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Screwed by 0% and employee discounts?

4K views 30 replies 23 participants last post by  WilburNJ 
#1 ·
Hi everyone. I just bought my Ridgeline today. I got screwed on my trade (suprise) and the dealer told me that because of all the employee discounts and 0% deals, the used car market (especially the big 3) is dead. I got the same line from another dealer I went to a couple of days ago. Do you think this is legit or is this just the current scam?
 
#3 ·
Sorry to hear about your misfortune. I would certainly think that the way the big 3 are giving away their turds that it would devalue everyone's vehicle who has already purchased one pre-deal. My wife and I were just laughing about this last evening watching TV we saw 2 of the big 3 commercials stating that the deal is still available. This after they did their big "...Hurry in, the deals end August first...!" Now it's "but not for long." What a joke. I feel bad for a friend of my because he a)purchased a brand new F150 and b) he purchased it literally days before this whole thing started. Can you say screwed?! How will they be able to justify selling them at the higher price after this??
 
#4 ·
We've been taking our cars to Carmax to get their buy price prior to trade in. We had two GM products - a Tahoe and a Grand Prix. We were thinking of getting rid of the Tahoe (2001 LT) last August and got a buy price of $19,000. When we actually traded it in (in November) for our Odyssey, Carmax's buy price had dropped to $15,000! It lost $4,000 in just 3 months! I'd hate to know what it's worth now.

GM cars are worth NOTHING at trade in. Fortunately, I was able to buy at employee prices long before they offered them to the general public so I didn't take as big a hit as some.

However, I think it speaks for itself that I've been able to get the GM Employee pricing for years now, and we now have two Hondas!
 
#5 ·
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112372435174310517,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal

Hope that link works. I was just reading an article in the Wall Street Journal talking about this problem. Resale and the oversupply of used cars.
I think some dealers take it to extremes on trade-ins, but they are telling the truth.
I remember when Ford had that Firestone tire problem on the Explorer. My trade in value dropped 6000 dollars in 2 months. It was ugly.

That being said, sometimes just waiting a few months can help. I got rid of my Sports-Trac in May. The price had only fallen 1000 dollars in 9 months from my last quote. At the time used cars and trucks were getting better prices. It just comes and goes sometimes.
 
#7 ·
It is true. Economy 101 taught us Supply and Demand as well as Benefit/Cost Ratio.

Consumer Reports just had a article through MSN.com (I believe) that basically said even if you get a good deal on a "bad" car, you still have a "bad" car.

What most people don't realize is they are saving money on the upfront cost of the car, but where do you think the dealers and manufactures will make up their "lost" money? Down the roads in repairs. I have heard that dealerships make the most money on repairs and not on the initail sale of the vehicle.

Every time I see Lee Iacocca on the TV tauting how GM won awards in initial quality, I just have to crack up a little bit. Great, my vehicle has good quality right off the assembly line!! However 10,000 miles later it is rattling louder than a Bingo number ball tumbler.

When you buy quality, you only cry once!
 
G
#9 ·
Ruffles said:
Hi everyone. I just bought my Ridgeline today. I got screwed on my trade (suprise) and the dealer told me that because of all the employee discounts and 0% deals, the used car market (especially the big 3) is dead. I got the same line from another dealer I went to a couple of days ago. Do you think this is legit or is this just the current scam?
Congratulations Ruffles and welcome to the ROC family. We're glad you're here. Enjoy the ride.
I agree with Blu ( usually we disagree cuz he thinks blue is a better color than silver). You're done with the deal now enjoy your truck. Love is in the air baby!! :D
 
#11 ·
Hey, if this truck has the power to help me forget about paying sticker 5 months ago, it should have no trouble helping you forget your bad trade value. Let's face it, taking less for a trade is a whole lot easier than trying to sell privately. We all know how much you're going to enjoy your new Ridgeline. Grin and have fun :) :)
 
#12 ·
Officially in the club

I just closed the deal via phone on a new Ridgeline RTL.

Got her at invoice + 515 destination, and several accessories at HandA prices + 40% for installation.

Total on the RTL without sunroof and XM, (which I really wanted but bowed to the lovely wifey on) looked like this:

RTL without XM or moonroof
28,842 invoice
515 destination
300 Grille
470 running boards
50 in bed trunk cargo net
553 Body side protectors
66 Rear Splash Guards
150 underseat storage system

$30,946 Total

How'd I do?

And don't hesitate to tell me I got screwed, I'm a big boy.



