I recently bought a new car. It was actually a pretty nice experience, but in the end, it always comes down to the negotiation.
The salesman did his job, which was to try to convince me that I should pay more for the car. I did my job which was to pay as little as I could.
The transaction involved a lease. Leases can be complicated. There are residuals, money factors and all sorts of other calculations necessary to figure out what you’re really paying. Not just what you’re paying, but what you’re paying for.
For instance, fancy terms like lease acquisition fee (profit for the bank) and capital cost reduction (down payment) can attach to hard-to-decipher numbers.
So right off the bat, my iPhone’s calculator came in handy. As the dealership offered numbers, I plugged in formulas I’d already worked out to help me decide whether or not the deal was fair.
But the real help came in form of the e-mails that the dealership and I had sent back and forth, as well as access to the Web.
I had pre-loaded Edmunds.com as well as ConsumerReports.com onto my iPhone’s home page and had both up and running at the dealership when I walked in. When I was presented with a fact, I’d verify it online. When I needed to counter, I’d just hand the salesman my iPhone and tell him to look at the data for himself.
When the dealership changed the original offer they sent me via e-mail, I simply called up the old e-mail to remind them what had been said, and which way the deal needed to go if we were going to agree.
Having this information available to me at my fingertips was incredibly beneficial. In the past, I’d have to make print outs of this stuff from the web and hope for the best. In this case, I had real-time information and it saved me a bunch of money.
At the end of the day, I saved $5750 by using my iPhone as a negotiating tool. I more than paid for the phone and AT&T service that I’ll use over the next two years in one two hour session.
So take your iPhone with you the next time you plan to buy a car. You never know how much you might save.
Scott, I think you missed an opportunity here. I would have really like to watch you negotiate a car price, might have even paid to watch.
You’ll have to post some iPhone photo’s of your car for all of us to gawk at.
I bought my car a month before the iPhone came out. I just bought a Scion (fixed (no, really it’s fixed) pricing. But I can really see doing what you did.
I did the same thing once at Best Buy but end up not having a problem.
Ha Joe - I can’t see the dealership being too excited about that idea - moreover - I certainly would have paid more. They wouldn’t have wanted to let anyone see me getting a deal
I had a similar experience last December when I picked up a new Ford Edge (wanted a car with Sync and that big panorama sunroof).
Having email, text, web all in my palm let me look things up or send a quick message to a friend to validate things being negotiated. Most could be done with any current phone and printing out the web pages you want before going, but that ability to get a real web page at a moment’s notice in a relatively big and bright screen is a bit of an edge.
I had a similar experience at Best Buy buying a new big screen television. I found the set I wanted, looked it up on Circuit City’s web, showed my salesman that CC had the same model for $100 less, and got the price difference and then some taken off the bill for my efforts. Circuit City price exchanged an item on me under similar circumstances as well.
I think retailers are going to start hating the iPhone if we keep beating them at their own games using them.
Scott,
Interesting story. You should try a completely different strategy. My professional services company has purchased 3 cars in the last 9 years. We change the purchasing dynamics. Instead of schelpping our butts to their offices, we turn the tables. After figuring out what car and options we want, an RFP is FAXed to dealers within a 100 mile radius of San Jose, CA. The RFP spells out the model and options wanted. Usually, 33% don’t respond, 50% try to cram whatever non-conforming vehicles is on their lot into a sale. That And as leaves about 20% of dealers who try to make a deal.
The key here is *changing the rules*. Car salesmen are the best sales pros on earth. Change the dynamic and they are toothless and clawless. That’s why half of them vanish when they actually have to compete for business.
Enjoy your new car. And file this away for the next time.
Mark
Thanks Mark - but I am not willing to drive 100 miles to pick up my car or have it serviced. I bought a high-end luxury car so there were factors in play other than price.
And I did change the rules by spending most of the week negotiating via e-mail and then, bringing the Web and those e-mails into the dealership.
I’m very confident that I got a great deal. I do agree with you that changing the rules is important, and in this case, the iPhone helped me do just that.