Best price/honest dealers....east coast.

[vj123]

How do you find out "know how much the dealer cash incentive is that month" / and how do you get from there to the "price you're willing to pay"?

Shane used to report each month’s dealer cash incentive as a seperate thread in this section.

 

[cb1111]

i'll offer some thoughts for the DC / DMV area. I recently bought a GTI. I was very thorough in research, read dealership reviews, and being on a shoestring budget, spoke to just about every dealership in the area. A lot of it depends on the specific salesperson for sure, but I sat down with more than one sales person, as well as management at a few places to dig in to first learn about the cars and pricing structure and then ultimately agree on price and financing. My thoughts are below. Where a sales person was great, I called them out so you can work with them too. Also worked with some pretty awful/ slimy /rude /apathetic folks too, but I won't name names in public...

(Note: I had no intent to mislead anyone or waste anyone's time, FWIW it was my first car purchase ever, so I was unfamiliar with the way it all worked, initially started with a wide set of candidate cars, and finally my researching phase spanned two time periods (shopped in October to do initial research on a bunch of cars, decided to hold off then and save more, and then shopped again in December with the GTI in mind along with end of year deals as the goal, and eventually purchased. I didn't want to jerk anyone's chain and was up front and honest about my budget, needs, and timing. In the end, it came down to price and inventory. I also researched individual sales people to work with in most cases before scheduling an appointment.)


Fairfax - I ended up buying here. My sales guy was awesome. Simon Chu. Knows the cars, is patient, polite, returns your calls but doesn't spam you. I would say the sales manager was kind of meh - not terribly warm over the phone, but good once we got to the right price, messed up the paperwork once. He was new. But a nice dude and a fair dude. Paperwork took a while and unlike other dealerships I saw, their cars on the lot are not as clean and ready to go... These guys made the best price for me in the end. I spoke casually to Al Saleh there too, who is well reviewed as well - he really knew the cars and was passionate about them, and a very nice dude.
Alexandria - sales team - spoke with two sales guys as well as management - are most apathetic. The sales manager while negotiating claimed he "didn't think I was serious" - it's no way earn my business. Worse: they wouldn't honor their own prices on truecar or even on their website in one case, saying "its a teaser price to get you in, but we can't actually sell it at that point, claimed it was a mistake" but didn't fix it for two months. Shady. Also terribly parking lot and sales office - a mess to test drive at or do a deal at. Super cramped and dingy.
Lindsey Dulles - Incredibly unresponsive by phone and email, never made it in.
Ourisman - smooth operators, fast talkers, high pressures sales team. Made up numbers by text message that I knew they couldn't honor to try and get me to come in. Made me do a credit check before offering pricing. Decent inventory but I could tell they weren't going to give a fair deal. Felt very much like the archetypal shady sales team.
Darcars - boy - hate these guys. Sales agent is hyper aggressive and calls non stop. Won't give you any reasonable starting point by phone or email. I went in there and got a great quote "OTD", he even wrote ### OTD on a piece of paper for me, I came back the next day to pick up and they claimed "out the door price" did not include the down payment I had agreed on, so the bill had an extra $4K. Probably the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. Out the door is the total price. Make sure these guys don't screw you over. On top of that, before that point, I came in with an appointment ready to buy, cash in hand (before I saw the paperwork) and had to wait 1.5 hours just to meet with the finance manager (who truly didn't understand how to work the software he was using). This was truly a horrible experience on multiple fronts.
King - Well known con artists. All the dealers talk shit about them. They are the "king" of mystery fees that others don't charge. I never went in but spoke to a guy named Chris. Was hard to reach but polite. He didn't follow up or seem to care about my business, it's clear King is running a volume game, so be very wary of the advertised prices, but he was patient enough to walk me through their "unique" pricing structure and was straightforwad about why there is a delta between their advertised prices and real OTD prices. On the one hand their starting point is low, so if you don't fold easily, you can potentially get them to the lowest price point, but it might be hard.
Stohlman - great experience. Had a salesmen named Patrick who was very laid back, taught me a bit about the car without being overwhelming or just dropping irrelevant trivia about the car. He was good people. Great backroads in Tyson's to go test driving. They are very reasonable on price. I really would have liked to buy from them but by the time December rolled around they didn't have the inventory I wanted. But would shop there again in a heartbeat. Patrick was the most no-BS straightshooter I spoke with.
Antewerpen - spoke to once by phone but didn't imagine I'd be able to drive up there.
Catonsville Heritage VW - spoke to a few times by phone with a guy named Naz. Also worked with his manager. Naz is class. Worked hard to get my business. Followed up when we said he would but not excessively spamming. Spoke very honestly from the outset about pricing. Offered to swap cars to earn my business. Offered very competitive pricing. In the end, it was very close between Heritage and Fairfax but Fairfax was significantly easier for me to get to (without a car, as this was my first car).


