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Prices Paid: Buying & Leasing Experiences Mazda5 Prices Paid and Buying Experience
1119 messages, Last post on Oct 26, 2009 at 2:13 PM
You are in the Prices Paid: Buying & Leasing Experiences Forum. Your Hosts are car_man & kyfdx
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Replying to: roger24 (Aug 02, 2007 6:10 am) 
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Replying to: roger24 (Aug 01, 2007 12:35 pm) I'm in NJ and in the process of getting Mazda5 touring with AT too. I'd done 2 important things before I went to a dealer: 1. I got internet quotes thru Edmunds.com and received 4 offers 2. did calculations with price/destination/tax/fees for each deal(0%-36mos, 2.9%-48 mos, etc) for both Invoce and MSRP. Then I went to a dealership closer to the worst hill and requested a test-drive. I liked the car, so we sat to talk. They pushed for MSRP, but once I showed them 2nd from the best offers, they called a manager. We deliberated for an hour, I disagreed on trade-in value, way less than what I expected. At least it was my way out (I left, let them come back to me). I'm planning to go to the dealership #1 on my list and get the car. My advices to you are: do the homework and stick to the numbers you like, don't let them stir you to "how much can you afford per month" for example, or how about "X number per month". Check with your calculations and see how much they screw your pocket and then tell them "how about this number". You have to fight, since the money is coming out of your pocket anyway! Lastly, read tips from Edmunds regarding MSRP and Invoce. I hope this helps! Good luck!
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Have negotiated a price 600/ under cost. I am supposed to be picking up a 2007 Sport .. auto, pop.pkg, mats , locks and net for 17,955 plus TTL. Will be doing the 5.9 for 6 years. Was wondering if anyone was approached with bogus fees I should look out for in the financing papers ... i.e. bank fees, aquisition, etc.???  Please advise if you are aware. Thanx for all the posts. Feel free to comment on the deal as well. I had considered waiting but have contacted several dealers in NYC and 600 under was the best offer over the phone/internet. I went to one to close the deal, he vehicle in question was scuffed  so I decided to wait for them to locate another. The 08's are not going to be available until November as per MAZDAUSA. The financing will probably rise at that point -- if you know better please share.... So I will be picking up Tuesday, but am willing to make an educatd decision against if the facts are in my favor to not go thru with it. JJ |
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Got to work on answering my own post -  Lengthy but very useful information for your wallets. Glossary Of Fees you may see at a new car dealership: "ADM" or "ADP" Charges (Additional Dealer Markup) Bogus charges added by greedy dealers. It means "Additional Dealer Markup" or "Additional Dealer Profit", and appears on a sticker next to manufacturer's MSRP sticker. I call it Arrogant Dealer Markup. ADM is an artificial buffer to bargain down the price. If ADM is $1000 and you talk them down $800, you still paid MSRP plus $200 for the car! If you see this toxic waste, have them nix it. One buyer of a Honda Civic got the dealer to drop a $1995 ADM! But what if she had no idea what was going on? Advertising Fees Usually when you buy through discount sites like Cars.com, InvoiceDealers, Yahoo!Autos, CarsDirect, Edmunds.com, Autoweb, Autos.com and Car.com you avoid ad fees. Car makers charge dealers for regional and national advertising campaigns. These charges are reflected on the invoice and are a legitimate cost of doing business. This is where opinions differ, as I feel it's their cost of doing business, not ours. Tell them to pay your fees like gas, wear and tear, and your time for driving all over town to shop for the car. Many dealers are sticklers about this fee, and it's difficult to get them to drop it, but some do waive the fee. If a dealer adds on their own advertising fee above and beyond this, they are out of bounds. Dealers try to charge $250-$1000, but it should not be more than $250. You're not paying for their inability to find cost effective ads. $1000 ad fees allow the dealer to charge you a lower price on the car. You think you're saving money, but ad fees take it right back. This fee may also show up as "Sales Promotion Fund", or DAA, or ADA, or anything referring to ads. Edmund's says it's non-negotiable, but they are wrong. Anything in life is negotiable, and I don't give up that easily. What angers me the most is the cryptic way that dealers hide this fee from you by using huge acronyms, then playing stupid when you question it. "Duh, I don't know, we always charge this fee". A