Almost had my 2014...

Before I ever went into the dealer, I called them to run my credit and make sure I qualified for the lowest promo rate from Mazda. It was slightly lower than what my bank could offer, so I thought I'd check it out. They ran it, called me back and said I qualify for the promo rate. Great! Went in, found the 2014 GT FWD in Pearl White that I had scoped out online, negotiated a deal ($200 over MSRP, including doc fees and 3 oil changes and TT&L). Went to the finance guy to finalize the deal, and he told me the best Mazda Finance would qualify me for is 6%. I told him we would have never come in if I hadn't been assured of the promo rate before hand. He said the sales guy didn't really know and was "just guessing." This pissed my wife off really bad, and she demanded the paperwork back and told them they didn't have a deal any longer, even if they COULD offer the rate they originally offered through a different lender. They tried to keep us there, but she wasn't having any of it. They offered to loan us the vehicle for the weekend until they could contact a few local credit unions, but she wasn't interested.

Unfortunately, they're the only dealer in town with a 2014 GT on the lot, so I'm out of luck for now. We were so damn close. I'm pretty bent out of shape.

Typical dealer BS. I know a little about this process and they are messing with me on price, not credit. I will walk for $178 on a $30K car and not look back.

jtl said:

Typical dealer BS. I know a little about this process and they are messing with me on price, not credit. I will walk for $178 on a $30K car and not look back.

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Pretty mad. What's even worse is I bought my Mazdaspeed6 from them back in '07. Same dealer - apparently earning return business is not important to them. Honestly, I should have walked when they refused to come off MSRP. They told me if I wanted money off I'd have to go with a '13. I told them I KNOW that people are getting them for invoice+TT&L, and sometimes much better than that...they basically called me a liar. I eventually got them down ALMOST to where I was hoping to get, but the finance deal was the deal breaker. Such BS. My wife was really just angry that they wasted our Saturday afternoon.

Trust me when it comes to car dealers there is no compassion. I used to finance these guys, floor plans lines, buying their paper, all of that, Ford and Chrysler. I pretty much dealt with the dealer principal (owner) but trust me when I say the acorn does not fall too far from the tree. Don't take it personal and just move on because there is another dealer out there that will give you what you want. Maybe not today, but perhaps next week.
John

Way to stick to your guns!

Good thing you did not take their offer to take home the car as a loaner. That's one of their dirty tricks. Kudos to your wife!

CXFive said:

Good thing you did not take their offer to take home the car as a loaner. That's one of their dirty tricks. Kudos to your wife!

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I'm curious - how would that work to their benefit? Seems like an extended test drive could be a good thing.

MarkyDizzle said:

Pretty mad. What's even worse is I bought my Mazdaspeed6 from them back in '07. Same dealer - apparently earning return business is not important to them. Honestly, I should have walked when they refused to come off MSRP.

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It sounded like they came well off of MSRP in your first post. The final total bottom line was just $200 over MSRP *including* Tax, Title, License, doc fees, prep fees, and 3 oil changes???

Bombadil said:

It sounded like they came well off of MSRP in your first post. The final total bottom line was just $200 over MSRP *including* Tax, Title, License, doc fees, prep fees, and 3 oil changes???

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They refused to come off MSRP initially, but eventually they backed off.Final negotiated deal was $200 over MSRP, all fees considered. I was happy with that deal until they tried to bait and switch on the APR.

Re: Not taking home the car as a loaner. I read an article last week (not sure if I read it in NY times, Yahoo, USA today ..) that it is one of their dirty tricks. You wil end up owning the car even when the loan rates are not favorable to your terms.

I hate dealerships in general. I decide what I want before I go and won't bite unless I get it.

$200 above MSRP doesn't sound like a good deal?? Or that's including tax, if so that's below invoice (unless your tax is low)

icyblueyez said:

I hate dealerships in general. I decide what I want before I go and won't bite unless I get it.

$200 above MSRP doesn't sound like a good deal?? Or that's including tax, if so that's below invoice (unless your tax is low)

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From how I read his post, the out the door cost with TT&L was $200 above MSRP, so actually I would consider that a decent deal.

Of course the best deal is the one that you think is good. For me, the less hassle the better. The nice thing is with sites like Trucar and Carwoo you can get great prices and still no hassle.

sxa said:

From how I read his post, the out the door cost with TT&L was $200 above MSRP, so actually I would consider that a decent deal.

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I would consider that an incredible deal. Tax is usually around $1200 to $1500 or more. Then *all* fees plus title. The CX-5 price would have to be a few hundred below invoice to end up with this total.

Bombadil said:

I would consider that an incredible deal. Tax is usually around $1200 to $1500 or more. Then *all* fees plus title. The CX-5 price would have to be a few hundred below invoice to end up with this total.

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Agreed.

If one of your banks can provide a better deal, go get it and snatch that CX-5 up. The promo rates are only on the `13s, so expect Mazda Finance to want to make money on their most popular selling vehicle right now.

I just asked this question on another thread, but will ask again here: I see a lot of folks saying, sometimes with great precision, how much they paid for their CX-5, but I've not seen anyoen mention any trade ins? Seems to me with the limited wiggle room between MSRP and invoice, it's easy enough to give a buyer a "deal" on the Mazda, and make up the difference on the trade in's value? Yes, you can estimate your old ride's value, but not with great precision. It would probably be more helpful if folks backed out sales taxes as well: here in South Carolina, car sales tax tops out at $300, so obviously that is a huge and uncontrollable variable. (And those varios "pure profit" "fees" that dealers tack on, UGH, but I'd say those should be included since they can be negotiated and dodged to some degree.) To me, it doesn't matter much what price they say they are giving me on their car, or what calue they are putting on mine, I'm just looking at the dollar difference between the two cars. Oh..and you can get .9 financing for 36 months on a 2014, though perhaps this is a regional thing.