Overall if you're shopping in the DMV area, and care about: great prices and transparency, decent and good human beings on the sales team who you want to give your business to, and compelling test drive routes in the area, here's my tl;dr suggestion (with a VA and MD side option if possible):

1. Try Stohlman (Patrick) or Heritage (Naz) first. Both teams are very decent, honest, competitively priced, and family run without high pressure sales cultures.
2. Try Fairfax (Simon or Al) next.
3. Give Lindsey or Antwerpen a shot, but I don't have experience one way or the other
4. Try King but go in fully prepared - don't be blindsided by their bespoke "D&H" fees and others.
5. Avoid Darcars and Ourisman and Alexandria.

I have an email from Stohlman where they said that their advertised prices included incentives that most people won't qualify for, but also that you need to add not only the (NoVA usual) destination and processing, but also options.

They take MSRP price, subtract some minor discount, subtract every incentive and rebate known to man, subtract destination and options to come up with their "low advertised price".

Yes, they are mostly friendly, but they play a zillion games.

It is a shame too, because they are the closest dealer to me.

 

[slaycity278]

Fair. But TBH I think all dealerships (esp in the DC area) quote the price without destination, documentation, TTL, and options for sure. You're going to pay the same documentation and T(%)TL at any dealership for any car company. Documentation is capped by state laws, and a dealership is almost always going to charge the max allowed by the state. In VA this is $800 and MD this is $500. Even if they tell you they'll "waive" that charge, they are likely just subtracting that cost somewhere else. Destination charges may vary, but is within the same ballpark across cars, and the exact same across dealers in a particular region for the same car. A dealership shouldn't be including those $500/ea mfr incentives in my opinion in the advertised price though, since those basically require you to have a certain job. And the exception to all the above is King's D&H fees which are not typical across VW dealerships or other brands either.

A slight assumption I should have stated is, the buyer roughly knows what they're trying to buy and roughly knows what price range its going to cost and what number he or she wants to hit. If you're serious about buying and serious about wanting to put in some work to save 00s or 000s of dollars, Truecar.com or similar sites are definitely the best starting point for this. Note that Truecar price points are also without fees and TTL. However, if you see a car listed at a certain price, you almost certainly have at least a little room on top of that if you go in, show the salesperson you're serious, and are prepared to negotiate. With that said, if someone emails you a price quote (with fees included or excluded but this should be noted or clarified) and doesn't honor their email when you walk in, one way or the other, when you go in, then you should go with a different salesperson or a different dealership. Just be sure you're clear whether via email or phone what fees are included and excluded.

A brief note on getting the price and loan rate you want
I took the approach of saying X is my budget, including ALL taxes and fees. Was very explicit about that. Asked them to change whatever numbers they needed to under the hood to make that the case. They can back calculate the "car price" minus fees and taxes in order to get the total number = X.

