From: CPB004@email.comm.mot.com (Philip Bush)
Subject: Dealing with Dealers - Buying our SHO (long)
Organization: Motorola, Inc.
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 00:44:49 GMT
Followup-To: rec.autos

>I have been reading this news group for about 2-3 months now
>and I have yet to see someone detail their experience with dealers
>WHat I am looking for would be a narrative 'story' from first dealer
>visited to final purchase.  How did you decide on the price you wanted, 
>and more importantly what did you do to get it.
>
>
>If you walk in to a dealer and say " $250 over invoice" they may or 
>may not go for it
> 


We bought an SHO in June of 1991.  Here is the untold story...

I'd been driving my wife's college car, a trashed 1970 Mustang with no heat
and leaky windows, which makes for an interesting drive during those
Chicago winters (like freezing your feet off in a 10 minute drive).  I had
been slightly interested in SHOs since 1989 when I saw one at a dealer in
Detroit.  Our price range, however, was about 15K, which was why I was only
slightly interested.  Sticker prices at the time were 24-26K.

Then I saw one advertized for $16,800 at Dealer A.  Worth a look.  So we
drove it, but I didn't like it.  The shifter was quite notchy, and the low
end torque was poor (it gets better after it warms up, but I didn't know
that then).  And we hated the leather seats, especially in black on black. 
So we said nada.  This was in early June, 1991.

A few weeks later, I saw four advertized for $15,175 at Dealer B.  This was
the totally low end version: no moonroof, no leather, no CD, no 140 watt
stereo.  Sticker was $24,000+.  Now this was interesting because the Blue
Book said the 1990 SHO was worth $15,100.  We went there the next day
(Saturday) and they, of course, had sold them all before we got there. 
There was no hint at all of bait and switch, but the salesman gave us the
creeps.  They did have some others with extra options for slightly more. 
We didn't drive one, though we did see the last advertized one they had
being written up for sale.

Another dealership (Dealer C) had an ad that listed 10 or 15 SHOs, so we
went to see theirs.  We picked one with the same options as the Dealer B
one, and it drove better than the Dealer A one  (Ford had changed to the
rod shifter starting with June 1 production, but we didn't know it at the
time).  We decided to see what we could do on price.  We knew there was a
factory-to-consumer rebate of $1600.  We also thought there was a
factory-to-dealer deal also, but we didn't know how much.

The salesman was very straight-forward and honest.  He told us there was a
factory-to-dealer incentive.  He was shocked at our offer of $14,000 (well,
considering the other guys ad was $15,000, $14,000 didn't seem like totally
out of line.)  We were willing to deal, but he had gotten it in his head
that we were not serious because of our lowball offer, so at closing time
on a Saturday, we left about $500 away from their offer of $16,000.

We let him sit for a few days and looked at other dealerships on Sunday
(all dealerships here are closed Sunday by law) to see what they had.  Only
one (Dealer D) had anything close, a red one without leather seats but with
a sunroof (It turned out later that this was the only car we found with
this very desirable combination of options.  The sunroof looked very nice,
and I would have loved to have one.).  We went back to Dealer C on Tuesday,
and the sales guy was almost sick when he saw us, because another salesman
had sold the SHO we liked on Monday.  He really had not thought we were
serious.  He had misread the situation, and knew it.  I would buy a car
from him, though, because he was one of two salesman we talked to that
never lied to us.

Up until then we had not zeroed in on exactly what we wanted, but now had
some concrete ideas.  We liked the electric red or mocha frost without
leather seats (too hot).  White is ugly, black is too hot and forest green
was too weird on a SHO.  The interior had to be a light color, like the
mocha frost.  Every single car we saw had at least the 211A option package.
 The 212A option package seemed overpriced considering that for about $2000
the only additions over the 211A options package were the amplifier and the
sunroof.  A sunroof would have been nice, but not for $1500.  So our target
car was the red or mocha, with a light-colored interior, without leather
seats and with the 211A option package.

That Tuesday night after Dealer C, we went to Dealer D, where we had seen
the red one with the sunroof.  We found a salesman and asked him about the
car.  He said it had been sold to a dealer in Wisconsin, but we could talk
to him about our price range (we considered this odd to start on price
without a car to drive, but we gave him a chance).  He offered us the
standard opening bid of list minus the $1600 factory incentive minus the
$500 off for the option package.  We asked about the factory-to-dealer
incentive (which we knew by then was $3000), and he gave us a quizzical
look and stated that there was none that he had heard about.  The guy lied
right to our faces.  Within 30 seconds we were out of there.

