Anyone Use CarBargains.com Price Negotiation Service?
The car buying strategy that I hear recommended most often is to
- decide on which car you want, down to all the options
- e-mail (or previously fax) the fleet managers of 3-5 local dealers, and ask for their best deal
- pit each of them against each other until you have the “best” best deal
- go in, sign paperwork, drive away happy
Sounds easy, but in practice seems like it might be tedious and time-consuming, not to mention uncomfortable for those that don’t like to haggle. However, I keep hearing mentions of CarBargains, run by a non-profit, will do all the negotiating for you if you pay them $200 ($175 if you are a subscriber to Consumer CHECKBOOK magazine).
Seems like it might just be worth it, but I haven’t heard any in-depth testimonials that aren’t on their site. Their press section includes several positive reviews from such magazines as Money and Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. They also offer a money-back guarantee if you can beat their price “without using their information”, although that would be hard to prove…
Has a reader out there actually used CarBargains recently? If you’d be willing to share your experience in detail, please contact me directly. I’d like to write a post with detailed price quotes and model information. If you participate and agree to having me interview you, I have some ideas for compensation. 
Find more in Frugal Living | 4/22/10, 2:29am | Trackback
April 22nd, 2010 at 9:30 am
I bought my car using the strategy mentioned in your post. It works. Even after taxes and off-the-lot depreciation, my car was worth more than I paid for it. I got a great deal.
I am a person who hates haggling. For whatever reason (maybe because most of it was via email), the process was not terrible. It also wasn’t particularly tedious or time-consuming. I would feel a little cheated if I paid someone $200 to do the little bit of work it actually involved. Don’t get me wrong, I am happy to pay people to do work, but I think the price point is a little bit high for what is actually involved.
A flat $200 fee doesn’t provide them with an incentive to give you the best deal possible. It only provides them with the incentive to do a “good enough” job. I would much rather they base their fee on a (small) percentage of how much they save you versus (say) MSRP.
April 22nd, 2010 at 9:37 am
so they are essentially saying they can either (a) save me $200 worth of my time, or (b) $200 worth of cash. i am curious what their client base looks like. is it people who have no time to car shop and want to save the time, people who are afraid to haggle, or people who are frugal…. i cant imagine the frugal spending $200 on this.
April 22nd, 2010 at 11:44 am
The fax-a-thon method is specifically for people who are uncomfortable negotiating. The technique is very simple:
1. Fax a complete description of the car you want to the 5-10 closest dealers.
2. Take your best response and write on it, “Can You Beat This??” in big letters and fax it to your top few dealerships.
3. Go to best dealership and purchase automobile.
Not sure how carbargains improves on this strategy.
April 22nd, 2010 at 11:46 am
‘Sounds easy, but in practice seems like it might be tedious and time-consuming, not to mention uncomfortable for those that don’t like to haggle’. Actually, not really tedious at all compared to, say, going to multiple dealers and trying to swing a bargain. It’s really quite simple as long as you know what options you want in your vehicle (and most auto companies now have fairly detailed brochures available online).
I did this on a purchase i made in August, and i believe i saved a couple thousand $$ compared to the best deal i was offered as a walk-in. All you need is a template that you modify slightly to the 5 or so different dealers. Definitely research what to say and what not to say before sending the letter, but then all you do is check your email. The only drawback is that some dealerships are just arcane when it comes to email and believe the email is just a way to schedule a phone or walk-in appointment.
I was able to lock in a great price in August, before offering up my old truck for the $4,500 rebate. All in all, we drove off paying less after tax than than the best deal i was offered as a walk-in customer, pre-tax.
I couldn’t see paying the $200 when there’s just no guarantee you would get the best deal with them.
April 22nd, 2010 at 11:49 am
The reason this works is because fleet managers have a different motive, they’re focused on moving vehicles and they’re not tied to profit on sale of each individual vehicle like the general car salesmen are. And i don’t think they like to haggle over prices either, so either you take the price they give you ore go to the other dealer, it’s no skin off their back.
April 22nd, 2010 at 11:51 am
@Roberto – I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s exactly the strategy Carbargains uses – the fax-a-thon.
April 22nd, 2010 at 1:13 pm
just bought a car recently. My advice:
1. go to a dealer and see what they offer u for xyz.
2. Next use (cant recall if its edmunds, cars.com) that lets you email several dealers close by for the exact car u want.
3. Wait back and relax
4. offers pour in
I even said dealer x is offering xyz (-$100 from what they told me) + 3 oil changes (not true) and got some to match it.
April 22nd, 2010 at 3:37 pm
I use this method for myself and family members for the last 4 car purchase similar to what has been posted.
1. Decide what car you want, model, color, options. Have a second color in mind.
2. Find out invoice price online, rebates, Edmund, TrueCost.
3. Go to Cars Direct.com and email several local dealers and request to respond through email. Dealer that gives the best price, I go down to pay a visit.