:) :D
 
#16 ·
Ruffles said:
Hi everyone. I just bought my Ridgeline today. I got screwed on my trade (suprise) and the dealer told me that because of all the employee discounts and 0% deals, the used car market (especially the big 3) is dead. I got the same line from another dealer I went to a couple of days ago. Do you think this is legit or is this just the current scam?
Sounds about right to me. I didn't even think of what the flood of pre 05 GM vehicles would be worth with GM trying to push the 05s off the lots with employee pricing and rebates on top of that. There has to be a flood of them out there now. I'm not sure which would be the greater value at the moment: A pre 05 GM vehicle or a bucket of sand. I'm leaning toward the bucket of sand. :D

This has got to be devastating to the used car market with alot of angry pre 05 GM owners realizing they've lost thousands more as they're trying to sell their 03 GM vehicle. Does this really build brand loyalty, I wonder.
 
#18 ·
I wondered why foreign auto makers haven't jumped on the discount bandwagon but I guess they don't have to. The can make a lot of money now on peoples depriciated trades. Kelly blue book put my Ranger at $7400. I ended up taking $4700 for it. I'm sure the market is down but its not down THAT much.

I could have sold it myself but I didn't want the hassel.
 
#19 ·
Re: Officially in the club

Embo_9 said:
I just closed the deal via phone on a new Ridgeline RTL.

Got her at invoice + 515 destination, and several accessories at HandA prices + 40% for installation.

Total on the RTL without sunroof and XM, (which I really wanted but bowed to the lovely wifey on) looked like this:

RTL without XM or moonroof
28,842 invoice
515 destination
300 Grille
470 running boards
50 in bed trunk cargo net
553 Body side protectors
66 Rear Splash Guards
150 underseat storage system

$30,946 Total

How'd I do?

And don't hesitate to tell me I got screwed, I'm a big boy.



:) :D
Embo_9, Do they charge 10% sales tax in Kansas City like they do in California? It would be $34,040 Total here in our state. I got our's for 30,175 out the door.
 
#20 ·
arteegee said:
The opportunistic customers gained cannot be worth the loyal customers alienated. :rolleyes:
In the tech business, this is known as "eating your young", and it is a recipe for disaster. It is the last stab before your product becomes a commodity. That is very bad news for the US economy.
 
#22 ·
Ruffles said:
Hi everyone. I just bought my Ridgeline today. I got screwed on my trade (suprise) and the dealer told me that because of all the employee discounts and 0% deals, the used car market (especially the big 3) is dead. I got the same line from another dealer I went to a couple of days ago. Do you think this is legit or is this just the current scam?
I'm glad I got my Ridgeline before all this "employee pricing" crap started. Got a reasonable price for my TrailBlazer.

You will love your truck, regardless of the trade :)!
 
#23 ·
All this Big Three bashing, by obvioulsy ignorant blowhards, is astounding. We have nevadagarth embarassingly yapping about "economy" (vs. "economics") classes , "tauting" (vs. "touting"), and "benefit/cost ratio" (vs. "cost-benefit analysis"), while also believing that Iacocca is hawking GM (vs. Chrysler) products. Laughably, someone actually thinks nevadagarth is so smart he's worth quoting!

Then we have shovelhd spouting idiocy by relating some inane concept ("eating your young") espoused by chimps who climb poles for the "tech business" to the recent employee discount promotions. Then he audaciously claims "That is very bad news for the US economy."

Funny, people often refer to the concept of "dime-store psychology," but it appears this forum is running amok with imbeciles who practice "dime-store economics."

Your collective contention that buying a "bad" car inexpensively means you still get a bad car is a statement of the obvious. Buying a red apple, whether for 50 cents or $50 still makes that apple red. More to the point though, every day in life, people go around doing a cost-benefit analysis on any number of purchases and other decisions. For example, should I buy a house in a great community and pay an astronomical purchase price and high property taxes, or a less expensive home in a so-so community and send the kids to private school. Another: should I drive above the speed limit on my way home from work and risk a ticket and bear a (slightly?) higher probability of death or injury so that I can get home to watch my favorite TV show, or keep to a reasonable speed and risk missing a few minutes of the show. In any number of these questions facing each of us every day, we each draw the line at different places.

So, people who want to buy a "bad" car at a low price may very consciously be taking into account the cost (time and money) of extra service needed on that "bad" car. They may be hoping or expecting that they have purchased a "reverse lemon" (a good car among cars reputed to be poor). It's also VERY possible that many people don't even view cars made by the Big Three as "bad" cars at all. God knows, there are millions of them on the road all over the globe.

BTW, many American brands do quite well in JD Powers' THREE-year survey (not just the initial quality survey that you're probably referring to).

Moreover, if you were a fan of the reliability of Japanese cars (read: Toyota, Honda, and, to a lesser extent, Nissan) some ten years ago, you should be very happy with the quality of the American brand cars you ridicule today. That is, products from GM, Ford and Chrysler today are generally as reliable as Japanese cars some 10 years ago. Fortunately for us consumers, Toyota, et al. have not rested on their laurels and have continued to perfect their products, such that they continue to beat American cars in reliability today.

