Buying a used car without killing the Salesman.

[Kommander]

Chris is correct in respect to the vehicle. There is exactly ONE of what I want (Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon, hard top, automatic) currently available in my area. There is also a soft top manual one for 16k. That's it. The cheapest Unlimited currently available is $13.5K. It is a soft top and not a Rubicon but otherwise very similar to that second one in year and mileage. Given the price difference of only 2.5k I am really going to try to get the Rubicon.

EDIT: Ok I lied. I found another 2 more Unlimited Rubicons, one hard top and one soft. The soft is 1k more than that black one and the hard is 2K more.

Edit again: Given the scarcity of these things it may be wise for me to consider a lower mileage non-Rubicon Jeep. Even without the Rubicon package these things are supposed to be quite capable.

[Netpackrat]

Just be sure to get the Dana 44 rear axle, whatever else you get.

Axle Identification Chart

[Dedicated_Dad]

Here's my advice - if any is duplicated, c'est la vie...

Have your own financing arranged before you go - talk to your bank, whatever.

Know what you're willing to pay.

Sell your own "trade" - no point letting them make money on that too.

The key is to make this a no-nonsense transaction for the salesman, but also to "play the game".

If you can borrow a real worn-out but obviously clean and well-maintained beater, so much the better. You want to be the guy who sees a car as transportation (not a status-symbol) and intends to drive the wheels off of it.

Go in and look, let him talk you out of your name and phone number. Then LEAVE. Be careful to show no real enthusiasm, if you can drop the name of his competitor (Well, just so you know, Charley's has one just like it for $2500 less than you're asking but I'm not sure I want to spend my money there... ...) so much the better.

You are just looking, and bored by what you're seeing. They're just machines, the factory makes a thousand of them a day and they're all the same.

Go back later - preferably a couple of days, but that depends on whether you think it will move. The key is to make HIM sweat and think he's got you when you return. Don't worry - this is part of the game.

When you return, walk in, (preferably with check-book and pen in hand - PROPS!) and say this:

"

I'm here to buy THAT. I'm not going to dick around with you - I detest all of this game-crap and am just not going to play. I don't need financing - I'll write you a check, you give me the title and keys - this is a no-BS transaction. I'll give you x$ for it and we'll both be out of here in 20 minutes."

Then STFU. Next one to speak loses.

He'll hem-and-haw, and tell you "I have to talk to my manager." He'll act like you're raping him - he's a professional actor!

*IF* you can get Wifey to go along, and she has the balls, you can REALLY turn the tide here... Have her do this if possible:

Roll your eyes and make the "hairball noise" - if you have or know any teenagers, you know what I mean.

Look him straight in the eye, shake your head in disgust and say:

"I told you I wasn't going to play these stupid games. Apparently you didn't believe me."

Get up and head for the door.

When he chases you - and he will - tell him

"I know how this works - you guys go in the sound-proof office and pantomime while discussing football (or, better yet, if Wifey's doin the talking, 'while discussing my tits') then you come back and tell me how he (the boss) just won't go that low... I told you, I'm not playing. Don't waste my time."

He'll insist he REALLY has to talk to his manager, tell him he's got 2 minutes to come back with a thumbs-up or you are gone, then stick to it no matter what.

We've "ad-libbed" a little argument - she snatched the check-book and said "screw this - we're not playing with this guy..." Then I am "trying to calm her down" - asking her to "be reasonable - just give the guy a couple of minutes!" while giving him the "dude - sorry, she's a BEAST - please don't piss her off" look...

You have to be HARD. If the wife can be the "bad cop" you REALLY win, as he's not only all farked up by the whole thing (you've RUINED his usual game-plan with all this), but on some level he's sympathizing with you because he "knows" you're as "whipped" as he would be...

If he won't play, then LEAVE. When he calls, demand ~10% less because he wasted your time. Don't let them turn the tables on you. If he starts the "sweet-talk" tell him "it's just a car - they make a thousand a day in one plant, and this one's not even new. Don't even try it." Play it off on HER if possible - "Dude - you met her. It's not worth ruining my sex life - it's just a CAR."

Don't forget the power of that check-book! Wave it around, stuff it in your pocket when you get up to leave - it's what he's after, so tease him with it.

They are PROS. They think you want it, they'll do their best to bend you over. Don't forget they deal with (unqualified) people BEGGING to be allowed to BUY the car. You have to IMMEDIATELY turn that around on them or you're screwed. One of you is going home with a sore rear - let (no - MAKE) it be him.