Nissan Dealer in Chicago told one of our visitors that they have to charge the Nissan advertisement fee and can't drop it or they can face a class action law suit. Nice scam. Where's my bull icon? Ford dealers use the cryptic term "FDAF/LMDA" on their invoice. "FDAF" stands for "Ford Dealer Advertising Fund", and the "LMDA" stands for Lincoln Mercury Dealer Advertising. Why can't they just disclose it as "ad fee"? I didn't pay an ad fee for my Lexus in 1998 or the Mazda Millenia in 1999. Honda add fees are built into the invoice price, don't let them charge you extra. Other companies choose their own cryptic acronym, like DAA (Dealer Area Advertising), TDA (Toyota Dealer Advertising Fee), HDA, you get the picture. If it ends with an "A", it's most likely an advertising fee. Speaking of advertising, dealers are neither grateful nor shy about plastering their name on the trunk of your shiny new car at a cost of $0 to them. You then spend the next several years advertising their dealership free of charge with your moving billboard. You should charge them a $600 advertising fee for that. "Dealer Floorplan Assistance" Fees/Wholesale Financial Reserves/Dealer Interest Fee Some dealers charge this fee, which is icing on the cake. Have them remove this insult. Dealer Floorplan Interest is the interest that dealers pay for loans to buy the cars on their lot. Usually the factory pays this as part of the holdback, itemized as a separate invoice item. Floorplan interest can cost $150 per month for each car. On an Eclipse invoice I have, the factory gave the dealer $185 in floor plan assistance, and the dealer itemized it to the buyer as a fee, double collecting for $370! The factory gives the dealer 1-2 months of interest. The longer the car sits unsold on the lot, the more $150 interest checks the dealer pays. They want you to "assist" them in "paying it", which is the factory's expense, not yours. Dealers know we are on to them, so some have changed the name to a confusing term called "Wholesale Financial Reserves." or "Dealer Interest Fee". "Dealer Markup Value" Fees in Hawaii Dealers in Hawaii charge a "DEALER MARKUP VALUE," fee of $1000-$5000 over the selling price. They claim it offsets "high" transporting costs from the US mainland to Hawaii. Our visitors have bought cars in Los Angeles and shipped to Hawaii for $895. If my geography serves me correctly, Japan is closer to Hawaii than the US, so it should be cheaper to send Japanese imports from Japan to Hawaii. I suggest you let them charge no more than $600. Dealer Prep The most common scam, because it's so believable. They act like a team of NASA experts performed a 3 day 15,000 point check of your car. Dealer prep "covers their cost" of removing plastic films on the seats, vacuuming the car, and preparing it for sale, done by their lowest paid employee. But most MSRP stickers show these costs are covered by the car maker. Here's the MSRP sticker from my Lexus SC300: See What I mean? The factory pays the dealer for this pre-delivery service. When my Lexus SC300 arrived, it took the dealer 2 hours to peel the film, remove cardboard, install fuses, check the liquids, perform a 10 mile test drive, and hand me the keys. If a dealer charges a $500 dealer prep, you're paying them $250 per hour! Are you boiling mad yet? Often it's permanently printed on the buyer's form to make you think it's mandatory, but nearly everyone I know is able to make the dealer drop it by adding a credit to the next line. If they refuse to remove it, just walk. Tell them you want to see if the other local dealers will drop the fee. Destination Charge Dealers pay a destination charges to have cars delivered on auto transport trucks. For my 1998 Lexus SC300, it's $495, passed on to us. This is one of the few legitimate fees. Verify the amount with online pricing sites before you go in to buy. Documentation Fees Expenses like registration, tags, title, and other state fees. Determine the fees your state charges before you go shopping. Call the Department of Motor Vehicles to determine the cost of registering a new car, and getting the tags if necessary. It may be cheaper to transfer the tag from your old car to the new one. Once you know all documentation fees, determine if the dealer is padding the charge. Have the salesman give a breakdown of every fee in writing. Drive off Deposit A bogus fee that greediest of dealerships pile on those with bad credit. The purpose of this fee is to steal your rebate from you. One reader had a $900 rebate on his car, but the dealer stole it right back with a $900 drive off deposit. What does "Drive Off Deposit" mean? Nothing, it's a meaningless term. If you see a drive off deposit on your worksheet, just drive off, no deposit. Window VIN# Etching Fee A stupid fee for etc |
