GOLFMK8
GOLFMK7
GOLFMK6
GOLFMKV

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

7thVW

Passed Driver's Ed
Location
Florida
Donaldson's VW in Sayville NY is top notch. I purchased 6 vehicles from them over the years. Family owned business that cares about their customers.
 

sijray21

Go Kart Newbie
Location
northern va
I've had several good experiences from Lindsay VW and Stohlman VW in the DC area. I've bought a GTI from Stohlman in 2010, a JSW TDI in 2014, and a GSW SE in 2016. All good experiences except that i should've come in to the dealership with my own financing to give myself more leverage with the finance guy and the incentives the dealer offered.

on another note, i've had a good experience with Rockville Audi (MD) buying my used R. They were very straight forward on the price and they helped me to expedite my time at the dealer so i wasn't there for hours on end getting the deal done. Less than 2 hours and i was driving away. I also came in with my own financing. They were even honest about the Kahu/Sperion GPS tracking device they installed and their fees weren't unreasonable (albeit all were still negotiable).
 

thegman1234

Ready to race!
Location
Patchogue, Long Island
Car(s)
MK7.5 Golf SE
Donaldson's VW in Sayville NY is top notch. I purchased 6 vehicles from them over the years. Family owned business that cares about their customers.
QFT. We get all of our VWs from Donaldson’s. I’ve sent a bunch of friends there, as well. If you’re willing to take the drive to Long Island, check out Donaldson’s and ask for Darren.
 

swcrow

Autocross Champion
Location
Virginia
Car(s)
7.5 GTI
Lindsay VW in Dulles. Huge turnover in NOVA and many dealers competing with each other....great prices.
 

Jobema

New member
Location
Denver, CO
Car(s)
GTI Mk7
I've had several good experiences from Lindsay VW and Stohlman VW in the DC area. I've bought a GTI from Stohlman in 2010, a JSW TDI in 2014, and a GSW SE in 2016. All good experiences except that i should've come in to the dealership with my own financing to give myself more leverage with the finance guy and the incentives the dealer offered.

Same here - bought two VWs (2017 GTI and 2019 Jetta) from Stohlman in Tysons - easy Internet sales, quick dealmaking and delivery. Recommend. They are aggressive on pricing and follow through.
 

CaptainRatty

Autocross Champion
Location
Winston-Salem, NC
Car(s)
MK7 GTI
Stohlman made it easy on me... my local dealer wouldn’t come within thousands of the prices that the DC dealers were offering back when I bought in June of 17. Received an OTD price over email with taxes for my state figured out and was outta there in an hour.
 

PLF8593

Drag Race Newbie
Location
Philly
Car(s)
19 Alltrack 6MT
Here's my "Good dealer" story:

Location: Alexandria VW, VA (high volume DC metro dealer)

Purchase:
2019 Alltrack SE 6MT + Appearance Package (LED headlights + Canyon wheels)
MSRP: 34,500
Price with 6 years 0% financing and 6 months deferment: 26,500
-500 partner program
-500 college grad (i graduated 23 months before i bought the car, i was one month away from losing this option)
Net price: 25,500.

In and out in 1 hour. Fastest, easiest, most transparent car purchasing experience I've ever had.

My friend got a Tiguan from the same dealer/salesman a month later for another killer deal.
 

woodardhsd

Ready to race!
Location
NC
Car(s)
2020 GTI S DSG
So I just called King VW in Gaithersburg MD, they have a 2019 Sportwagen 4motion DSG advertised at 21,427, no other rebates qualify. With tax title destination fee, dealer fee, tax/title comes out to about 25k. ?

Just ran into this with them. 2020 GTI S listed at $23,377. Asked for an OTD price for my location in NC. They responded with $27,035, that's nearly $3700 in taxes and fees. I asked for a breakdown of taxes and fees, but they replied with their generic disclaimer which includes "tax, tags, title, D&H and $500 dealer processing fee"
 

CaptainRatty

Autocross Champion
Location
Winston-Salem, NC
Car(s)
MK7 GTI
Just ran into this with them. 2020 GTI S listed at $23,377. Asked for an OTD price for my location in NC. They responded with $27,035, that's nearly $3700 in taxes and fees. I asked for a breakdown of taxes and fees, but they replied with their generic disclaimer which includes "tax, tags, title, D&H and $500 dealer processing fee"
Went through the same thing with King when I bought three and a half years ago.
 

cb1111

Newbie
Location
Virginia, USA
Northern VA dealers (and adopted by DC metro dealers generally) found a loophole where they add the destination twice in their advertising. Here's how NoVA dealers price their cars online:

MSRP (including destination) minus
Destination minus
VW incentives minus
Military rebate minus
Partner rebate minus
graduate rebate minus
anything else they can think of

