Buying my second car and what I learned

On January 12 2015 09:18 Kronen wrote:
Not to rain on your parade too much here, but I was expecting some "buying" experience in this blog. Leasing a new car is completely different than the purchasing as the leasee is basically paying for the new-car smell every two years. If having that new car is important to you personally or professionally then it can be worth it, but your paying for the novelty. Also, lease rates are much more volatile and dependent on credit history when compared to auto loan rates. Being in the market for a new(er) car myself soon, I was hoping to hear some give-and-take experience.

On January 12 2015 09:06 EtherealDeath wrote:
9 months ago, I bought a brand new Jaguar F-Type Convertible. That was a terrible decision. Yes, the car is kind of fun, but for a variety of details I won't get into, it's not actually that fun. This blog will be more about car financials and getting a better deal.

My Jaguar deal was pure shit - about $31,500 prepaid and $340 a month

in order to keep in communication with the bank so that they don't feel as though I'm running off with the car.

This is actually terrible for a 2 year lease - essentially half my payment is interest with a $52,000 residual.

I was dumb enough to take it, but you should never take a deal like this. When you're paying that much up front, they should give you a damn good deal and my lease for 24 months

was basically 60% of the value of the car.

Now fast forward to today. I decide I'm getting a 4 door.

So I'm checking out various dealerships before deciding Audi has the best options and deals available due to being a repeat customer (they have nice 2nd time customer benefits).

At first, they offered me $18k on a $37k Audi A3 2.0L.

You might notice the proportion is rather close to that of the F-Type, although it's not as high.

Actually, this offer is insulting. Don't ever take a deal like this. Eventually they went all the way down to walking out with the A3 for under $10k upfront. Yes that's right, they went from an $18k prepaid lease to under $10k.

This is a proportion of 27% of the car's value, which for a car like the A3 is quite reasonable. They had a lot of them and need to move inventory. If this were where the story ended, that would be that. But nope.

I wanted an S4.

Now here we run into a problem - the S4 is in extremely limited supply, and the lease specials on it ran out back in September. After some negotiation, I was offered it at $904 per month

for 36 months after tax with 0 down, just the first and last months upfront. Keep in mind dealerships have competition for you - there's other buyers. So we

introduced a bit of competitions among dealerships. The dealership we went to was not the one we bought the R8 at, so we go over to THAT dealership, and tell them to beat that offer and we'll walk in today. Of course we said the offer was $800/month instead of $904

We end up with $719/month for 36 months with 0 down, which is about an average deal but not bad given the credit history and how many cars are on the account.

So in short, don't jump on the first deal you get. Always walk out of the tank - let the waters swirl and let competing deals jump in. Give dealers an ultimatum - you've got an offer, and if they beat it you're going to go buy now, and if not, then you're taking your business elsewhere. They can tell when you're serious about buying. Don't feel bad about wasting a dealer's time, only to take the deal elsewhere. It's your money. Make them fight for it.

P.S. Fuck the F-Type, the deal was so bad it's better for me to get rid of it now than to finish the lease.

Were you able to test drive it?

For how many months? Also, I thought you said you bought a brand new F-Type Convertible. You leased it instead?

Huh? What does this even mean? The reason why you make monthly payments on a leased car is so that the bank doesn't think you are running away with it? I've never leased a car so I have no idea what you are getting at here.

What does this mean?

Ah, 24 months / 2 yrs
Did you get rid of the Jaguar? Do you still have it?

Were there other cars that you were interested in besides Audi, if you could get a good 'deal'? It seems like you under-emphasized the importance of a good deal on the Jaguar and now you are overcompensating by making the quality of the 'deal' the only major factor in choosing your next car...

To buy? Up front to lease? If so, what is the monthly payment? Do you mean total, when adding up the money down and payments over life of lease?

Also, where is the 'nice 2nd time customer benefit'?

What was the total value of the F Type?

With the same monthly payment?

Why were you getting quotes on an A3 if you wanted an S4 instead? Your last couple of sentences implied you were going to take the A4 if the dealership didn't screw things up... but apparently it's you that screwed things up!?

Jesus you can rent a house for that much in some places :p

Who is 'we'?

Do you recommend lying about offers like this?

Good advice.

Oh, so you do still have it.