Then they'll hit you with financing. Two things to note here. One is the best rate will require you to use their financing. If you have access to your own financing, it may not be compatible with their price. Not too much of a problem - if you are unhappy with their financing terms and have access to better ones (from your bank or financial institution for example), you can make three monthly payments to their bank of choice, and then pay the rest of in full by financing that "rest" with your own financing. You're effectively refinancing the car but you're really swapping who holds the loan by doing this. I knew coming in what rate I'd be able to get on my own, and I knew they wouldn't be able to beat it, so I encouraged them to price the car as aggressively as they could pledging to finance through their preferred vendor. Knowing that I wouldn't be paying into their vendor's interest rate for more than three months no matter what.

In the end, make sure that when you factor in your car payments and interest payments, you're still within your budget. The interest can be crippling if your credit is not great. Know there is a cost of capital - you can read more about this online, but if you pay down more aggressively, you forgo the opportunity cost of that money in paying off other higher interest debts or investing it for returns. Happy to help anyone understand this more if you DM me.

Finally, if you're as strict on your budget as I was, skip most/all of the upsells and additional warranty things they try to pitch you on at the end.

I have an email from Stohlman where they said that their advertised prices included incentives that most people won't qualify for, but also that you need to add not only the (NoVA usual) destination and processing, but also options.

They take MSRP price, subtract some minor discount, subtract every incentive and rebate known to man, subtract destination and options to come up with their "low advertised price".

Yes, they are mostly friendly, but they play a zillion games.

It is a shame too, because they are the closest dealer to me.

 

[cb1111]

Fair. But TBH I think all dealerships quote the price without destination, documentation, TTL, and options for sure. You're going to pay the same documentation and T(%)TL at any dealership for any car company. Documentation is capped by state laws, and a dealership is almost always going to charge the max allowed by the state. In VA this is $800 and MD this is $500. Even if they tell you they'll "waive" that charge, they are likely just subtracting that cost somewhere else. Destination charges may vary, but is within the same ballpark across cars, and the exact same across dealers in a particular region for the same car. A dealership shouldn't be including those $500/ea mfr incentives in my opinion in the advertised price though, since those basically require you to have a certain job. And the exception to all the above is King's D&H fees which are not typical across VW dealerships or other brands either.

A slight assumption I should have stated is, the buyer roughly knows what they're trying to buy and roughly knows what price range its going to cost and what number he or she wants to hit. If you're serious about buying and serious about wanting to put in some work to save 00s or 000s of dollars, Truecar.com or similar sites are definitely the best starting point for this. Note that Truecar price points are also without fees and TTL. However, if you see a car listed at a certain price, you almost certainly have at least a little room on top of that if you go in, show the salesperson you're serious, and are prepared to negotiate. With that said, if someone emails you a price quote (with fees included or excluded but this should be noted or clarified) and doesn't honor their email when you walk in, one way or the other, when you go in, then you should go with a different salesperson or a different dealership. Just be sure you're clear whether via email or phone what fees are included and excluded.

A brief note on getting the price and loan rate you want
I took the approach of saying X is my budget, including ALL taxes and fees. Was very explicit about that. Asked them to change whatever numbers they needed to under the hood to make that the case. They can back calculate the "car price" minus fees and taxes in order to get the total number = X.

Then they'll hit you with financing. Two things to note here. One is the best rate will require you to use their financing. If you have access to your own financing, it may not be compatible with their price. Not too much of a problem - if you are unhappy with their financing terms and have access to better ones (from your bank or financial institution for example), you can make three monthly payments to their bank of choice, and then pay the rest of in full by financing that "rest" with your own financing. You're effectively refinancing the car but you're really swapping who holds the loan by doing this. I knew coming in what rate I'd be able to get on my own, and I knew they wouldn't be able to beat it, so I encouraged them to price the car as aggressively as they could pledging to finance through their preferred vendor. Knowing that I wouldn't be paying into their vendor's interest rate for more than three months no matter what.

