We get a new vehicle - The Conclusion!

Right after we finished up at Ford dealership #1 I called Ford dealership #2.  I told them I was looking for an F-150 FX4 and noticed they had a few in their online inventory.  I could also see they had an Ecoboost model available with a sunroof.  They had one shortbox model but when I asked about it they told me it was sold.

I told the guy outright that we would be buying something shortly so he should give me his best price, I wouldn't be haggling back and forth and already had a good deal in place from Ford dealership #1.  He asked me what price they quoted me and I gave him a figure very close to that, he said he would get back to me shortly and was confident he could do better.  Sure enough an hour or so later an email showed up and he beat the other price by exactly $1,000.  The model he quoted us on was white with a sunroof and Ecoboost but no naviation or tailgate step which the other one had.  This one was around $1,000 more than the one from dealership #1 but it has the better engine choice, sunroof and the color my better half liked the best.

Everything was looking up, we had a better price on a better vehicle, now all we had left was the dreaded trade in.  The salesperson had the used car manager take a look at the Mazda.... meanwhile he espoused the virtues of maintenance plans and rim warranties.... all of which we politely declined.... even after he explained how they were selling it at cost! I made a point of asking how much an oil change was and when they were required at the service desk beforehand.  I figured we would pay $240 for four oil changes while the maintenance package was $495 for two years, so I'm not sure how they calculate cost.

About ten minutes later the salesguy came back, I could tell he was going to deliver bad news..... but it was worse than I thought.  They were offering $5,500 for the Mazda.  Now lets put this in perspective, if you go to Canadian Black Book it gives you an estimated trade value ranging from 10,500 to 12,000.  There was about $1,000 worth of damage on the vehicle so we were expecting something around $9,000 to $10,000.  Ford dealership #1 had offered $8,600, which was co-incidentally just enough to pay off the vehicle.  I was not happy.

At this point my face must have turned an angry shade or purple, salesguy knew he had lost me.  There was a minute of uncomfortable silence.... then he said something like, where does that leave us.  I told him that leaves us buying the F-150 at dealership #1 and there was no way I was buying their truck with such a ridiculous trade offer.  He apologised for the offer and told us he could get us a better deal if he called around to some wholesalers in town.  In retrospect I think this was all a sales ploy on their part.  Before the lowball offer I wouldn't tell him what dealership #1 had offered but I was only too happy to share (with some minor exaggeration) once I was enraged.   He could blame the evil used car manager and make it seem much better if he came back with a better offer.

In any event we left the dealership telling the salesguy to call us if he could significantly improve the trade offer.  And what do you know...... one hour or so later my phone rang, and guess what his new trade offer was.... $9,000.  The same amount I told him dealership #1 had offered.  Since I had been put in such a foul mood I told him we would think about it but to see if he could do any better.  An hour later my phone rang again, he was offering $9,500.... a full $4,000 more than the original offer.   We thought this was fair all things considered.  Then he asked me for a down payment of $500 to hold the vehicle, I told him I wasn't interested because you never know what might happen and I just don't trust car salespeople in general.  He said it was their policy, again I told him he wasn't getting it.  He said he would go talk to the manager.  Then he called back and said if we came in early the next day it wouldn't be required, I told him that would be fine.

The next day we went in signed all the required paperwork, declined all extras (I warned them up front not to try to sell us any of it) and drove away in our beautiful new F-150 FX4 with luxury package and moonroof for right around $400 bi-weekly.  The MSRP on this baby was over $60k with tax so we got a LOT of truck for the money.  The finance person was very nice, even sharing stories of also declining extras on his wife's new car (which was a Kia he said, I found it ironic).

Next post will detail the new ride and all of its features.

We get a new vehicle Part 4 - Ford F-150

We were never really Ford people, I once had a Focus which was a fine little car but nothing special.  My better half liked the look of the F150 FX4 however so I figured I would check them out.  If you go to the website and spec one out with a luxury package which adds several nice things such as heated and cooled seats it comes out somewhere close to $55,000 plus tax before rebates.

Luckily they were offering $9,250 in rebates at 3.49% financing over five years.  All in this vehicle was about $1,000 per month... a bit out of our price range.  But the good thing about dealing with Ford is that they always offer additional discounts due at least in part due to the fact that there are two dealerships within one KM of each other on the same street.  You can easily play one off against the other.

So I headed off to dealership #1, from the online inventory I could see they had a nice black FX4 in stock with the luxury package but no sunroof.  Also, it had the 5L engine instead of the 3.5 L Ecoboost which is supposed to be better on gas and has a higher towing capacity, I was hoping for the Ecoboost.  I told the salesguy we wanted their absolutely best price because we would be buying something within the week.  I think the sooner you tell them you are buying something the better offer you get, at least at some dealerships, others won't budge.  Around town many dealerships have the advantage of a monopoly so getting any kind of deal at say Subaru or BMW is hopeless.

The MSRP on the vehicle was in the $55,000 range, he came back with an extra $4,784 off the vehicle over and above the $9,250 in discounts already being offered plus we were eligible for a $1,000 Costco discount bringing it down to $45,000 on the road, as they like to say, after tax.  All in all we were now very interested in this vehicle, and the salesperson was very nice which always helps.

So we told him we were interested but would be checking at the other dealership down the street to make sure they didn't have a better offer on the same vehicle.  He assured us they would not beat the price and asked us not to let them know what price we were getting to see if they would match it without knowing.  Of course I would be letting the other guys know exactly what the offer was from dealership #1 in hopes they would be very anxious to beat it.

In the next post comes the conclusion.....

Ford Employee Pricing

For the month of August Ford has their employee pricing event on which is supposed to be the best deals of the year. I decided to do some research to see how good the savings are right now with my test vehicle being the Ford F-150 because it looked like this is where the big savings were to be found.  If you are not familiar with ford, their pricing schemes are easily the most complex in existence.  They often switch between low rates with low discounts and high rates with big discounts, even from month to month you can see dramatic changes in their discounting methods.  I am guessing they are trying to hit a larger audience, since older buyers probably like the discounts but younger buyers like the low rates, so they try and hit both markets by switching back and forth.

That's just the start of it, lets say for instance you like the F-150 XLT.  You get 4 engine choices, 4 box length choices and 11 axel ratios..... all those are not exclusive since one type often goes with another but it is a LOT of options.  Each configuration has a different discount applied so considering they have 9 different models to apply a multitude of configurations it's safe to say there are probably over 100 different pricing models for the F-150.

I didn't have a week to put this together so I figured I would stick to base configurations of each model to look at the discounting.  The details on savings are below but suffice to say there are some really good deals on the F-150 right now.  The XLT and FX2 seem like really good deals and the rates are not bad now either with 3.49% for five years and 4.49% for seven years.  The other striking thing from looking at the F-150 is the wide margin of prices!  You can go from under $20 k to just over $50 k.

I'd say if you are in the market for a new pick-up the F-150 is a great deal!



Here is a summary:

MODEL	PRICE	DISCOUNT	NET	% OFF
XL	19,999	1,985	18,014	10%
STX	27,299	7,688	19,611	28%
XLT	30,199	8,913	21,286	30%
FX2	39,899	11,771	28,128	30%
FX4	45,799	12,597	33,202	28%
Lariat	45,299	12,527	32,772	28%
King Ranch	60,499	14,655	45,844	24%
Platinum	61,099	14,739	46,360	24%
Limited	64,799	14,757	50,042	23%