- :
- 2019 Mazda CX-5 Signature (Machine Gray)
Cleveland, Ohio, USA here. I sold cars for 7 years up to about 5 years ago, it's crazy how much the internet has changed things and how dealerships deal with the consumer knowledge now. For anyone interested here is a refresher/education on dealerships and how they try to make money selling cars.
I sold and did finance for a Lincoln/Mercury/Mazda dealership for 4 years (back when Ford was in the picture right before Mazda separated and Skyactiv came out) and then sold at a VW lot for 3 years for a different auto group while going to college. Before I talk about my current journey to buying a new CX-5 here is what I know about buying/selling a car (which I'll post my most recent quote shortly).
Dealerships have "goals" which are like quotas. The manufacturer has tiers of goals for the dealerships that may be along the lines of "If you sell 10 new cars, you get $10k, if you sell 20 new cars you get $25k, if you sell 30 new cars you get $60k." Due to these dealership goals you can get a better deal at the end of the month as they strive to hit their bonuses. You can get an ESPECIALLY good deal if they are struggling to reach, but close to, that next tier bonus. They may be willing to lose $1,000 on a new car if they can hit an extra $25k bonus tier with a few more sales. The general public doesn't know what those goals are since they are shared only to the dealer and change monthly just like the customer purchase incentives. You could potentially walk into a dealership that has already hit their goal(s), or even be too far off to hit the next goal, resulting in less desire for the dealership to discount a vehicle for you. You could ideally wait for that end of month phone call from a salesperson that says "this is THE month for us to make the best deal, I can get you an extra $1,000 if you do the deal NOW" and if you have time to wait for that deal then this is what I recommend you should do to get the best price... be patient. Unfortunately with leasing and other circumstances this isn't always possible.
Now, when negotiating it is pretty much standard anymore that if you are looking at a car that has been out for a few years and isn't in high demand, you should expect to negotiate off of near invoice.
Keep in mind, there are a few things the dealer always has in their back pocket. First, there is "dealer holdback" which, in my experience, is $500-$1000 that the dealership covets as "pay the sales guy a $250 mini commission and hope we sell some finance products". This $ is hard to tap into.
The other incentive that dealerships get to "put deals together" is an additional ~$500-$2,000 called "dealercash" which does not need to be disclosed to the consumer. This is profit the dealership has to play with during the negotiation phase and their goal is to hold onto all of it. The salesperson will make 20-25% of the total profit on the car, so it is within' their best interest to make an extra $150-$500 by keeping this.
When you sit down to discuss numbers you expect they are doing 0.9% APR, $750 loytaly, and $500 customer cash as potentially advertised (not to be confused with dealer cash). You are then presented with a very 'broad' breakdown of the numbers with ranges for payments. Here is where you have your second chance to make sure you are getting a good deal. Your first chance was doing research before you even stepped foot inside. The general rule is to remove the trade and desired payment and focus on the bottom line price of the vehicle before moving forward. Dealers love "payment buyers".
The best way I have found to negotiate is to ask for the following:
Itemize the transaction - Have them show you each discount, tax, fee(s), MSRP, invoice, the works. Itemize each dollar you will be spending and saving. Dealers like to generalize the money since it helps them once you get into finance. Break it down! The following example is how you want to make an informed decision and ensure there is no 'hidden' cash floating around. It also gives you more insight when you walk into the finance office to compare.
Undesired Breakdown:
Selling Price: $30,000
Trade: -$2,000
Discount: -$1,750
Fees/Taxes: $2,500
Total: $29,000
Desired Breakdown:
MSRP: $32,500
Discount: -$2,500
Invoice: $30,000
Customer Cash: -$750
Loyalty: -$500
Independence Day Cash: -$500
Trade-In: -$7,000
PayOff: $5,000
Doc Fee: $250
Taxes (7%): $1,855
Total: $28,355
It's not so common anymore, but you can easily hide money in the broad numbers and doing rough math can make a non-attentive customer easier to fluff the numbers and make additional profit. I'm not against a dealership making a fair profit, but I am against the ways some dealerships do it.
The oldest trick in the book? If your dealer gives you the 4-square method (relatively out-dated) you can read about that here: https://www.consumerreports.org/consumerist/dealerships-rip-you-off-with-the-four-square-heres-how-to-beat-it/. My favorite part about this is making the customer feel obligated by signing an arbitrary piece of paper... if you sign this you have NO obligation to purchase a vehicle.