In the end, make sure that when you factor in your car payments and interest payments, you're still within your budget. The interest can be crippling if your credit is not great. Know there is a cost of capital - you can read more about this online, but if you pay down more aggressively, you forgo the opportunity cost of that money in paying off other higher interest debts or investing it for returns. Happy to help anyone understand this more if you DM me.

Finally, if you're as strict on your budget as I was, skip most/all of the upsells and additional warranty things they try to pitch you on at the end.

No, Stohlman is the only dealer I know of that reduces the advertised price by the factory installed options. NoVA (and DC/MD suburbs) are the only dealers I know of that also play the "destination" game, by subtracting the cost of destination from their advertised price.

And no DMV (District, Maryland, Virginia) dealer will "waive" the processing fee. Like everything, it is negotiable, but the fee will show up on every purchase order so they can say "we charge everyone that fee". If they do "remove" it, then it will be in some other spot, but that line item will be there.

 

[slaycity278]

We're on the same page w.r.t the second paragraph, like I mentioned in my post, they'll take it off the front end but you'll still see it on the final paperwork: "Even if they tell you they'll "waive" that charge, they are likely just subtracting that cost somewhere else "

I didn't get any factory installed options so can't and won't claim anything there one way or the other. And I agree with you that some states seem to tack on destination charges after, and others seemingly weave it in directly, but this holds true for the DC area dealerships at least, so I'll revise the original post to just claim this for the DC area dealerships and perhaps a few other states.

 

[cb1111]

We're on the same page w.r.t the second paragraph, like I mentioned in my post, they'll take it off the front end but you'll still see it on the final paperwork: "Even if they tell you they'll "waive" that charge, they are likely just subtracting that cost somewhere else "

I didn't get any factory installed options so can't and won't claim anything there one way or the other. And I agree with you that some states seem to tack on destination charges after, and others seemingly weave it in directly, but this holds true for the DC area dealerships at least, so I'll revise the original post to just claim this for the DC area dealerships and perhaps a few other states.

Destination and options are all part of the MSRP of the vehicle and it is (to my knowledge) only the DMV dealers that subtract the destination in their adverts and have the fine print that says "just add destination, processing fees and tax/tags/title" and only Stohlman also subtracts options.

Are you sure your car had no options? No monster mats, no dimming mirrors, no cargo mat? No DSG?

When I bought my Alltrack in NM last month (in transit now), they didn't even charge a processing fee as I was going to do my own registration here in VA. No NoVA dealer would ever do that.

 

[slaycity278]

Had monster mats and DSG. DSG was baked into the price, so I didn't think of that as an option. I asked for the mats to be thrown in, I'm not sure if they were included to begin with or tossed in for free, but they were zeroed on the final bill. Large amount of variance in all of this at the end of the day, so I'm just offering my own experiences and best perspective to the poster.

 

[cb1111]

Had monster mats and DSG. DSG was baked into the price, so I didn't think of that as an option. I asked for the mats to be thrown in, I'm not sure if they were included to begin with or tossed in for free, but they were zeroed on the final bill. Large amount of variance in all of this at the end of the day, so I'm just offering my own experiences and best perspective to the poster.

Depends on if they were on the Monroney sticker. The car I looked at had about $400 of mats, mud guards, first aid kit and so forth, so Stohlman said "advertised price plus 899 (destination), 799 (processing), 1500 (incentives/rebates - grad/military/partner), 400 (options on window sticker), TTT (tax, title, tags) minus any incentives/rebates you may qualify for". Other local dealers play the same games without the options trick. King plays other games.

In most other regions, the advertised price includes destination and options.

 

[uvasteven]

The NOVA games get old quick. When I dealt with NOVA and Central Va dealers in late 2019 I just asked for OTD prices so I could directly compare. Eventually Loyalty gave me a solid price and I jumped on it. They beat my credit union rate too. If you're handy with excel you can make spreadsheets and figure out their OTD prices fairly closely ahead of contacting them. I have bought a car from Sheehy Subaru and they were super transparent and easy to work with.