Trades made the comparative analysis meaningless. The true measure of cost is your out the door price LESS sales taxes and ACTUAL transfer and registration fees because dealers have been known to pad these.

FWIW, I bought mine very early on, and my dealer would absolutely, positively not budge on MSRP.

So, that's what I paid. What I DID do, though, was get them to budge on my trade in. In fact, considering the POSness of my trade, I did pretty well.
MSRP is difficult to swallow though.

Bombadil said:

I would consider that an incredible deal. Tax is usually around $1200 to $1500 or more. Then *all* fees plus title. The CX-5 price would have to be a few hundred below invoice to end up with this total.

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In AZ the tax rate is between 8.8 and 10.1%, depending on where the dealership is located (each city has a different local tax rate). I would be ecstatic if I could pay "only" $1500 in taxes. Instead it is around $2700 in sales tax and $500 for Vehicle license tax. Plus all the various fees they try to tack on, and you have to fight with them to get removed - $895 for "Desert Protection Package" (a wax job, nitrogen filled tires, and window tinting), $268 for "DataDots", $399 Document fee, etc. Grand total of ~ $33,400 when all said and done. Here's their breakdown:

2014 GT w/tech and roof rack

Discounted Price: $29,704 (this is after their "generous" offer of discounting the desert protection package $150 because I don't want their tint)
Govt Fee's: $484.84 - Vehicle license tax.
Doc Fee: $399
Data Dots: $268
Taxes: $2,613.95

Final Out The Door Cost: $33,469.79

I would be happier with $32,000 out the door. Where I am not too unhappy with this is that $29,700 is the invoice price for a 2014 GT w/tech and roof rack according to Truecar. So we are talking doc fees, which are unfortunately VERY typical around here, and $268 for their theft protection dots. I think if I can get them to $33K out the door, that is about the best I am going to do in AZ.

jtl said:

Trades made the comparative analysis meaningless. The true measure of cost is your out the door price LESS sales taxes and ACTUAL transfer and registration fees because dealers have been known to pad these.

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To me the trade would affect the value of the 'deal' that you are getting on the car. The vehicle you are trading in is a basically a form of currency in the deal that that they get to set the value on. And another number in the deal for them to start spinning to confuse matters.

The more numbers they can get on their 4 square worksheet the better for them: http://www.edmunds.com/car-loan/four-square-basics.html That is why so many car dealers we ran into worked so hard to try to get us to come in and sit down so they could start swapping numbers around on the sheet rather than just saying "here's the price"

Say invoice is $25,500 and you get them to agree on $25,000. That sounds like an amazing deal on a brand new model.
The problem is if you are giving them a trade in as $12,000 of that deal but you could sell the same car yourself and get $15,000 or take it to carmax and get $13,200 then there is a sliding scale of value there. Meaning it is more like you just paid a minimum of $26,200 for the new car.

Unfortunately, on here we can only guess what the trade in was worth as we can't see condition or know what a competing source would have actually offered for it so it does make it not quite as meaningful.

Interest rate is another huge factor as the OP found. They were willing to go that low on price but were going to make up the difference with a higher interest rate.
A five year loan of 25,000 at 4.25% interest equals 27,794.33 in payments. The same loan at 2% equals 26,291.64 so they can make an extra $1,500 just by telling you that you only qualified for 4.25% when the bank gives them 2%
That's where they really have fun then with the "would you buy an extended warranty if I can get them to come down to 3.5%?" lines.
http://www.autocheatsheet.com/Car-Buying/Car-dealership-scams.asp?media2Id=6177

A guy I know was in car sales years ago and he said it was standard to just write a number on the monthly payment spot in the 4 square sheet that was way higher than what the customer said they wanted to get. The customer would say they were hoping to spend $300 a month and they'd write $500 in that spot and then when they backed it down to $400 it sounded like a great discount. Even though with all the other numbers that payment should have been $330 so they got to keep the $70 a month extra.

rcs914 said:

In AZ the tax rate is between 8.8 and 10.1%, depending on where the dealership is located (each city has a different local tax rate). I would be ecstatic if I could pay "only" $1500 in taxes. Instead it is around $2700 in sales tax and $500 for Vehicle license tax. Plus all the various fees they try to tack on, and you have to fight with them to get removed - $895 for "Desert Protection Package" (a wax job, nitrogen filled tires, and window tinting), $268 for "DataDots", $399 Document fee, etc. Grand total of ~ $33,400 when all said and done. Here's their breakdown:

2014 GT w/tech and roof rack

Discounted Price: $29,704 (this is after their "generous" offer of discounting the desert protection package $150 because I don't want their tint)
Govt Fee's: $484.84 - Vehicle license tax.
Doc Fee: $399
Data Dots: $268
Taxes: $2,613.95

Final Out The Door Cost: $33,469.79

I would be happier with $32,000 out the door. Where I am not too unhappy with this is that $29,700 is the invoice price for a 2014 GT w/tech and roof rack according to Truecar. So we are talking doc fees, which are unfortunately VERY typical around here, and $268 for their theft protection dots. I think if I can get them to $33K out the door, that is about the best I am going to do in AZ.

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Wow. I guess, I have to consider myself lucky. I got invoice price and no doc fees (s-plan). Tax in Virgina is 3% and tags transfer less than $30. That's it.