Finance Payment Range - Ask for the rates relative to the payments shown. The 'payments' section of the printout they provide you can be fudged by inflated finance rates. You will hear "well we don't know your credit score so here is a range" with no APR percentages actually specified on the page, atleast in most cases. This is where, if you are confident you've paid your auto loans on time in the past and your credit score is 720+, you will qualify for the incentivized rate. The incentivized rate is typically advertised if available (like 0.9%/1.9%/2.9% for 60 months), or you can shop a 3rd party auto loan rate of 2.5-4.9% depending on your bank. The reason they do this is because they want to desensitize you to the numbers on the page. If you don't ask what the rates listed are they pre-load the backend (finance office) with tons of potential profit that they manipulate to sell you things that can even KEEP YOU AT THE SAME PAYMENT. If you hear the prior statement or something like a $2,000 warranty for only $5/mo, you need to stop and re-read your contract and start asking questions. On average, every $1,000 financed over 5 years is roughly $18-22/mo depending on APR. Roughly, every $1,000 added or removed from your total financed should reflect about $20/mo. The payment range is where dealerships can make a lot of money and why good finance managers can make $200k+ a year. Most of the products they offer you like Gap Insurance, Extended Warranties, and the like can be purchased for much less after the fact. It sounds nice to have these 'benefits' rolled into your payment, but you're losing money in the long run and lots of it. PRO TIP: Finance managers have working relationships with the lenders. You CAN negotiate your finance rate. The finance manager simply makes a phone call to the lender and discusses the requirements for getting the loan "bought". Sometimes this requires putting more down to get the rate lower, but it results in less money you pay over the term, potentially. This is some deep water when dealing with really low credit scores so your mileage may vary. Depending on your credit (and don't get discouraged if it's not the best) you can still fight to get a few percent taken off. They want your interest money, trust me.
Finance Office - Ask for big discounts on these items (up to 75%) or just say no to everything. There are some decent products being offered here, while others are quite honestly a joke.
1) GAP Insurance: If you don't put down on average 20% on a new car or 10% on a used vehicle then you may be "upside down" on your loan. This is when you owe more than the vehicle is worth. If you roll a trade-in into your deal that is worth less than what you owe you are also a candidate for GAP insurance. In the event of an accident where you total the vehicle, your insurance will only pay out what the vehicle is valued at and not what your loan balance is. This can leave you on the hook for $1,000s-$10,000s and no vehicle. My best advice is talk to your auto insurance provider for a quote before walking into the dealership and compare. Typically, 3rd party/auto insurance companies will best the dealership for total cost of GAP and you can cancel once what you owe is less than what the vehicle is worth. It is a great thing to have and I've used it myself in the past when I totaled my Golf TDI after dieselgate broke. Needless to say if I didn't have the insurance I would have owed around $7,000 due to the huge drop in value. If you don't have much money to put down I suggest buying a used car and put down as much as you can and/or buy GAP insurance to protect yourself.
2) New Vehicle Protection: My dealership would sell these products like an exterior paint coating or interior protection. My dealership also used scotch-guard and a spray on coating that you paid $1,500 for. You could have taken your vehicle straight to a professional detailer for half of the price and gotten much higher quality products and detail job, or better yet visit an auto detailing forum and do it yourself for a fraction of the price. I'm not saying all dealerships are like this but unless they are willing to let you watch the car get the product installed, I wouldn't do it. Do you think they want you to leave the dealership with out the car? No. Do you think they will perform an upscale paint sealant and interior protection kit in less than an hour? I would hope not. Detailing my own car takes hours and doing a proper exterior coating detail can take a day+ for one person (like consumer-grade ceramic coatings).
3) Wear and Tear & Tire/Wheel Warranties: Do you live in the winter tundra in an area that has the worst potholes and the roads are horrible? Maybe consider this but negotiate the crap out of it. If you get a flat every 3 years, you are better saving your money and fixing the issues as they come.
4) Maintenance Warranties: I recommend not purchasing that particular dealership's maintenance package. Some reasons include that the particular dealer isn't the closest one to you, you may need to move within' the agreed maintenance timeframe, or they use cheaper products than the OEM would use to replace those parts. The only time it REALLY makes sense is when you want to pre-pay your maintenance and you purchase the official manufacturer's package. If you can, review the maintenance schedule in advance and see what is recommended to be replaced/serviced plus what the average cost in maintenance is over a year. If your car is around an average of $400 year in routine maintenance and your package covers 3 years for $800, you will save $400 over 3 years. Buying the official manufacturer package also generally means you can visit any Mazda dealer and the contract will apply, but verify this first as terms may change.
Well, this got long winded so I'll wrap up here... but I wanted to share some of these things to hopefully help someone make a more informed decision. Incentives vary by region, so my deals in the Ohio region will be different compared to California, and even as close as Pennsylvania. Feel free to message me with any questions in regards to car sales. I can't tell you if your deal is good or not since I don't work for a dealership anymore, and your best resource is this thread. I can, however, answer any questions about how a dealership tries to make money off of you and how to combat it. To reiterate, salesmen and dealerships are not inherently trying to screw you over, but there is a fair price to be had and they want to be as profitable as possible. If you leave feeling like you got a good deal then they did their job... whether you got a good deal or not.
