What car should I get?

[Mike]

more often than not, they make the right read.

<--- sold cars for a very short period of time.

[Evan]

A guy I met at summit who drove an AMG SL65 was ~26, wearing jeans, old sneakers, and a worn sweatshirt.

salesmen are idiots

try setting up a test drive over the phone (or email if they actually read it) before coming in. saves you a lot of time and hassle

[Mike]

internet sales/e-mail with a dealership is a joke. argh!

[CaptainHenreh]

This is what I have come up with...


Not a target for thieves (this is important to appease worry, when I leave the car)
Good fuel economy
Handles well
Power windows, locks, steering
AC not required but a plus
Sedan or coupe but prefer hatch
Low curb weight
Autocross or track capable
Manual transmission
Cheap to maintain
Large aftermarket
Pleasing to the eye
Decent torque
Can go in parking garage
Prefer RWD or AWD, but FWD is fine
Comfortable on a 2 hr+ trip
Make the ride semi pleasing for passengers

And it has to run on water and the only emissions be kittens and sunshine.

[Evan]

internet sales/e-mail with a dealership is a joke. argh!

want to bet?

I did all contact and negotiations for my car over email. $250 over invoice (about $1000 cheaper than everywhere else at the time) with all options at invoice.
No slimy salesman manipulations, shady deals or financing scams or even pushy sales.
Ordered a car from the factory, with only exactly the options that I wanted, even when there were several cars on the lot.

best possible car buying experience.

[JohnC]

internet sales/e-mail with a dealership is a joke. argh!

want to bet?

I did all contact and negotiations for my car over email. $250 over invoice (about $1000 cheaper than everywhere else at the time) with all options at invoice.
No slimy salesman manipulations, shady deals or financing scams or even pushy sales.
Ordered a car from the factory, with only exactly the options that I wanted, even when there were several cars on the lot.

best possible car buying experience.

Second on that. That being said, I doubt I'll ever buy another new car...

[Mike]

internet sales/e-mail with a dealership is a joke. argh!

want to bet?

I did all contact and negotiations for my car over email. $250 over invoice (about $1000 cheaper than everywhere else at the time) with all options at invoice.
No slimy salesman manipulations, shady deals or financing scams or even pushy sales.
Ordered a car from the factory, with only exactly the options that I wanted, even when there were several cars on the lot.

best possible car buying experience.

every stealership i've dealt with on the internet takes a week to reply, won't dicuss anything serious, and just plain don't get anything done. all they ever want me to do is come in to meet with them.

perhaps subaru is doing a better job than other makers?

[G.Irish]

It's just like a lot of business segments and the Internet, some of them get it, a lot of them don't. Car sales is a rather old business made up of a lot of people with a mindset that hasn't changed for decades. Internet sales have just come on the scene and the two major things that keeps dealerships from being successful is:

1. They treat internet customers the same as walk ins
or
2. They don't take internet customers seriously.

The dealerships that get it will eat up those that don't.

For an idea of how behind car dealerships are, take a look at their inventory management computer systems some time. A lot of them look like terminal applications (i.e. old command line stuff) and those that do run on Windows still are somewhat bass ackwards compared to what software today can do. But because dealerships don't know any better they don't ask for any better.

[PDenbigh]

But because dealerships don't know any better they don't ask for any better.

Word! We support Steven Toyota/Kia's systems, and it took us a while to "prove" to them that they needed help. Now that we are "in da house", they don't know how they got along w/o us. We just set them up with a new mail server becasue they want each sales person to have their own email address. We were pretty proud of them for that move :-).

[PDenbigh]

every stealership i've dealt with on the internet takes a week to reply, won't dicuss anything serious, and just plain don't get anything done.

Oh, that's cause you're a jerk ;-)

j/k

[G.Irish]

every stealership i've dealt with on the internet takes a week to reply, won't dicuss anything serious, and just plain don't get anything done.

Oh, that's cause you're a jerk ;-)

j/k

Yeah Mike is on the 'bad customers' list.

[Feersty]

Does carmax let you test drive cars with no "strings" attached?

[Maengelito]

Does carmax let you test drive cars with no "strings" attached?

no, you have to test drive the car with a 2 mile long tether attached to the back.

[Evan]

dammit you beat me to it :-p

[Mike]

Does carmax let you test drive cars with no "strings" attached?

within reason, yes, but then again every other dealership does too.