That said, buying a car is as much emotion as logic for most people. It might be the case that those interested in purchasing the RL is more practically minded than the general car-buying public (great mix of practicality, comfort, expected reliability, and value), but I bet even those buying the RL are driven to do so partly or mostly do to their "love" of the vehicle. Just scan through this thread and others here and on other RL-related forums and you'll see what I mean. In fact, scan through auto forums on the net generally and you'll invariably find the good majority of posters gushing about how their vehicle is great. Back to economics, there was groundbreaker work done by Kevin Murphy (I believe) that suggests that many people, following a big-ticket purchase, become irrationally fond of that item (the exact opposite of buyer’s remorse). This can be observed in the fact that many people begin to notice a particular brand of car on the road only after they purchased that car. Similarly, many people “consume” advertising for a car even after their purchase of that vehicle (counter to the goal of advertising which is to promote interest in a product for the purpose of encouraging its purchase).

Bottom line is that attacking a whole line of cars (and, by extension, the companies that make them and the people who work for these companies) is petty and unnecessary. This thread was begun by someone simply expressing his dismay at getting a lower price for his trade-in because of, according to the dealer, the competition from the various new-car promotions out there. No need to start bashing American-branded vehicles, especially when done in an ignorant fashion.

BTW, I'm half Japanese and drive an Acura MDX and a Toyota Sienna (a nearly $40k minivan which, with only 8k miles, needed 2 new front strut assemblies that took a week for my local dealer to get from California which offered me the [dis]pleasure of driving a tiny Corolla loaner car for a few days). Thus, I'm hardly a Japan basher. I'm just being a bit more realistic about the auto sector than you are. At least, in my opinion.
 
#24 ·
Wilbur,

I have not read the entirety of your post (although I intend to). I feel that I have to reply to your first few sentences first, though. You're an undoubtedly intelligent person, but your personal attacks on specific people and their viewpoints and grammar are unacceptable. Please keep that kind of stuff out of this forum. We have built a solid foundation of mutual respect for each other and each others viewpoints here, please do not poison that by calling people out by name. In regards to grammar and perfectly correct and concise phrasing of words, please realize that people do not typically type with the same rigor on forum boards as they would in a proposal or term paper. People type off the cuff and in a conversational manner. I'm a stickler for spelling and grammar myself in my work correspondence, but not so much here. Read people's posts as if they were conversations rather than letters to the editor.

Enjoy your time here and please refrain from bashing on others. Thank you.
 
#26 · (Edited)
methodtim said:
Wilbur,

I have not read the entirety of your post (although I intend to). I feel that I have to reply to your first few sentences first, though. You're an undoubtedly intelligent person, but your personal attacks on specific people and their viewpoints and grammar are unacceptable. Please keep that kind of stuff out of this forum. We have built a solid foundation of mutual respect for each other and each others viewpoints here, please do not poison that by calling people out by name. In regards to grammar and perfectly correct and concise phrasing of words, please realize that people do not typically type with the same rigor on forum boards as they would in a proposal or term paper. People type off the cuff and in a conversational manner. I'm a stickler for spelling and grammar myself in my work correspondence, but not so much here. Read people's posts as if they were conversations rather than letters to the editor.

Enjoy your time here and please refrain from bashing on others. Thank you.
With all due respect, methodtim, I don’t think I’m any more out of line than the people I addressed in my post. I’m not attacking anyone who hasn’t already attacked others by their original comments. It just so happens that nevadagarth and some others have cowardly attacked people in general, instead of any particular person participating in this forum. In my book, it’s worse to ridicule thousands of people who work for the Big Three by ridiculing their work product as “turds” and vehicles that rattle “louder than a Bingo number ball tumbler,” than to point out why they are wrong and why they certainly don’t have the intellectual authority to heap ridicule on others. Is a person a better human being because he attacks a group of Jews (because they are Jews) versus attacking a particular person (again because he is Jewish)? Either way, I would consider that attacker an Anti-Semite.

As you suggest, this forum may GENERALLY be a forum “built on a solid foundation of mutual respect for each other and each others viewpoints here” but the ridiculous, uninformed attacks on the US auto industry in this thread are hardly respectful. To be fair, most people on this thread generally expressed sympathy or suggested that the original poster’s dealer (or as they are often _respectfully_ referred to here, “$tealer”) was not screwing him and/or offered advice that he’ll love his RL so much that worries about the deal he received would soon fade away. Good for them for pointing out the positive.

Anyway, I didn’t want this to get into an argument with people who weren’t the focus of my post. I just get ticked off, as a former Chrysler employee, when I witness such vitriol from the uninformed....
 
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