Edit: Forgive me for typos and poor grammer... its late.
I sold and did finance for a Lincoln/Mercury/Mazda dealership for 4 years (back when Ford was in the picture right before Mazda separated and Skyactiv came out) and then sold at a VW lot for 3 years for a different auto group while going to college. Before I talk about my current journey to buying a new CX-5 here is what I know about buying/selling a car (which I'll post my most recent quote shortly).
Dealerships have "goals" which are like quotas. The manufacturer has tiers of goals for the dealerships that may be along the lines of "If you sell 10 new cars, you get $10k, if you sell 20 new cars you get $25k, if you sell 30 new cars you get $60k." Due to these dealership goals you can get a better deal at the end of the month as they strive to hit their bonuses. You can get an ESPECIALLY good deal if they are struggling to reach, but close to, that next tier bonus. They may be willing to lose $1,000 on a new car if they can hit an extra $25k bonus tier with a few more sales. The general public doesn't know what those goals are since they are shared only to the dealer and change monthly just like the customer purchase incentives. You could potentially walk into a dealership that has already hit their goal(s), or even be too far off to hit the next goal, resulting in less desire for the dealership to discount a vehicle for you. You could ideally wait for that end of month phone call from a salesperson that says "this is THE month for us to make the best deal, I can get you an extra $1,000 if you do the deal NOW" and if you have time to wait for that deal then this is what I recommend you should do to get the best price... be patient. Unfortunately with leasing and other circumstances this isn't always possible.
Now, when negotiating it is pretty much standard anymore that if you are looking at a car that has been out for a few years and isn't in high demand, you should expect to negotiate off of near invoice.
Keep in mind, there are a few things the dealer always has in their back pocket. First, there is "dealer holdback" which, in my experience, is $500-$1000 that the dealership covets as "pay the sales guy a $250 mini commission and hope we sell some finance products". This $ is hard to tap into.
The other incentive that dealerships get to "put deals together" is an additional ~$500-$2,000 called "dealercash" which does not need to be disclosed to the consumer. This is profit the dealership has to play with during the negotiation phase and their goal is to hold onto all of it. The salesperson will make 20-25% of the total profit on the car, so it is within' their best interest to make an extra $150-$500 by keeping this.
When you sit down to discuss numbers you expect they are doing 0.9% APR, $750 loytaly, and $500 customer cash as potentially advertised (not to be confused with dealer cash). You are then presented with a very 'broad' breakdown of the numbers with ranges for payments. Here is where you have your second chance to make sure you are getting a good deal. Your first chance was doing research before you even stepped foot inside. The general rule is to remove the trade and desired payment and focus on the bottom line price of the vehicle before moving forward. Dealers love "payment buyers".
The best way I have found to negotiate is to ask for the following:
Itemize the transaction - Have them show you each discount, tax, fee(s), MSRP, invoice, the works. Itemize each dollar you will be spending and saving. Dealers like to generalize the money since it helps them once you get into finance. Break it down! The following example is how you want to make an informed decision and ensure there is no 'hidden' cash floating around. It also gives you more insight when you walk into the finance office to compare.
Undesired Breakdown:
Selling Price: $30,000
Trade: -$2,000
Discount: -$1,750
Fees/Taxes: $2,500
Total: $29,000
Desired Breakdown:
MSRP: $32,500
Discount: -$2,500
Invoice: $30,000
Customer Cash: -$750
Loyalty: -$500
Independence Day Cash: -$500
Trade-In: -$7,000
PayOff: $5,000
Doc Fee: $250
Taxes (7%): $1,855
Total: $28,355
It's not so common anymore, but you can easily hide money in the broad numbers and doing rough math can make a non-attentive customer easier to fluff the numbers and make additional profit. I'm not against a dealership making a fair profit, but I am against the ways some dealerships do it.
The oldest trick in the book? If your dealer gives you the 4-square method (relatively out-dated) you can read about that here: https://www.consumerreports.org/consumerist/dealerships-rip-you-off-with-the-four-square-heres-how-to-beat-it/. My favorite part about this is making the customer feel obligated by signing an arbitrary piece of paper... if you sign this you have NO obligation to purchase a vehicle.
