany, Japan, and in the super car range Italy make some great cars.

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Did they give you any insight into the MSRP of the 2015 Limited Automatic? I still love my Automatic WRX but its 7 years old now.

I talked myself out of a Tesla... going to invest instead.

Here is the pricing sheet that answers that. Im getting a FUR 22 per the sheet.

imgur: the simple image sharer

CaughtCross_sl said:

Here is the pricing sheet that answers that. Im getting a FUR 22 per the sheet.

imgur: the simple image sharer

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Nice, assuming you are paying MSRP? Or did you manage to talk them down a little? They wouldn't budge on the used WRX I purchased 5 years ago. Then again... new cars tend to be a whole different story.

Got 450 off MSRP. In SoCal they are a popular car (or just tons of people here) and they dealers are getting tons of order so its hard to get much of a bargin right now, the dealer I went to already had 50 ordered. From what I read on some other forums people are able to get somewhere between MSRP and Invoice and a few people are able to get below invoice. Just depends on your area/dealers.

Keep in mind not to just go off of dealer invoice. See if you can catch window of manufacturer incentives to the DEALER's. They could be making up to 1k-2k per car if they hit a certain goal amount, in the volume business that is a huge deal. So getting a car at cost is great for you, meanwhile you were WRX sale #200 which netted the dealer $100,000 dollars in bonus cash. Knowledge like that can allow you to grind the price of a car below cost.

How in the world would you ever know something like that without having a friend/relative that works at the dealership? I'm sure they are broadcasting their exact sales numbers to the public on a daily and monthly basis.

Go in at the end of the month, dealers sometimes have a goal to sell so many X and the manufacturer will give them a bonus. When these things are going on you can get even farther below invoice + dealer holdback.

joeboo_sl said:

How in the world would you ever know something like that without having a friend/relative that works at the dealership? I'm sure they are broadcasting their exact sales numbers to the public on a daily and monthly basis.

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When I got my Tacoma, one of the salesmen left a sheet lying around that seemed to show the msrp, the invoice, and a couple other that showed something like reserve or withold (kinda fuzzy). But let's say the MSRP was 28,000, the invoice was like 26,995, and the two other figures indicated that the dealership had another 700 to 1200 to play with before it would actually take a loss on the sale.

Maybe Dis knows the actual terms for those values below invoice. I suppose they could have been bullshit.

I don't think it's commonly shared, and it didn't help me because I'd already negotiated a price by email.

After looking at a5s, decided that my next car will be the 2015 audi a3 cabriolet, basically the same size (I think 2 inches shorter) than an e90, so in other words... Perfect. Now, just gotta find out prices on the a3, how much they decide to rape for the drop top, and then hopefully find how much the s3 cab will be and if it's coming to the u.s. Even before I decide to throw away the 335xi

Uh, I don't think we're getting anything but the A3/S3 sedan and the A3 e-tron sportback.

koljec_sl said:

When I got my Tacoma, one of the salesmen left a sheet lying around that seemed to show the msrp, the invoice, and a couple other that showed something like reserve or withold (kinda fuzzy). But let's say the MSRP was 28,000, the invoice was like 26,995, and the two other figures indicated that the dealership had another 700 to 1200 to play with before it would actually take a loss on the sale.

Maybe Dis knows the actual terms for those values below invoice. I suppose they could have been bullshit.

I don't think it's commonly shared, and it didn't help me because I'd already negotiated a price by email.

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There are other sites like this, but here's one listing them as per Jan 2014.
Dealer Holdback | New Car Holdback Rates | How to Figure Holdback | AutoCheatSheet.com

Keep in mind, dealers have to pay interest on the car sitting on their lot, so a portion of that is to cover that cost as well as other costs. So while getting the invoice price is likely, going much under that without manufacturer rebates is a bit more difficult, but doable. Personally I like waiting for rebates. Negotiate the price down to invoice and then get the rebate bringing the car down below invoice. At that point I don't care what hold back they get, I still walk out with a great deal as opposed to what I would have paid earlier in the year.

Leadsalad_sl said:

Uh, I don't think we're getting anything but the A3/S3 sedan and the A3 e-tron sportback.

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We're getting the A3 cab for sure, Not 100% sure on the S3 cab.

2015 Audi A3 Cabriolet Photos and Info Car and Driver

Also talked to a Dealer at the local auto show who told me to expect September and gave me one of those dealer type books that listed everything available for the car including colors / options available etc. The S3 is mentioned in the book but it doesn't specifically say that it's available in the cabriolet version.

edit: newer article from this month.2015 Audi A3 Sedan / S3 Sedan - Official Photos and Info - - Car and Driver

I'm assuming they got their information from the same book that I got on the car and/or what the dealerships are being told themselves. The sportback model isn't mentioned at all in the dealership booklet that I had.

Sadly my 1994 Camry is finally dying after passing 200k miles. I was originally planning on just getting a cheapish used car to replace it but after seeing what used cars are going for I'm now strongly considering getting a new or practically new car instead.

Right now I'm primarily looking at a hatchback or possibly a crossover since ~20% of my driving is on semi rough rural roads. My frontrunners currently are the Mazda3 for a hatchback and the CX-5 or CR-V for crossovers. Does anyone have any experience with these or strong opinions?

Also I obviously have not bought a car in a very long time but it sounds like getting quotes online is going to be way better then trying to haggle in person, and considering how pushy the Honda guy was when I went for a test drive I'd definitely prefer to avoid that as much as possible. Is something like the Costco website going to be even better or are all the online quotes going to be essentially the same?

The thing with buying a new car, is you do your research before hand and don't ever negotiate with the dealer in-person. If you've done your research thoroughly enough you can offer them a price over the phone and they'll either be able to accept or deny it ie, 5% under msrp. Or deny it and then offer it to you 1 week later. Similarly, with a used car, just go there to test drive it, and then the next day offer a price, which they will decline.... and then later call you back to tell you what they can do instead.

Yes, used cars are "expensive" compared to what they were 6 years ago, but at the same time, most cars can last 10 years 150,000 miles even mildly abused without major mechanical failures. So if you're looking at a 5 year old car with 75,000 miles on it... you can still pay 25% of the price for a car with 50% of it's life left. Any dealer offered used car is going to have a huge amount of markup as well...

example: I sold my 2009 bmw 335x-drive (new price around 52k) for 16,500 (plus he had to pay sales tax) with 60,000 miles. And I had a backup buyer that was actually willing to beat the first buyer's offer. The Dealership only offered me 13,900 wholesale price. Similar cars are listed on cars.com in my area for 19-21k. So if you go there, test drive the car, think it's in good shape, and offer 4,000 less than what they have it listed as, they may sit on it until the end of the month, and then accept your offer because they'd still be making money on it.

The cost of maintenance is NEVER going to equal the cost of depreciation on a new vehicle. Hell, that guy that bought my car could have the engine blow up tomorrow and it's still cheaper to buy used versus new.