Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] advice on mid-MO car dealerships wanted...

[Jonathan King <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Wed, 2 Jun 2004, Nathan Odle wrote:

> Jonathan King wrote:
> 
> >Columbia Chevy dealer >> Jeff City Chevy dealer
> >
>
> I am in no way doubting your experience, but this *really* surprises 
> me.  My family has bought one Chevy after another in this area for the 
> last 20 or so years, and Perry has always been pretty lacking in several 
> areas, but especially their prices.  Their refusal to deal has at times 
> been pretty disappointing.

The situation in Jeff City I'll describe in more detail in another
message.  Suffice to say that it was truly bizarre.  Also note that
none of my experience with any dealership has yet had anything to do
with dealing on price.  Anybody who knows me knows how this will 
work.  I will give a price that has been scrupulously researched and 
established to be fair.  If they say yes (plus or minus some delta) 
everything is cool, if they say no, I say goodbye.
 
> I am dealing solely with Joe Machens Ford these days

That's where they set us up with lemon Focus with no gas.  I was 
really unimpressed by that.  Obviously, they can be better at other 
things, but since I really needed to be convinced that a Focus would 
cut it and the salesdude knew nothing about the line *and* gave me a 
crappy car to test...life is short.  At Machens Toyota, the 
experience was much happier.  Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to 
be a Toyota on our "must buy" list and last I checked they had no 
used cars we wanted either.

> Machens deals in volume and is looking for their income in the
> kickbacks, so you can generally start dealing at invoice and go
> from there.  If you are a good negotiator you'll come away pretty
> happy...if you're not, you can at least know that you didn't get
> ripped off.

I take it on faith that I'll get a good deal wherever I buy from, 
since I just won't accept a bad one.  What I can't deal with is a 
dealership that acts cluelessly if there's any chance I'll have to 
deal with them after the handshake.

jking


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