Finance Payment Range - Ask for the rates relative to the payments shown. The 'payments' section of the printout they provide you can be fudged by inflated finance rates. You will hear "well we don't know your credit score so here is a range" with no APR percentages actually specified on the page, atleast in most cases. This is where, if you are confident you've paid your auto loans on time in the past and your credit score is 720+, you will qualify for the incentivized rate. The incentivized rate is typically advertised if available (like 0.9%/1.9%/2.9% for 60 months), or you can shop a 3rd party auto loan rate of 2.5-4.9% depending on your bank. The reason they do this is because they want to desensitize you to the numbers on the page. If you don't ask what the rates listed are they pre-load the backend (finance office) with tons of potential profit that they manipulate to sell you things that can even KEEP YOU AT THE SAME PAYMENT. If you hear the prior statement or something like a $2,000 warranty for only $5/mo, you need to stop and re-read your contract and start asking questions. On average, every $1,000 financed over 5 years is roughly $18-22/mo depending on APR. Roughly, every $1,000 added or removed from your total financed should reflect about $20/mo. The payment range is where dealerships can make a lot of money and why good finance managers can make $200k+ a year. Most of the products they offer you like Gap Insurance, Extended Warranties, and the like can be purchased for much less after the fact. It sounds nice to have these 'benefits' rolled into your payment, but you're losing money in the long run and lots of it. PRO TIP: Finance managers have working relationships with the lenders. You CAN negotiate your finance rate. The finance manager simply makes a phone call to the lender and discusses the requirements for getting the loan "bought". Sometimes this requires putting more down to get the rate lower, but it results in less money you pay over the term, potentially. This is some deep water when dealing with really low credit scores so your mileage may vary. Depending on your credit (and don't get discouraged if it's not the best) you can still fight to get a few percent taken off. They want your interest money, trust me.
Finance Office - Ask for big discounts on these items (up to 75%) or just say no to everything. There are some decent products being offered here, while others are quite honestly a joke.
1) GAP Insurance: If you don't put down on average 20% on a new car or 10% on a used vehicle then you may be "upside down" on your loan. This is when you owe more than the vehicle is worth. If you roll a trade-in into your deal that is worth less than what you owe you are also a candidate for GAP insurance. In the event of an accident where you total the vehicle, your insurance will only pay out what the vehicle is valued at and not what your loan balance is. This can leave you on the hook for $1,000s-$10,000s and no vehicle. My best advice is talk to your auto insurance provider for a quote before walking into the dealership and compare. Typically, 3rd party/auto insurance companies will best the dealership for total cost of GAP and you can cancel once what you owe is less than what the vehicle is worth. It is a great thing to have and I've used it myself in the past when I totaled my Golf TDI after dieselgate broke. Needless to say if I didn't have the insurance I would have owed around $7,000 due to the huge drop in value. If you don't have much money to put down I suggest buying a used car and put down as much as you can and/or buy GAP insurance to protect yourself.
2) New Vehicle Protection: My dealership would sell these products like an exterior paint coating or interior protection. My dealership also used scotch-guard and a spray on coating that you paid $1,500 for. You could have taken your vehicle straight to a professional detailer for half of the price and gotten much higher quality products and detail job, or better yet visit an auto detailing forum and do it yourself for a fraction of the price. I'm not saying all dealerships are like this but unless they are willing to let you watch the car get the product installed, I wouldn't do it. Do you think they want you to leave the dealership with out the car? No. Do you think they will perform an upscale paint sealant and interior protection kit in less than an hour? I would hope not. Detailing my own car takes hours and doing a proper exterior coating detail can take a day+ for one person (like consumer-grade ceramic coatings).
3) Wear and Tear & Tire/Wheel Warranties: Do you live in the winter tundra in an area that has the worst potholes and the roads are horrible? Maybe consider this but negotiate the crap out of it. If you get a flat every 3 years, you are better saving your money and fixing the issues as they come.
4) Maintenance Warranties: I recommend not purchasing that particular dealership's maintenance package. Some reasons include that the particular dealer isn't the closest one to you, you may need to move within' the agreed maintenance timeframe, or they use cheaper products than the OEM would use to replace those parts. The only time it REALLY makes sense is when you want to pre-pay your maintenance and you purchase the official manufacturer's package. If you can, review the maintenance schedule in advance and see what is recommended to be replaced/serviced plus what the average cost in maintenance is over a year. If your car is around an average of $400 year in routine maintenance and your package covers 3 years for $800, you will save $400 over 3 years. Buying the official manufacturer package also generally means you can visit any Mazda dealer and the contract will apply, but verify this first as terms may change.
Well, this got long winded so I'll wrap up here... but I wanted to share some of these things to hopefully help someone make a more informed decision. Incentives vary by region, so my deals in the Ohio region will be different compared to California, and even as close as Pennsylvania. Feel free to message me with any questions in regards to car sales. I can't tell you if your deal is good or not since I don't work for a dealership anymore, and your best resource is this thread. I can, however, answer any questions about how a dealership tries to make money off of you and how to combat it. To reiterate, salesmen and dealerships are not inherently trying to screw you over, but there is a fair price to be had and they want to be as profitable as possible. If you leave feeling like you got a good deal then they did their job... whether you got a good deal or not.
Edit: Forgive me for typos and poor grammer... its late.
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