We’ve submitted our counter-offer of $23,000 “out-the-door” and as we’re waiting for the saleperson to return with the answer, I start typing out a message on the iOS Notes app to show Ben and Jessica:
And indeed it hadn’t been mentioned at all by any of the sales personnel that we’d dealt with up that point.
On the one hand, it’s a welcome change that we weren’t pestered about the trade-in portion of the deal because as we learned about the dreaded FOUR SQUARE, the trade-in is one of the levers that will be used against you to manipulate you to the monthly payment they want to extract from you.
So even if they’d asked about it, our rules of engagement was that the trade-in doesn’t exist until we agreed a price to purchase a car.
It doesn’t take long for our sales person to come back with a big smile and a “you drive a very hard bargain!”
Heh heh heh! *THAT* story is only just yet getting started… 😉
This is when I tilt the phone at Ben and Jessica so they can see the message I’ve written in Notes.
They looked rather surprised as well given how much I’d made a point of not talking about it at all.
Now, we had talked amongst ourselves briefly about what she wanted to do with her 2007 Kia if we got to an actual deal on the table.
We were already dealing with a vehicle that was probably worth more being parted out at the junk yard or maybe a work van for some contractor to schlep his tools round (I know one who does just that with a Toyota Sienna!) but that a private sale probably wouldn’t net much more than what we could expect the dealer to offer which wasn’t going to be much for a vehicle guaranteed to be sent to the car equivalent of the glue factory known as THE AUCTION.
That was rather the point of getting the “Adjusted Price” over the borders of Happy Town so that anything that the dealer offered was just gravy on what was already a good deal.
So in the midst of our salesperson’s celebration was when I asked when we were going to talk about the trade-in.
The poor guy looked like I shot his puppy in the face with a bazooka and starts stammering out some word salad that included phrases like “the deal doesn’t include a trade-in” (not yet!) and “I don’t know if the manager will agree to that” (if he wants the deal on the table, he will!) and “no one told us about a trade-in” (absolutely true but on the other hand, none of you guys ever bothered to ask and we sure as hell weren’t of a mind to volunteer extra money to come *YOUR* way!).
As he’s heading back to the fish bowl to be our attorney and sell his manager on more bad news from his clients on a deal already judged to be a hard bargain (LOL!), I gently reminded him of this rather important tip:
TIP: any trade-in does not exist until the deal to purchase a new vehicle is agreed! Never give the dealer another weapon to use against you or let go of your keys before this point so they can’t hold you hostage! The trade-in is *ALWAYS* a separate deal from the purchase of the new car. *ALWAYS*!
It doesn’t take long for him to come back and he wasted no time admitting what we already knew that the Kia would never see the used vehicle lot or be a member of the inventory and they offered $300 for it.
Frankly, driving it back to Fayetteville and going through the hassle of a private sale and the DMV paperwork is more than worth letting them think they’ve “won” that part of the negotiation. I’m a notary public here in North Carolina and they warned us in the class to never touch a DMV title or paperwork…they’re so anal about how it has to be that it’s better to just leave it to them for their extra $1 fee!
Could I have pushed a little more? I certainly considered it.
But on a vehicle with known major undercarriage issues, it just wasn’t worth the fuss and basically the van will get Jessica six oil changes at the dealership at the end of the day.
By my reckoning, the effective “Adjusted Price” including the trade-in allowance is in the neighbourhood of $21,190.56 or $309.44 on our side of the municipal limits of Happy Town! 🙂
Now, I’m sure you’re exhausted at this point and I’d forgive you for thinking it’s job done at this point.
This is just Act I of our play…the much more dangerous Act II is now upon us with the move from the sales cubicle to the finance office to fight our battle with THE MENU!