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Cont. Window VIN# Etching Fee A stupid fee for etching the VIN# or other anti theft information into your side windows. It costs next to nothing for the dealer to do it, and the average fee is about $300. You can buy same kit in auto parts stores for $20, and do it yourself. Factory Holdback US auto makers pay dealers a "factory holdback" of 3% MSRP on every car sold. Mercedes pays 3%, Lexus is 2%, but Edmunds claims Lexus has no holdback. BMW, Japanese imports, etc., pay 2% quarterly to the dealership. It's called holdback, because the factory holds back money from the dealer until they sell the car. This is accounted for by charging the dealer for holdback on the invoice, paying them back when the car is sold. On a $30,000 car, the holdback is $900. This appears to you and me as though the dealer paid $900 more for the car than he did. This is done by the factory as a means to compensate dealers for interest on loans that they take out to buy the cars from the factory, and also to provide a little bit of profit to the dealer. The holdback is included in every invoice price. This is how dealers can sell you a car at invoice, because the factory refunds them the holdback once the car is sold. They can sell you a $30,000 car at invoice and have a $900 positive cash flow. Many people don't know holdback exists, including many car salesman, as this goes directly to the dealer, and it effectively reduces the dealer's cost of the car. Many dealers deny it exists, or tell the customer it's a dealer expense, and try to add it on to the contract make the customer "pay" for it. It's the factory's expense once the car is sold. Now the dealer is double collecting. If any dealer tries to itemize you separately for holdback, leave immediately, you'll surely be subject to many more unscrupulous tricks. Don't let a dealer tell you there's no holdback, it's the business plan that the whole industry is structured to. Denial is a popular trick used by dealers in Hawaii. But many good car dealers list holdback on their web sites. LieNance Managers That's my funny name for some Finance Managers who lie and cheat, for example, telling you that your credit score is too low to get a good APR, or telling you that the bank requires you to buy a warranty, gap insurance, VIN etch, or credit life in order for you to get the loan. Port Prep Fee or Port Installed Options (PIO) These are fees for prep or options installed at the port of entry by the manufacturer. For example, Toyota has a Port Installed Option added to the cars once they land in Florida called ToyoGuard, an extremely overpriced rubberized coating sprayed inside your wheel wells to prevent rust. Sometimes this adds up to $600 your Toyota. Some port prep fees might only be $25. VW in Washington D.C. seems to have some PIOs that are unavoidable too.. Registration Fees That's a tough one to determine, each state is different. There may also be small tire and battery fees around $10 levied by the state. In Florida, it's cheaper to transfer your plates from the trade-in to the new car, about $50 instead of $180 for new plates. Some states charge hundreds, so check with your DMV before going shopping. Print out the DMV fees online and bring them to the dealer. Quite often dealer charge up to $400 "document fees" supposedly to handle paperwork transfer of the plate, done by their lowest paid secretary. Give me a break. Washington Association Fee Buyers in Washington D.C. buying a Volkswagen said the dealer tried to charge a $175 Washington Association Fee claiming it was "the cost that the manufacturer charged them for doing business in this area". We don't know if this is a valid fee or not. It sure sounds like a bogus charge to me. Incentives: Incentives are used by the factory to stimulate car sales to unload inventory. There's 2 kinds of incentives: Factory To Dealer and Factory To Consumer. Factory To Dealer Incentives You and I don't know about these. Sometimes Edmunds lists them, but they don't always show all the ones available. Incentives can be huge, and reduce the dealer's effective cost to buy the car. If there is one available on your car, many dealers are willing to give up some of it. Factory To Consumer Incentives (Rebates) Rebates are paid by the factory to you, or the dealer subtracts it from the price. Some states charge sales tax on it. A common scam at "No Haggle" dealers is to charge lower than MSRP, (MSRP - Rebate), so you really aren't getting a deal, so ask if the price includes a rebate. Rebates can be $500-$2000 or more, and put you ahead when you resell it years later. The rebate is from the factory, NOT the dealer. Don't let them jack up the price "because we are giving you a rebate", the dealer has nothing to do with the rebate. The factory subsidizes lower APR leases and 2% loans in lieu of rebates, but you need stellar credit.
