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My Almost Av Purchase - Frustrated!

Limerick

SM 2003
Full Member
Joined
Dec 11, 2002
Messages
158
Location
Limerick, PA
Today I came ever so close to finally ordering my Avalanche, but it became a frustrating day in the end.

I had been on the phone this week with a dealer about 30 miles away. The two closest Chevy dealers to me are not very good, so I tend to stay away from them. I had been dealing directly with the Sales Manager to try and get a deal done.

This gentleman was GREAT to deal with over the phone. He answered all my questions, and seemed to be willing to do exactly what I wanted (which I wasn't getting at other Chevy dealers). I wanted to order a WBH Av trimmed and colored to my liking. The three WBH's he has coming in don't even come close, unfortunately.

I talked to him again this morning, and faxed to him exactly what I wanted on the truck. He said it looked good, and he was gonna work out the following deal: Price just above invoice; Couple hundred dollar deposit, and if the VIN wasn't made available by the end of the month to take advantage of the $4000 rebate, he'd fully refund the deposit and take the truck on as normal inventory (no risk to me!). He places orders with the factory Wednesday through Saturday, so he could have ordered my Av today.

I excitedly drove 40 minutes to his dealership so that he could look at my Buick for a possible trade-in, and we could work out the final numbers. This is where my day went sour. He printed off his AV invoice, handed it to me, and then went off to look at my car. The invoice had an advertising adjustment of +$600. He came back and offered me $1500 below KBB wholesale value and said I'd be better off keeping the car or selling it privately. Then to top it off, wanted to charge me $300 more on top of the invoice he handed me.

So suddenly, his price became $900 over invoice, I got severely low-balled on my car, and I walked out of the dealership feeling dismayed.

It seems difficult for me to find a quality Chevy dealer that will deal around invoice price, be willing to answer my questions, and be willing to work to get me the vehicle I want. I can get one or two of these, but never all of them.

My search will continue because I severely want this truck. I have never purchased a new Chevrolet, so I've not had to deal with any of these dealers. I live northwest of Philadelphia in the outer suburbs, and would be willing to drive a reasonable distance to a quality dealer (within 40 miles). Would be nice to know where one is for Chevrolet. Even in the Pittsburgh area would be doable since we visit family there often; although I've found they tend to hit you with the regional advertising fee there (at least Chrysler does).

Frustrated, dismayed, patient, and excited all at once :cautious:
 
Just do it all through GMBuyPower.Com

You'll get the deal, do it all online and then just pick up your ride. If they don't have it in inventory they can get it.
 
Chief said:
Just do it all through GMBuyPower.Com

You'll get the deal, do it all online and then just pick up your ride. ?If they don't have it in inventory they can get it.


I have been waiting hoping that a dealer would get a WBH Av in that met or was close to what I wanted. This one was willing to work with me so I could get GM's big new rebate.

I've only used GM Buy Power to build the Avalanche and get the options. Unfortunately, I can't select the assist steps from it, although the dealer has confirmed they are available.

How interactive is using this form of contact? I can't imagine it without at least talking to someone on the phone.
 
Chief said:
Just do it all through GMBuyPower.Com

You'll get the deal, do it all online and then just pick up your ride. ?If they don't have it in inventory they can get it.

Limerick, I totally agree with the Chief, I got my AV thru GMBuyPower.com ,I got it at 5k off the sticker price and 0% finance ;D ;D ;D for 36 months. Good luck.
 
I got mine at fred beans in doylestown a little over a year ago and got a great deal and was treated great also. Might be worth checkin out there cause I had no problems at all there.
 
I bought mine from a Chevy dealer all the way in FREAKING MONTANA to get it $3000 BELOW invoice ($2000 rebate at the time) and had it trailered back here to Delaware.

$900 OVER invoice??!?!?!?!?

PLEASE!

Tell the dealer to stick it up his ARSE!
Chris
 
How would a dealership make any money if they didnt charge a little over invoice and offer a little less for a trade?
 
BadZ7123 said:
How would a dealership make any money if they didnt charge a little over invoice and offer a little less for a trade?


There is something called dealer hold backs and it amounts to about 3% of MSRP. The dealership gets that money from the factory when a vehicle is sold. They can sell at invoice and still pocket over $1,000 on the transaction. Dealers also sell extended warranties, financing, etc... All of that pads the bottom line.
 
