todthedod

I did search but if there was something specific towards my situation I missed it and raking me over the coals can commence.

Found a 2012 C63 P31 coupe I like online. My credit union ran their own carfax, etc and approved the purchase for full price (a little over $40,000) as well as their own warranty for 75,000 on top of the mileage it has now.

It's a loaded Black coupe with just under 30,000 miles. My question is how do I go about haggling on the price? I suck at it and don't have much patience. Should I get there and really like the car, what starting offer should I make? I know enough not to get screwed by "dealer fees" or any other BS but I just need to know how to play the haggling game bc I've never had to do it.

roadkillrob

Haggling sucks, you have to be prepared to walk away and that is hard when you want the car, until you are willing to leave, you are generally going to be paying what the dealer wants, they will come down a bit, but for the most part you have to be willing to walk or to actually walk to get the best price.

CarHopper

Go onto websites like kbb and get a value for the car according to the websites. If the value is lower than the list price, show them. If not, well, then it is a well priced car.

You could also just go to google and type in something like "how to negotiate the price of a car with a dealer."

Or you could just walk in and say you'll buy it now for $2k less than what is listed and if they counter at a price that is $1k less than listed, well, then you just saved yourself a grand.

First time buying a car?

todthedod

Yeah I worked for an auto manufacturer for the last 20 years so I had leased cars at a discount through them. Switched jobs earlier this year and they let me keep a rental on my expense reports but would like something to play with on the weekends and on vacation. I'm punching the info into KBB and the price KBB lists is actually a good bit higher than the dealer is asking.

CarHopper

There you go... There are plenty of tools online for valuing cars. Keep in mind, location does matter when it comes to price so me in NY can't exactly give the best advice on someone shopping in Cali, for example, other than just recommending you use the tools out there.

Seeing as the price came out to be higher on KBB I would go into the dealer and offer them a little less than asking. Worst case is they come back saying no, the price is the price, which according to you seems to actually be pretty fair. Best case, they take your offer and you saved yourself a few pennies.

Either way, it seems you're well on your way to getting into a nice car. Good luck

todthedod

Thanks for the help man! There are others out there but then I'd have to figure the price of a plane ticket and then mileage driving it home. I'll start with 38 and see what happens...but I really don't think I'm prepared to walk away unless I see something wrong with it. I know that's not good in the haggle-world..lol. I'm going to look at it Monday morning so I'll keep you updated.

604 C63

I love this intro lol.

Personally, I don't even try to deal with dealers/guys who don't have reasonable pricing to begin with. Then I go and do like Purple said and offer like 2k off and saw it off in the middle somewhere and be done with it.

I can haggle like an SOB when I want and love to find deals on stuff, but I hate the whole car lot set up with the salesman "working for you" as he runs off to get a price from the sales manager, who you never even get to meet. Its bogus, so I dont bother. I consider my first negotiating to be in looking for a car that is well priced to begin with. When I have found it, and I know thats what I want no matter what deal I carve then I remind myself "little piggies get fed, big piggies get slaughtered". A reasonable counter offer on my part usually gets one back, and then we are done. Nice and neat. If I came in there with a low ball offer then I get told to go pound sand, then what options do I have?

Do like Purple said.

CarHopper

No problem. Like roadkillrob said though, be prepared to walk away if you have to. I just bought an e63s and in the process of buying it I walked away from the dealer because at first they weren't willing to work with me as much as I was asking for. I thanked them for the time and politely passed on their offer, kindly reminding them I can buy a similar car from someone else and give them the money instead.

Couple days later they call and I got an even better deal than what I went to the dealer with in the first place.

Mag1c Carp3t

It was easy for me. I made an offer for $30k on a $34k tag and the guy who was the owner was honest that he will not go lower until next week if the car doesn't sell. So the following week I got it for $31.5k.

DP8

When I bought my 2013 C63 P31 sedan a month ago, I used the cargurus website to get an idea of what other C63's were listed for in my area and also nationally. They seem to have a fairly comprehensive list of what's available so you can get an idea of what the car is listed and valued at. That way I knew the ballpark of what a decent price was and before I went to look at any cars I knew what I was ok paying.

One dealer, wouldn't even talk about dropping the price so I left. The dealer I ended up getting the car from listed the car at a competitive price based on other listings on cargurus. Similar to other posters I offered a $2K below list and we met in the middle. I might have tried to be more aggressive in my initial offer if the starting price wasn't pretty good already.

BLKROKT

I bought my car sight unseen in OC CA clear across the country. Did what I could over the phone (got a thousand or two off) but haggling isn't my thing for this kind of purchase - it was one of two black CPO P31 coupes available in the US, and I was going to get one of them. Mine had the carbon package, so at the end of the day I wasn't going to let a grand or two either way affect my decision. My calculation was that the CPO and low miles were worth a bit of premium even if the asking price was on the higher end of the KBB range. At the end of the day, you want the car you want, and I don't walk away from things like that.

tpliquid

I made deal on line
52k got for 48k

pbaylog

If you show up with your down payment, whether it be certified check, cash whatever. It will show them your serious too. This helps. Also, don't be afraid to ask for a couple throw ins...In addition to getting a couple thousand off when I bought last year, i had them throw in a set of all season mats and a trunk liner.

Sounds like you've got your financing arranged and extended warranty - that's awesome. In my case, I was pre approved from my bank at 1.7% APR, MB standard offer was 2.99%, but the finance manager asked to give him 15 minutes and he came back with a 1.5% rate for me. The dealership got to wet their beak on that and get a few hundred bucks from the financing institution, money they didn't need to get from me.

so, I walked away happy with a 3300 mile, loaded CPO '14 507 for $62k, and it seemed they were ok too.