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Replying to: jojo718 (Aug 21, 2007 6:41 am)
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Replying to: alamocity (Aug 21, 2007 8:28 am) Side note --- If you do not reach the same final # as the F&I person using the finance calc., they are hiding fees and lying about it. They tried it with me as well. There are no other ways to reach a final # than entering the following information --- loan amount + term + interest rate = payment or any combination of the 3 to figure out the 4th. i.e. 5,000 loan amount 5 year term 4.9 % interest rate ( current Mazda program ) = 94.13 payment for 60 months/5 years you can multiply this in your head for ruff #'s when negotiating 10k = 188.25/mo 20k = 376.51/mo 30k = 564.76/mo etc. Figure 95.00 for every 5k you finance with good credit. They'll hate that you know this..... Too bad  As far as posting this in the smart shopper area??? Not sure where this is, please advise or feel free to repost. This is not about getting credit for posting as much as trying to do some good. Thanx for your comment. 
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Replying to: jojo718 (Aug 26, 2007 5:31 pm) |
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I boasted about the great deal I was recently given, it was at "Giuffre Mazda". I had told them they should expect many Tri-staters to see them after my write up. The power of positive consumer feedback can really bring them some real business. Not thousands of ads. Real buyers who were happy with the experience. So, the story unfolds. I was originally told they had Mazda5 08's in stock already, by the internet department --- LYE #1 When I got there they told me it was an oversite. They then had a 2 hour debate as to why I should let them profit "x" amount on our deal for an 07' Sport. I walked out and was chased down by the Sales Manager, let's call him "Iggy" for lack of real names. He told me he would honor the deal for $600.oo under invoice  5.9% for 6 years ( current Mazda program). I said fine, let's write it. The car had several scratches on 3 corner fenders-- not acceptable, looked like a bumper car. They then told me they would locate another one; I gave them a 200. deposit (bad move) . Iggy called me 2 days later to finalize the deal -- the car was scratched again --- only one side now, but deep. Told them I would let them try to fix it, but release my deposit. They did ( so, I thought) LYE #2 The condition was that the car look 100% new after the painting and I would still accept it. When it did return it looked as if they spent 20.oo on some spraypaint that had a run in the paint and looked like I had an accident before ever having driven the car, bumpy --- bad finish - I have pictures of this too --- We ripped up my contract. I spoke with another manager this time --- let's say his name is very similar to the nick-name we have given "coffee", rymes with Moe. Told him I would accept the other 5 'Touring' they had in stock in place of the original and I would pay the difference. "No Problem" as per this manager. LYE#3 This morning I recieve a phone call from IGGY stating that I can go "Ph k myself and my deposit was burnt". Those were his actuall words. I called VISA to fight this and also called the other Manager amd told him that "I am no longer in High School and don't have time for the "owner's son's attitude", if they want to deliver this car - keep him out of my deal and I'll pretend it never happened --- he told me he was aware of the problem and would call me back in 10 minutes --- never did. Waiting on VISA's call about my deposit dispute --- should have been released 5 days ago as per IGGY. I'm not writing this to vent, as much as to notify the on-line public, that "is as serious about buying a new car as they are about how they are treated during the process." about a Brooklyn dealer that does not deserve the opportunity to ruin your new car experience. Use your own discretion, I would avoid this place like a plague. Ultimately, I am taking this as a sign and staying with my X3 lease, never had a problem with customer service. "IF IT AINT BROKE, DON'T TRY AND FIX IT" Hope all the info I shared helps someone, or at least helps them avoid this type of treatment. ">
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