Hey I got mine form a dealer in Lancaster, PA. Faulkner Chevrolet in Lancaster. Please PM if you are interested and I can give you his info and who I dealed with.

DoogieDobe

(I had a 99 Dakota leased that I had to work into the deal so that hurt a bit. BUT this dealer held my Av waiting for me for 3 months and didn't want a nickle from me to hold it.)
 
hq said:
There is something called dealer hold backs and it amounts to about 3% of MSRP. The dealership gets that money from the factory when a vehicle is sold. They can sell at invoice and still pocket over $1,000 on the transaction. Dealers also sell extended warranties, financing, etc... All of that pads the bottom line.

Of course they have to pay a salesmans commission, porters to clean them, floor plan interest to have them sit on the lot after 30 days and electricity and so on and so on - 1000 bucks dont go very far. ;)

As far as the extras they sell the same applys and they have to sell um to ya - you dont buy the extras they dont make any money on um.
 
I went through the same thing the morning I went to order my new '03 AV. I went to the local dealer (who, incidentally, I had bought three vehicles from in the last 18 months) and took a demo ride. Walked back inside and told the salesman I wanted to order a new one. Right away, he wants to sell me one off the lot (they had four Z66's), and when I told him they didn't have what I wanted a rather disgusted look appeared. :p

I handed him a printout of the vehicle I wanted, with the words, "This is what I want. I will not accept less, and if you want to add more to it that's fine, but you'll give it to me for nothing". He started running a search of dealers in the area looking for one...no luck. Then he said he would go ahead and put in the order right away for what I wanted. I told him he was forgetting one little detail.....WHAT KIND OF DEAL WERE WE TALKING ???

Then one of his cohorts went outside and took the VIN off of my trade. Did not check it out, test drive it, or even walk around it. Came back in and my salesman took it into the owner's office. He came back and gave me a price I could live with.....but had included the then $2000 rebate....AFTER I had told him I wanted the then 2.9% financing. So what it boiled down to was he was giving me the LOW bluebook price for an AVERAGE condition trade. :9: (The 99 Tahoe I was trading is practically in showroom condition) I said goodbye and started out the door. Salesman said "I'm going to work on this for you...don't go anywhere else". I said yeah, OK, and got into my vehicle and drove 24 miles to a second dealer who beat their deal by $2000 and sold me a new AV. ;D

In the meantime, the new rebates/financing are out and I qualify. Happy ending :love:
 
TexAVfan said:
Of course they have to pay a salesmans commission, porters to clean them, floor plan interest to have them sit on the lot after 30 days and electricity and so on and so on - 1000 bucks dont go very far. ?;)

As far as the extras they sell the same applys and they have to sell um to ya - you dont buy the extras they dont make any money on um.

From the people I've talked to in the car sales world, the dealers don't make their profit off of new car sales. In fact, one guy called the new cars a "loss leader", meaning the dealership actually loses money overall on new cars, but needs to sell them in order to get sales on the used cars, and the continued service work.

Frankly, I don't care if a dealer loses or makes money selling the car at invoice, that's his problem. I just know there are many dealers that sell at invoice, so that is my expectation. What I do care about, is having some guy work out a deal on the phone with me, then have me drive out of my way (he HAD to see my car for the trade-in value), only for him to pull the crap he did. I was even willing to go a few hundred dollars over invoice since he was supposedly willing to "roll the dice" on ordering me the truck, and bill it by the end of the month for the rebate. What's unacceptable are sudden hidden fees that I didn't know about, and getting low-balled on my trade in. It's this kind of crap that gives car salespeople bad reputations. I guess they figure they can get away with it most of the time, but I pride myself on being an informed consumer, especially when it comes to cars.
 
The new car dealers around here don't want 3 or 4 year old cars, so the price they offer for the trade is $1000 to $1500 below blue book, they call a local used car dealer, he tells them over the phone what he will give the dealer, the dealer knocks a few hundered more off of it. You end up under blue book. The dealer wasn't going to give me much for my trade, I kept it, the next day sold it directly to a used car dealer. The used car dealer asked if I was getting a new car from dealer xxx, I said yes, he said the dealer didn't tell him it was that clean. Bottom line, the new car dealer called the used car dealer that I ended up selling to.
 
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