My experience buying a new 2024 car without setting foot in the dealership

[Andrew Joiner]

Thanks to some of the tips I got here from my topic I posted a few months ago, I bought a new car and had it delivered to my driveway

Things changed a lot since I bought a Subaru in 2018. In 2018 I emailed sales people directly. I got their email address from the dealers website. I emailed about 10 dealers, most invited me to come into the showroom and deal. But 3 or 4 did commit to out the door prices and bid against each other so to speak. The last two competed against each other to drop the price by several hundred dollars. We didn't go into the dealer until we picked up the car.

Now in March of 2024 I wanted to do the same thing to buy a Mitsubishi Outlander. First off it was not possible to get the emails of sales people. The dealer websites only let me email the dealership. In most cases I got a lot of standard responses before a salesperson contacted me. I did get a couple of very close out the door prices from local dealerships. Both were very close to list price and they didn't want to negotiate.

The dealership with the lowest listed price on its website was three hours away but they didn't return my emails. I finally did it the old fashioned way and called them. Within two minutes on the phone the salesperson gave me an out the door price way better than the local dealers and it included delivery!

[Patty Hann]

Thanks to some of the tips I got here from my topic I posted a few months ago, I bought a new car and had it delivered to my driveway

...
The dealership with the lowest listed price on its website was three hours away but they didn't return my emails. I finally did it the old fashioned way and called them. Within two minutes on the phone the salesperson gave me an out the door price way better than the local dealers and it included delivery!

How did you do with the extended warranty (if you bought one)?

[Andrew Joiner]

Mitsubishi has a five year bumper to bumper and 10 year powertrain comes with the car. I think I'll wait on an extended warranty if I get one at all.

[Larry Edgerton]

I have been doing it that way for years with new. I narrow it down to three dealers, get ahold of them and tell them they got one shot and they are bidding. I send them specs of exactly what I want for options and Let them know I will not pay for anything else. Work trucks are work trucks. Best deal gets the sale.

Now that I am semi-retired I buy used so I actually have to deal with them in person, although I did buy my current truck, trading in my old one in WV over the net. I got there and the deal went as agreed. Was surprised.

[Stan Calow]

Andrew, was the exact vehicle you were interested in, actually available at all the dealers, or was it the same vehicle, just would be transferred from a dealer who actually had it on site? I ask, because when I've been looking at dealer inventories around here, (or called in the past) it became clear in many situations that different dealers would say they had a vehicle, but it was actually somewhere else. In one case, across the state.

In the context of the vehicle shortages of the last few years, I am wondering if this strategy only works if its a vehicle not in short supply.

[Andrew Joiner]

Andrew, was the exact vehicle you were interested in, actually available at all the dealers, or was it the same vehicle, just would be transferred from a dealer who actually had it on site? I ask, because when I've been looking at dealer inventories around here, (or called in the past) it became clear in many situations that different dealers would say they had a vehicle, but it was actually somewhere else. In one case, across the state.

In the context of the vehicle shortages of the last few years, I am wondering if this strategy only works if its a vehicle not in short supply.

I got bids from three dealers on three different vehicles, all base models.