So in the span of about an hour, the only two SHOs we had found that
matched our requirements were unavailable.  Every other one had extra
add-ons or leather seats or the wrong color.  The model year was over and
most dealer were not getting any more shipments of 1991s.  We decided to
take a day off of work to attempt to find a SHO.  We proceeded that night
to visit six or eight dealers in the Chicago area after they had closed to
find out what they had.  We determined later that we looked at over 40
SHOs.  Not one we found met the requirements.  Most were black or white or
had leather seats.  I don't know if Ford builds them all that way or if the
ones that met our requirements were all sold or what.  One option at that
point was to just buy a more expensive model, but that would have put us
too far out of our target price range.

The next day, Wednesday, we were almost resigned to attempting to get a red
one (212A, leather, sunroof) at Dealer E.  A salesman was there at midnight
the night before and gave us his card.  We were almost sure we couldn't get
down to $16,000 on that one, however, which would have meant no deal. 
There were other dealers farther away from home we could try, so we did. 
One was Dealer F.  They didn't have one on the lot, but wanted to settle on
a price and try to find us one.  We would not agree to buy a car sight
unseen, so he said he would check the upcoming shipments.  After about 20
minutes we found him calling around to other dealers looking for a car that
fit our requirements.  No shipments were due.  We told him to call us if he
found one and got out of there.

Dealer G had 10 SHOs in stock, and one of them fit our requirements
exactly.  Mocha, cloth seats, 211A, and the new transmission.  We asked at
the front for a salesman, hoping for a new, younger (read: easy to
manipulate) one.  He was pretty young, and we walked out to the lot to
point out the one we wanted to drive.  We stood there in 100 degree heat in
our crummy clothes (and I had a three day beard) and waited.  He returned
saying (get this) he couldn't find the keys.  We figured great, we finally
find one we like and he's screwing with us already.  Eventually, we drove
it and it was fine.  Time for the kill.

He started off with the standard offer around $22,000.  We asked about the
factory to dealer incentive (a crucial test of his honest).  He said, "Yes,
it's $3000.  And how much of it do I have to give you for you to take the
car today?"  I hadn't considered that he would get any of it!  I laughed,
"All of it."  So he takes $3000 from the price.  We're down around $18,000,
and I hadn't even counter-offered yet.  Time to get out the big guns.

I said we had seen ads in the paper that indicated we could get a car like
this for in the 14s.  He gave us a look like he'd been mortally wounded. 
What ad?  Could he see it?  Sure, I said.  I got up and walked very slowly
out to our car, found the ad from Dealer B for $15,175.  I walked back real
slow, and he looked at it.  The floor manager came over and looked at it,
too.  They said the price was not a sale price, it was for some lease
option deal (which was described in the same ad).  I said no, I had seen
one of the cars sell for that price (which I had).  The floor manager said
no way, we'll prove it, LET'S CALL DEALER B!  He gets out the speaker
phone, calls the other dealer and confirms to me, my wife, our salesman and
everyone else on the showroom floor that Dealer B was selling SHOs for
$15,175!  Ha!  This was great.  The next thing we see are these four sales
guys standing in the middle of the showroom floor punching buttons on their
calculators, looking over their shoulders at us, mumbling something about
trying to make a living in this damn business, etc.

Finally, they come over and say they can't meet this price, but they could
do the deal for $15,887.  How they got that number, I don't know.  We
argued for a few minutes more and got them down to about $15,600.  Sold!

So, it took five hours, but we got them down in our range and brought it
home that day.  The salesman  was honest and did his best to get us a good
price from the dealer.  He had just bought a SHO less than a week before we
did.

We got the standard sell job from the dealer about the financing, the
rustproofing and the extended warranty.  Ford requires them to tell us all
this stuff.  We got financing from my credit union at 7.9%, which was less
than the 9.5% the dealer offered.  The warranty on the 1991's was only one
year, but on the 1992's was three years for the same car, so we didn't buy
an extended warranty.

That's the story.  For 34% off sticker, I can't complain.

/===============================================================\
| Philip Bush                      | "Don't ask for permission, |
| Motorola, Inc.                   |  ask for forgiveness."     |
| Email: CPB004@email.comm.mot.com |   - Guy Kawasaki           |
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Newsgroups: rec.autos