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Prices Paid: Buying & Leasing Experiences Mazda3 Prices Paid and Buying Experience
3654 messages, Last post on Sep 04, 2008 at 7:37 AM
You are in the Prices Paid: Buying & Leasing Experiences Forum. Your Hosts are car_man & kyfdx
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Replying to: lex_kolt (Dec 13, 2005 7:41 am) Using Mazda.com I did 150 mile radius search on my zipcode(07410) for manual and no matches came up. Let me know if you find something. I was only looking for a 3 s Touring 5-door Manual (more common than GT) in Titanium Gray and there were none within 150 miles of Atlanta, either. I just started picking cities several hours away and got lucky with Knoxville, TN. They had exactly what I wanted and gave me a great deal. I'm driving three hours on Thursday to get it. |
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I'm looking at the 3 i but I want power locks and power windows. Does anyone know if you can add this as an optional add-on or do you have to move up to the 3 i touring? If you can add it would it be worth it to do so or just easier to start looking at the i touring instead?
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Replying to: buyer5 (Dec 13, 2005 7:08 pm) The only individual options on the base model are A/C, ABS/side airbags, "appearance packages", 6CD Changer and Sirius radio. You can't get power windows or locks. That's the purpose of the Touring model- to package all the power/comfort items together. It's worth the extra cash. You'll especially appreciate it at trade-in time.
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Replying to: user1235 (Dec 01, 2005 12:50 pm) Selling Price $19,500 documentation 45 state tax 1514.74 state tire fee 8.75 TT&L 186 zoom-zoom coupon -500 (upon presentation) "out the door price" $20,754.49 I studied it again and dont understand what exactly is in this documentation fee...and why it is taxable?  I download carbuyingtips website's offer spreadsheet and they somehow calculate differently....any use that one before? It seems like they add and subtracts everything before tax it. Anyway, I think this price is ok...I dono if there is any factory to dealer incentives right now, so its a good price in a way. I tried to appy for E-loan but get rejected..ppl work there told me I have little credit history and working history is too short as well. I guess I will be taking loan from dealer in this case. Anyone has good strategy to negociate APR on loan? Seems like they can rip me off more on this step since I wont be going there with any pre-approved loands.
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Replying to: allfiredup (Dec 13, 2005 7:20 pm) |
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I would - at the very least - go to the bank where you have your checking account and have them give you an interest rate. Going in to the dealership with no options is never a good idea. I would also ask the bank what your credit score is - before they will give you an interest rate they should know your score - but they may not give it to you. You can go to this site https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp You can get a free copy of your credit history - from each of the 3 major rating companies - it sounds like you don't have a very long history - but you will be surprised by the amount of data that they will have. You can also purchase the credit score from the rating agency - not sure I would do that - but that is your choice - the credit score will be used to determine your interest rate. The higher the number the lower your interest rate will be. One trick that many dealerships use - real under handed scam - is they have you fill out the loan application - then go off for 45 minutes or so to check your credit - (it really only takes 5 minutes to pull the credit score) - when they do finally return they have your application - and in red they write a number - 545 maybe - they say you don't have a very good score - but they will work real hard to GET YOU FINANCED. They make it sound like they will be doing something extra - JUST FOR YOU - HELPING YOU OUT - then they make you sit there for an hour or so while they go off and eat lunch or tell jokes - you see they knew what interest rate they could give you as soon as they ran the credit report - the reason they make you wait - play these games is simple - they want you to pay them more. When they do come back they will say - it was hard to do - because you have such a low credit score - but we can get you a rate of - $#  #%$%! They may also say - we can get you financed - but the finance company will only do the loan if you also buy the extended warranty - they care about you so much that they don't want you to be stuck with a high repair bill - or maybe they will say that they want the warranty to cover the whole term of the loan (5 years? - the normal warranty is only 4) - they will be happy to just include that in on the loan! Think about it - if you have weak credit - and the loan company wants to loan you MORE money - then something smells bad. That is just not the way loan companies think. BTW - I would pass on the extended warranty -
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Replying to: z71bill (Dec 13, 2005 7:43 am) This approach works very well. Just call up all of your local Mazda dealers and ask the operator for the name and fax number of the Sales Manager. Then fax that person a request for a price quote, including all of the details of the car that you are looking for. Then just sit back and wait for the phone calls. I took the top three offers and started playing them off of one another. When I felt that I wasn't going to get any further I went to the lowest bidding dealership to sign the papers. I walked out with a car for $500 under invoice. I paid cash and had no trade-in, so they made no money on be through those methods. I didn't use any coupons or rebates either. I spent a total of about 2 hours on this purchase, including sending the faxes and signing the papers at the dealership. The moral of the story is this: cars are a commodity, and you should get as many dealers as possible to compete to sell you one. I recommend the faxing approach to anyone who wants to spend as little time and effort as possible shopping for a car but wants an excellent deal. |
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Replying to: newstoyou (Dec 04, 2005 10:20 am) I orginally wrote about a dealer finding a M3GT/manual outside of my market...and a local dealer offering to retrieve one with a non-refundable deposit attached. Jeff Haas Mazda/Houston left me hanging a little too long. So...I found the car, in question, and went to that dealer (2-hours away. No Big Deal) and dealt with them, directly. Atzenhoffer Mazda/Victoria sold me the car for $1000 less than Haas offered. It was Built Like This: Titanium M3GT/Manual/Sunroof/Bose/aluminum fuel door/spoiler/wheel locks $20,245 + TTL OTD. Very easy to deal with. Car's Great. |
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Replying to: socalgirl01 (Dec 13, 2005 10:42 pm) Your own bank is also a great idea. Definitely check with them, too. Be careful about letting too many people check your credit, though. Have you tried locating the car using MazdaUSA website? It will let you search inventory up to 150 miles from your location. That's how I found mine three hours away. Good luck to you! |
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Replying to: z71bill (Dec 14, 2005 7:23 am) I actually know my credit history and score very well right now because I just enroll a credit monitoring service and therefore get a credit report that come with it...its a 3-in1 report from all three major credit rating company. My score is somewhere in the middle 600s. Any idea what interest rate I should be expecting with that score? So since the dealer really know what they can get for me right the way after pull my credit report, should I just let them know that I know how it works and I know my credit very well already to make them move faster? or...i hope that can get them move faster and get to the point quick instead of hang out and have coffee I did check with my bank, the first place i thought of checking..but they dont offer auto loan 
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