Ordering a Vehicle

[Audiosaur]

Has anyone ordered a vehicle from a dealership before? I'm thinking about it for my next purchase so I can get exactly what I want. My question has to do with how one negotiates price for an ordered vehicle.

Were I to purchase from a dealer's standing inventory, I'd request out the door price from number of local dealers and avoid the face-to-face negotiation. Can I do that when ordering?

 

[TLS Guy]

Has anyone ordered a vehicle from a dealership before? I'm thinking about it for my next purchase so I can get exactly what I want. My question has to do with how one negotiates price for an ordered vehicle.

Were I to purchase from a dealer's standing inventory, I'd request out the door price from number of local dealers and avoid the face-to-face negotiation. Can I do that when ordering?

You can, but not so easily or effectively. But your leverage is to let the dealer know any profit they make will not be eaten up with the car sitting on their lot.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Are you planning to buy new, used, or lease?
I could offer some tips on the latter, but for the other two I have no particular strategies. I hate most car dealers.
Definitely DO NOT BUY from CarMax or Carvana. (it's ok to sell your old car to them, though).
My colleague had a good experience buying a car using the Costco Auto program, but ymmv

 

[Alex2507]

 

[j_garcia]

Had to order my 2001 BMW because they had no manuals in the state.... it had to be shipped from Germany. Took 2 months. That car ended up having issues that the US cars apparently didn't have.

My mom recently put in a "custom" request for a specific set of features for a 2025 Rav4 and they contacted her right away to say they had one in our area with that exact feature set. She was able to get it within a few days.

 

[adk highlander]

I custom ordered one of my WRX's. This was during the stupid period when used cars were worth as much as new in some cases. I waited 6 months, drove my existing car and my payments went down 50 bucks a month. Will never happen again but once was nice.