The fine print typically says "may not qualify for all rebates or incentives. Just add destination, taxes, tags, title and processing fee ($799). Must take dealer financing for incentives"

They even advertised Rs this way and we know that there were zero incentives or rebates on the R. Let look at some numbers for the R (rounded for simplicity):

MSRP 40,000
Destination 995 - 39005
VW incentives 2000 - 37005
Military - 500 - 36505
Partner - 500 - 36005
Graduate - 500 - 35505
Dealer discount - 100 - 35405
Car show - 500 -34905

Low advertised price 34905


Actual price before government mandated fees and any actual rebates you might qualify for is 40,000 - 100 + 799, so 40699

In all cases, you need to add destination and all three rebates to any NoVA/MD/DC advertised prices (so $2500) to get their real advertised price - then subtract any rebates you might get.

Drive a hundred miles or so away from the DC area and they don't play those games.

I can tell you why I think they get away with this crap if anybody is interested, but it is a bit of a conspiracy theory.
 

mk7_bk

Autocross Champion
Northern VA dealers (and adopted by DC metro dealers generally) found a loophole where they add the destination twice in their advertising. Here's how NoVA dealers price their cars online:

MSRP (including destination) minus
Destination minus
VW incentives minus
Military rebate minus
Partner rebate minus
graduate rebate minus
anything else they can think of

The fine print typically says "may not qualify for all rebates or incentives. Just add destination, taxes, tags, title and processing fee ($799). Must take dealer financing for incentives"

They even advertised Rs this way and we know that there were zero incentives or rebates on the R. Let look at some numbers for the R (rounded for simplicity):

MSRP 40,000
Destination 995 - 39005
VW incentives 2000 - 37005
Military - 500 - 36505
Partner - 500 - 36005
Graduate - 500 - 35505
Dealer discount - 100 - 35405
Car show - 500 -34905

Low advertised price 34905


Actual price before government mandated fees and any actual rebates you might qualify for is 40,000 - 100 + 799, so 40699

In all cases, you need to add destination and all three rebates to any NoVA/MD/DC advertised prices (so $2500) to get their real advertised price - then subtract any rebates you might get.

Drive a hundred miles or so away from the DC area and they don't play those games.

I can tell you why I think they get away with this crap if anybody is interested, but it is a bit of a conspiracy theory.
I'm interested in your theory. I know every dealer I have ever gone to said the destination fee is none negotiable
 

cb1111

Newbie
Location
Virginia, USA
I'm interested in your theory. I know every dealer I have ever gone to said the destination fee is none negotiable
Everything is negotiable, but you don't negotiate specific items.

What the dealers will often imply is that the processing fee (not required by law) is not negotiable. They won't remove that because that way they can continue to say "we charge everyone that fee" but you certainly can negotiate it down - but they'll remove that from the cost of the vehicle but leave that line item showing the full amount. VA has no cap, but most charge from 699 to 899 with 799 being most common. MD is capped at 400 and dealers generally charge 399. Accordingly, MD

Do the games that NoVA dealer get away with have anything to with the fact that the U.S. Representative for Virginia's 8th congressional district is Don Beyer - the owner of several dealerships in NoVA? Funny that all these games started in NoVA since he has been in office. It could be a total coincidence.

Part of the game is advertising the MSRP (including destination), then showing the destination as a "discount" and then adding it back in.
 

RuffledJersey

Ready to race!
Location
Northern Delawhere
Car(s)
2019 S DSG
Do the games that NoVA dealer get away with have anything to with the fact that the U.S. Representative for Virginia's 8th congressional district is Don Beyer - the owner of several dealerships in NoVA? Funny that all these games started in NoVA since he has been in office. It could be a total coincidence.

Congressmen have nothing to do with setting/regulating such fees (that’s the Commonwealth’s job) so I’d chalk it up to coincidence. (Having bought a car in NoVA many years ago when Breyer was just a car dealer and not a Congressman, I can attest that weaselly dealer behavior is nothing new.)

Most likely, some dealer tried this, got away with it, and other dealers caught on.
 

slaycity278

New member
Location
Washington DC
Car(s)
VW GTI S
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.
 
Last edited:

slaycity278

New member
Location
Washington DC
Car(s)
VW GTI S
3) Email the dealers that have cars you're interested in. Tell them up front that you're purchasing the car through partner program, you know how much the dealer cash incentive is that month, so that's what you're willing to pay, and also tell them how you plan to pay for it. A smart sales team at the dealer will recognize an opportunity to make a quick sale with guaranteed profit (VW pays them a flat fee on every program sale), without wasting hours of their time. Also tell them that you're communicating with multiple dealers, and you'll buy from whoever gives you the best price.

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"?
 
Top