Wifey's a MILF, and we play perfectly together. I come off as the guy who's TRYING to do the "right" thing, she decks 'em with the sucker-punch when she suddenly turns from the sweet MILF into the alpha-bitch with CLAWS. Still, the "wifey" bit was just a refinement of a routine I used solo on every car I bought but one. It's almost as effective alone, only once did I not get what I wanted and even then I ended up with a better deal on something else.

BTW - this same bit will work on "individual" sellers as well - just never forget, whoever they are, they need you worse than you need them.

As others said, you don't NEED this. You can wait to make the best deal - the prices will be going down, not up. I've been getting offers you wouldn't believe - Chevy offered me a brand-new S10 just like mine, except new (mine's got $160k on it) for a net of $2k out-of-pocket. My credit's pretty much impeccable, YMMV, but they are literally giving away the new ones to people they know will pay. If you're there to pay cash for a used car they should be hitting their knees for you.

Don't forget - "want" ain't "NEED"! Keep the upper-hand!

DD

PS: Just to put it in perspective, I bought my 2002 S-10 extended-cab/4.3 VorTec in 2003. It had 11,000 miles on it, I saved $11k off the price of the identical (new) '03 model including a 75k-mile bumper-to-bumper warranty. It was a 30-minute transaction - I wrote a check from my credit-line. As The Boy also learned, your bank will be happy to make you a loan with the car as collateral, especially if you have good credit history with them, and at rates lower than you're likely to get from a dealer. Just arrange your own up-front.

ONE MORE THING: Be prepared to accept their credit offer - they may just beat your bank with things as they are if your FICO score is good enough - this MAY be the one thing you have to "give up" in the bargaining if the salesman gets any kick-back on financing. I did this once, then paid it off immediately with my credit line... Salesman made a few more bucks this way - it made the difference on the deal for him... The key is to have your own arrangements so you can still hold the upper-hand while letting him THINK he's "winning" something... You're just throwing him a bone!

[Dedicated_Dad]

Sorry if I didn't make the "wifey" thing totally clear - at first she's just "window dressing" then when he thinks he's going to start his "routine" she suddenly becomes THE BOSS - She Who MUST Be Obeyed. The sudden "Switch" will put the power back with you, where it belongs, and totally scramble him if you play it right.

It is ALL a mind-game!

My "Preacher" father was previously a used-car salesman. Little Bro sold Cadillacs for 3.5 years between college and law-school. I sold encyclopedias door-to-door among other stuff. This whole bit is a refinement of things I learned from these sources and others. Little Bro especially loved hearing all this - since it didn't happen to HIM! He said he wouldn't know how to react - he'd end up losing on the deal. I've had two salesman admit (later) they didn't make a dime on the cars they sold me...

Like I said - MIND GAME. F them before they F you. You don't NEED this. Don't let your "wants" cost you $$

DD

EDIT: Dang it... More stuff from my experience after re-reading the thread...
Your first visit is the time to feel out the sales-weasels and figure out who you want to deal with. You don't want the rookie - he'll be trying too hard to impress his boss and they won't let you work him as hard as you want to... You also don't want the "manager" as he's the slickest slimeball in the bunch.

If you walk out on the first guy, don't be afraid to say "I'm not dealing with him - I told him not to waste my time" if you go back. The second guy will be much more likely not to try to screw with you - he doesn't want to lose the sale...

[Kommander]

My research indicates that ALL of the Unlimiteds were fitted with Dana 44s but I'll double check just to make sure.

DD: Just one question: Where do I get one of these Wifey things? Is there like a store or something. Perhaps someone could lend me one.

[randy]

One more bit of advice from one of our family's rules in dealing with sales types (all kinds): If the deal they offer is in the "take it or leave it" "now or never" deal, then our automatic answers are "leave it" and "never", and out the door.

[HTRN]

I don't think you're going to have much luck wheedling the dealer the Wranglers have insane resale value, almost to the point of getting near new price for several year old vehicles..

And the dealers know this.

One of my friends for instance, bought one with 70k miles on it.. for 8 grand. And it took him 3 months to find that good a deal.


HTRN

[Denis]

+1 on the tip about being prepared to walk out if they don't cooperate. Be ruthless about it, too.

One of my strangest experiences as a consumer was of going to a car dealership in Brussels one weekend, with two wish-lists for specific models and high-end accessories. I was fully prepared to buy (or order) two new vehicles that particular day. All I wanted was a final test drive of each model, to reassure me and Mrs Denis that we had made the right choice.

The salesman completely missed the point. When I said "we'll buy two cars, but we want to test drive both today", he tried to fob me off with some yarn about the test vehicles being available only from the following week and he'd have to accompany us in the vehicles during the test drive, and no motorway driving would be allowed.

