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.

 

[lovinthehd]

Did that a long time ago with an MB ML320 when they were new. My sister in law worked at the dealership and my discount was being able to buy the one I wanted without further markup (they were selling really well). So I'd say partially it will depend on how popular the vehicle might be at the time.....

 

[Audiosaur]

Thanks for your thoughts all. My purchase isn't imminent, so I have some time. Not sure exactly what I want still. Only that it will be an SUV that can tow 5K lbs

 

[jinjuku]

Purchased a used CPO EV (Nissan Ariya) two weeks before the insanity kicked off with Iran.

A few things:
1. I drove the Chevy and Hyundai competition.
2. I reached out to reddit on longer term experiences for all models I was curious about
3. I let any dealerships know what I was cross shopping
4. I always asked for the pricing sheet
5. I let dealers know I was about the OTD price. Period.
6. I let dealers know if the deal was good enough with finance I would (and then pay that off in full on the back side).
7. When I decided I like the ride quality and cabin of the Nissan better then the others I figured out the trim I wanted and started shopping those. Let dealers know I was looking at several that were comparable and now it was just onto price.
8. I let them call me back.
9. I refused any add-ons. If they try and put something on the deal and there is tax on that line item, it gets red-lined pure and simple.

Ended up with an 18month old, dealer service vehicle, 12K miles, AWD, the larger battery back, for $22K (negotiated $750 off) plus tax and title.

I didn't have to have 'custom'. I think going with an already packaged, widely available product helps you get your best price.

 

[Nondemo01]

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?

I've done both and can tell you your negotiating power is severely limited with ordering. As TLS Guy said, the negotiating power of buying from the lot is much better, and if done near the end of the month, can result in large discounts. Car dealerships buy cars on loans like everyone else and don't want to make next month's payments if they don't have to. Ordering is pretty near MSRP as it's "sold" before they have to do anything with it like advertising. REALLY consider your "have to have" that would require ordering. Life's full of compromises and paying more for a commodity might not be worth the price just so it's in your favorite color. (P.S., I just went through this with a loved one over color. I told them from the inside, they can pretend it's ruby red.)