So in short, don't jump on the first deal you get. Always walk out of the tank - let the waters swirl and let competing deals jump in. Give dealers an ultimatum - you've got an offer, and if they beat it you're going to go buy now, and if not, then you're taking your business elsewhere. They can tell when you're serious about buying. Don't feel bad about wasting a dealer's time, only to take the deal elsewhere. It's your money. Make them fight for it.

On January 12 2015 09:30 EtherealDeath wrote:


You can do the same for purchasing cars. Just make the dealerships compete and be extremely aggressive about it. They're going to shoot insulting offers at you until you make them bleed for it. Although granted if you're buying a car, first of all I would never buy a new car because that's just financially sily - if you want new just lease it, get a damn good rate and then buy it out later if you really want to, which you probably won't. Under the assumption that you're going for a 2-3 year old car (in order to avoid the really heavy depreciation without being too old), then it really depends on the exact car. You can check online for deals and such to get a better idea of the price.

As for how to get the most competition between dealerships, again this depends on the car. There tends to be much more competitions intra-brand than inter-brand for dealerships, so for example if I show an Audi dealer a deal on an E350, he won't be as much moved on an A6 as if I came to him with a deal from another Audi dealer on the same type of A6. The thing that dealers will always want to do is to get you to sign and drive off with the car, because once you do that you have no recourse.

There's another little trick you can do to make sure they give you the best damn deal possible. Dealerships tend to be open after banks close. Go there before the banks close, get approved on a car that is 10k+ below the price of the car you want, and then after banks are closed, change the car you want. Tell them you want to walk out with it today, that they HAVE to get you the deal because you want it now - not tomorrow, NOW, and that you are ready to pay - but only if they hit certain price targets. Again, do your research on what that price target probably should be, although they'll probably give you 150% to 200% of the real rate to begin with.

Thing is, after you've made them bleed to the max and give you a "crazy" deal, you're not done. Oh no the banks are now closed and they can't approve your new deal, because your price is now outside of the price range they approved. So the dealership will have to call you in the morning to try to clear it.

Now that you've got a "crazy" deal, go to another dealer first thing in the morning and bring them that offer. Do your research overnight to find a dealer who is likely to beat the deal. Then, once you're there, chances are they will beat that offer because the "crazy" deal you think you got last night is not actually a crazy deal. Then you can tell the original dealership that unfortunately you chose to buy another car once they call .

On January 12 2015 16:12 omisa wrote:


Hey man, I sell cars for a living. I just want to say you are most definitely not making the dealer 'bleed'. They are making money on your deal front and back. They are a business and are there to make money, simple. There is nothing wrong with negotiating a price with them but dont think you brought them to their knees.

Also, I dont believe your 'trick' really saved you that much money. How much is your time worth? Was it worth spending the better part of a week to save a few hundred maybe a thousand bucks? Sounds like stepping over dollars to pick up dimes. There really isnt as much of a mark up on dealer cars as you may think there is. And besides you are buying/leasing a new vehicle, it is going to be a loss for you no matter what way you look at it. Not to mention the shot gun to your credit. You want to know what is financially silly? Paying money to spend money you dont have.

On January 12 2015 12:29 EtherealDeath wrote:
Edit - leasing is basically infinite buying since you can just trade the car in and upgrade. Depending on how long you intend to keep your car, leasing can be quite logical in certain areas.

On January 12 2015 18:03 red.venom wrote:


Its not infinite buying. At no point do you gain equity in the car unless you are leasing something and paying for more miles than you are using. Its infinitely renting. You are retarded. Why would you blog this? No one irl wants to hear about your stupid over obsession with getting a few hundred bucks off a new luxury car. lmfao

On January 12 2015 21:41 Salazarz wrote:
What I was always curious about is why do people who claim they think about 'saving' money or 'getting a deal' actually buy new cars in the first place. Why didn't you just buy a 2-3 year old car instead?

On January 12 2015 22:16 Lonyo wrote:

Or older.
I saved £22,000 by buying a used car instead of a new car! Rather than £25k for a new car I paid only £3k for a used one. I have great negotiating skills.

On January 12 2015 23:53 Pandemona wrote:push into the italian market with a Masareti or Porsche

On January 13 2015 01:14 Pandemona wrote:
Sorry Porsche just a miss typing