I said "fine, my wife and I and your two lost sales are leaving now". I bought the same cars that evening on the internet from a dealer in Denmark, and saved over two thousand euros per vehicle to boot...

[Dedicated_Dad]

+1 on the tip about being prepared to walk out if they don't cooperate. Be ruthless about it, too.

One of my strangest experiences as a consumer was of going to a car dealership in Brussels one weekend, with two wish-lists for specific models and high-end accessories. I was fully prepared to buy (or order) two new vehicles that particular day. All I wanted was a final test drive of each model, to reassure me and Mrs Denis that we had made the right choice.

The salesman completely missed the point. When I said "we'll buy two cars, but we want to test drive both today", he tried to fob me off with some yarn about the test vehicles being available only from the following week and he'd have to accompany us in the vehicles during the test drive, and no motorway driving would be allowed.

I said "fine, my wife and I and your two lost sales are leaving now". I bought the same cars that evening on the internet from a dealer in Denmark, and saved over two thousand euros per vehicle to boot...

Wow. I've had dealers offer me the car for the weekend. Sometimes I forget we almost live in different worlds...

DD

[Dedicated_Dad]

My research indicates that ALL of the Unlimiteds were fitted with Dana 44s but I'll double check just to make sure.

DD: Just one question: Where do I get one of these Wifey things? Is there like a store or something. Perhaps someone could lend me one.

Heh.

This is about the best I can tell you;;;

I'm currently running the latest version of GirlFriend and I have been having some problems lately. I have been running the same version of DrinkingBuddies 1.0 forever as my primary application, and all the Girlfriend releases I have tried have always conflicted with it. I hear that Drinking Buddies runs fine as long as Girlfriend is ran in background mode and the sound is turned off.

Unfortunately, I can't find the switch to turn the sound off. Therefore, I have to run both of them separately. Girlfriend also seems to have a problem coexisting with my [strike]Golf[/strike] [[strike]guns, music[/strike], just about anything I like] program, often trying to abort Golf with some form of timing incompatibilities.

I probably should have stayed with Girlfriend 1.0, but I thought I might see better performance from GirlFriend 2.0. After months of conflicts and other problems, I consulted a friend who has had experience with Girlfriend 2.0. He said I probably didn't have enough cache to run Girlfriend 2.0 and eventually it would require a Token Ring to run properly. He was right, as soon as I purged my cache, and realized that no one in their right mind is installing new token rings, Girlfriend 2.0 uninstalled itself.

Shortly after that, I installed Girlfriend 3.0 beta. Unfortunately, there was a bug in the program and the first time I used it, it gave me a virus. I had to clean out my whole system and shut down for a while. I very cautiously upgraded to Girlfriend 4.0. This time I used SCSI probe first and also installed a virus protection program. It worked okay for a while until I discovered that GirlFriend 1.0 was still in my system. I tried running Girlfriend 1.0 again with Girlfriend 4.0 still installed, but Girlfriend 4.0 has a feature I didn't know about that automatically senses the presence of any other version of Girlfriend and communicates with it in some way. This results in the immediate removal of both versions.

The version I have now works pretty well, but there are still some problems. Like all versions of GirlFriend, it is written in some obscure language I can't understand, much less reprogram. Frankly, I think there is too much attention paid to the look and feel rather than the desired functionality.

Also, to get the best connections with your hardware, you usually have to use gold-plated contacts and I have never liked how GirlFriend is “object-oriented.”

A year ago a friend of mine upgraded his version of Girlfriend to GirlFriendPlus 1.0, which is a Terminate and Stay Resident version of GirlFriend. He discovered that GirlFriendPlus 1.0 expires within a year if you don't upgrade to Fiance 1.0. So he did, but soon after that, he had to upgrade to Wife 1.0, which he describes as a huge resource hog. It has taken up all his space: He can't load anything else. One of the primary reasons he decided to go with Wife 1.0 was because it supposedly came bundled with a feature called FreeSex Plus.

Well, it turns out the resource requirements of Wife 1.0 [strike]sometimes[/strike] [pretty much always] prohibits access to FreeSexPlus, particularly the new Plug-ins he wanted to try. On top of that, Wife 1.0 must be running on a well warmed-up system before he can do anything. Although he did not ask for it, Wife 1.0 came with MotherInLaw which has an automatic pop-up feature he can't turn off. I told him to trying installing Mistress 1.0, but he said he heard if you try to run it without first uninstalling Wife 1.0, Wife 1.0 will delete MSMoney files before uninstalling itself. Then Mistress 1.0 won't install because of insufficient resources.

P.S. Watch out for the K-I-D-S virus because they have an insatiable appetite for memory and CPU time over and above everything else above.