4. Arrive at dealership, test drive car, sit down and negotiate price a little more, I like to buy below invoice. It’s not often I purchase a vehicle so I don’t mind doing a little work.
April 22nd, 2010 at 6:30 pm
For our past three cars, we used the Excel spreadsheet at http://www.carbuyingtips.com to calculate the bid. It’s especially good if you have a laptop, as you can bring it to the dealership and update the numbers as the “boss” returns ‘em.
April 22nd, 2010 at 6:51 pm
i bought a new car and i went to one honda dealer but after seeing he wouldn’t budge below 17,500, i walked out. i decided to not go to a dealearship till i had a quote. I called around and while some wouldn’t budge, i managed to negotiate deals over the phone. One guy called and i said I’m sorry, i just accepted an offer by a different company. He said how much are they offering, i said 16,700, he said if i knock $200 off will you come, i said yes. And i did. i got the car for about 800 below invoice. MSRP was 19.xxx so that was a great deal. Will i pay someone to do that little piece of work for me? if a young female right out of college can do it, i think most ppl can do better. i think $200 is excessive. Heck, it’s 65 more than the registration and licensing fee the dealer charges. I’m not a very frugal person and i’ll pass on this.
April 22nd, 2010 at 8:33 pm
I’m not sure why you think the process you outline is tedious. The whole process probably takes under an hour. Plus it is very enjoyable when you pit the best dealers against each other.
I followed this method to purchase my car. Here is the exact quote I received from the second lowest priced dealer:
“Some people will do anything to get a better deal. Some Honda dealers will say or do anything to sell a car. Either way there is no reason for us to beat or even match this bogus price quote. I can assure you that you will pay more than the quoted $18,100. This is what they do . . . all the time. As Michelle told you earlier, we have much more to offer than price. We don’t need to loose money to sell our product. If you are unable to appreciate this and price is all that matters to you, I am just not interested in your business.”
I was able to purchase the car at that price with no problems from the lowest priced dealer.
April 23rd, 2010 at 12:10 am
Jeff – I love it. Out of curiosity, can you remember exactly what “Michelle” told you was the “much more to offer” than the best price?
Tim
April 23rd, 2010 at 5:44 am
Here is the exact email that Michelle sent to me:
“We have been able to stay in business for over forty years and still manage to sell new Honda cars in spite of these guys, because we have much more to offer than price. My husband (the Internet Sales Manager) has been with us for over a decade and he is empowered to do what needs to be done in order to take care of our customers. Your salesperson at this dealership can do nothing for you beyond the sale, and won’t be employed there when you need help. Thus, they only care about selling a new car now and will do or say anything to get you to come in . . . to include outright lie to you.
We sell the car at the price we quoted without gimmicks and games, and offer our customers a long term relationship rather than a one time sale. This is worth paying a bit more for.”
I didn’t want a long term relationship from a car salesman. I wanted the lowest price.
April 23rd, 2010 at 6:56 am
Jeff,
I just bought a car last weekend with the same tactics. Same thing happened to me. I also got the car I wanted with the lowest dealer.
April 23rd, 2010 at 9:39 pm
i don’t know about checkbook per se, but everytime i hear “nonprofit” my antennae goes up. I mean, a nonprofit doesn’t mean the guy running it can’t take a huge salary and/or bonus. yeah it’s non-profit in theory, but in reality it’s profit
April 25th, 2010 at 7:13 am
Thank you for this post. I’m buying a car this summer & your post will help me.
April 25th, 2010 at 8:08 pm
eh, wasn’t that bad, emailing 5 dealerships and getting them to bid each other down. took about 5 days for me to have 2 offers at invoice and 2 more just a hair above. patience is a good thing. definitely beats talking to any of them in person.
and, actually, my salesperson told me that with specialized internet departments at dealerships, they know there are people like me (us) who know exactly what they should be paying for to get a car. they realize there’s no way around it.
June 3rd, 2010 at 6:20 pm
Ok all – there are a lot of people on here that will do the car negotiation for themselves.
I did a BUNCH of work and ended up with $17,000 for a $21,450 2010 Jeep Patriot Sport with some options. (Package 24E to be exact.)
That’s only 79% of sticker or almost a 21% savings from MSRP.
I’d like to ask – anybody who did a ‘fax-a-thon’ or otherwise email/internet negotiated – did you get a price close to that (discount wise)?
I may be wrong – but I would be willing to say that you didn’t get a price as heavily discounted. There is a reason for this – and the main reason would be the extra legwork involved to ultimately get a price so low is beyond most peoples’ tolerances.
So a car negotiation service where you pay $200 or even $500 might not be so bad when you consider you’re probably going to get a price that $1,500 lower than even what you negotiated on your own. So net – you’d still be ahead $1,000 and you did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to get it done. (Other than research and fall in love with the car.)
Post your response – I’m very curious to get your feedback on my comments.