Dogtag114

Interesting tip I heard... make the bank check for your offer exactly ... the reasonably low one not a false BS low one... say take it or leave it... just shows your serious and fair.

Clearly, you will still need to write an additional check to cover all the misc tax, etc.

Haven't tried it though...

realjones88

The things that matter the most are how long it's been on the lot and how bad they want it gone. If it's only been out there a couple days the may not haggle much with you at all b/c they think someone better may come along. If it's been weeks and they want the C63 gone they will be much open to any reasonable offer.

When I bought my C63 I thought we had agreed on the price that was in pencil on the sales guy's sheet. It then went to the finance guy for final approval and they came back $500 higher (they knew I wanted the car), which pissed me off.

So I said "are you really going to make me fake leave to get this price?" and they came back with "this is the best we can do" so I literally had to get up and do the slow walk to my car outside to save the $500 as of course the sales guy chased me down as I was about to leave. So lame, unnecessary, and made me hate that dealership forever.

604 C63

My dealer tried that.

My sales guy (who I actually really like and recommend) came back with a slip of paper that said $500 on it and he said they needed that much more. I leaned over, crossed off the two zeroes and initialled the $5, then pulled out a fiver and said "Thats how much more I'll pay, and I'll pay it right now. Tell the boss to go get a latte with it cos I got work to do. He can sign off or not" and sent him back with the sheet. Deal got done lol. When I was leaving the sales manager came out and we had a laugh about it, and now we have a chat or at least say hello every time I'm in there.

chrisridebike8

That. Is. Awesome.

roadkillrob

This does show you are serious, but the dealer also makes money through financing, so they have a little more to work with if you finance through the dealer, typically they get a set rate for selling the loan and then some markup the rate and also make some money that way. I will typically take some dealer financing in the deal and then just make sure you can pay off at anytime and just pay it off once you get the first bill if you can or re-finance through a cheaper option and pay it off.

CarHopper

^ Exactly what happened in my scenario. I told the dealer I had financing at x% ready to go. Their way of getting the deal to go through, instead of knocking everything off the price, they knocked some off the price and gave me MB financing at a lower percent then what I had secured that which ended up saving me the extra money.

AhhMyyGawd

If you want to get a good deal at a dealership and save a pretty penny, you're going to have to do the acting required. (The huff and puff and fake walk). As a salesperson myself some advice I can give to you is, don't let them think you have more money to give. You have to set a bottom line. Best thing is to go to cars.com or other website to print out some comparables which the dealer may or may not even look at. Things to know that can help your negotiations; how long the car has been sitting on the lot, comparables in your area, kbb value. If you feel like they won't budge on the price, have them throw in some freebies because the dealer costs for parts is very minimal.

In my own case, when I knew they wouldn't budge on the price for my porsche, I had the dealers replace both the center and rear console with brand new oem pieces because of a few scratches (Was a good deal regardless, but I like to get the most bang for my buck and makes me feel like a winner ).

For my c63 it was actually the easiest negotiation I've ever done. Sent a few offers back and forth through eBay with a dealer until he accepted one of them. Bought it sight unseen and had it shipped from Texas to California.

sorry for any errors, typed this on my phone.

Brunty88

Out of principle I would not have brought that car for the price
I'd deliberately give them 500 less when paying and say that's all I have and when they don't accept it I'd leave

604 C63

Depends what your time is worth, I suppose. If you figure out how long you look, and how much time you have into the process, walking to save $500 is false economy. Which I suppose they are counting on in lots of cases.

C63fora2w1

I was looking back in November dealer had that Silver C63 with 24k miles for 43k. It was a nice car with very few optins. Told the dealer I was not ready to pull trigger and they offered it to me for 39k. I was dealing with the GM of the porsche/mb dealerships. It was a good offer I was just not in a position to buy. I like to be creative when I negotiate and when the time comes will try to get them to throw in the extended warranty or out the door pricing. Can't win if you don't try but I negotiate for a living..

Brunty88

I see your point but the fact they just decided to jack the price up I would not pay it
I'd rather spend more time and pay more for another car than give them more of my money.

Rams

Normally I have a method when buying cars from a dealer, and from an individual a totally different approach.
To keep this post short.
Dealers: find out how long the car has been sitting, try and find out if there have been price drops on it. Compare that price to similar vehicles, if possible run the VIN online and see if it had been posted on forums before being traded in and obv. what they're asking price was. Then go and shoot an offer on the lower end of what KBB says or market value for similar cars, they will come back with a counter offer, then give them your counter to that offer.

When I bought my 2014 15k mile C63 the day after thanksgiving. They were originally asking $56k, they dropped the price once on the 3rd week they had it according to cached google pages ($1,100 drop). I went in and looked at the car with a random sales guy, he asked if I wanted to drive it. But to show him I wasn't a typical buyer I told him lets discuss numbers first so we dont waste either of our time since I was limited on time and randomly was stopping in after seeing it listed online.
Originally they told me they didn't haggle on AMG pricing LOL. I told him 50k regardless and he said IDK about that so he went and spoke with his boss and came back with 53k, I said $51,500 and we can go test drive it. They agreed since they ripped off the previous owner who was a doctor on the trade in obviously and were still going to make a killing according to what I saw them listed for via manheim/Adesa auctions.
Test drove it, signed papers, picked it up a few hours after that.