What kind of experience did you have buying your new truck?
My Ram was the 5th vehicle I've purchased in my adult life and the third new one. I'm not an expert negotiator by any means, but I'm pretty confident I can go into a dealership well-informed and come out with a good deal. The first was a 2004 GMC Envoy I bought used in 2010. I traded that in on a new 2013 Subaru Legacy. Later in 2013 I cosigned with my girlfriend (now wife) to trade her clapped out 1999 Chevy Tracker with 197,000 miles for a 2006 Subaru Impreza. In 2016 my wife and I had a house built and I decided I needed a new truck for house stuff so we traded the 2006 Impreza towards a new Chevy Silverado. It wasn't my proudest moment because the impulse literally came from wanting to buy a table saw that afternoon and knowing we couldn't fit it in either of our sedans. This year I decided if I was going to be paying a nice healthy truck payment, I wanted to get into something I really wanted to keep for a while.
I was very particular about the options I wanted on my truck. I required that it have the ASG and that was a bit of a sticking point with the purchase because I didn't want to spend over $50k. Locally, there were only a few Limited's with that option. I could not find a Laramie with the ASG within 150 miles. The handful that were even farther than that were loaded with every other option too and had MSRP's closer to $70k. I looked into ordering one but the incentives on the 2020's weren't as good.
I visited a Ram dealer near my work and asked what they could do about locating one for me. The salesman I dealt with was pretty relaxed. He was straightforward about my options and didn't push back when I steered the conversation towards final purchase price and trade value of my Silverado instead of monthly payments. He offered a fair price for my trade the first time out and he found a truck I was interested in located at a dealership in Chicago that they could get and sell me for under $51k. It wasn't exactly what I wanted so I told him I'd talk it over with my wife and decide if we wanted to go for it. I found the dealership that had the truck and looked through the rest of their stock. Listed right next to the one he showed me was the truck I ended up buying that had every option I wanted (except the RamBox) and was the color I wanted for only a couple thousand more. I shot him a text and asked if he could get that truck instead and he told me he could.
Just to keep the impulse down and check myself before I got caught up in the first thing that came my way, I went to visit another Ram dealer that was closer to my house. Pretty much total opposite experience. That guy fit every stereotype of an aggressive salesman and my wife got quite a kick out of me telling her what his next trick would be each of the dozen times he got up to "talk to his sales manager." Extreme lowball on trade, very reluctant to talk about price instead of payment, casually asking for SSN to run credit without asking me to, arguing about the impact of hard versus soft credit pulls, said I was screwing over the next guy by asking for a higher trade value, absolutely without a doubt could not move on the price of the truck. He tried to impress me by saying he had to call his GM at home (this was around 8:30PM). The truck he located had a cheaper MSRP than the one I set up with the other dealer, but he wanted to charge a higher purchase price while offering 25% less trade value for my truck.
I was very straightforward and told him he was trying to sell me a truck I wanted less than the other one and that the only way I would make a deal with him is if he gave me a low enough price the justify giving up some of the optional stuff I wanted in the other truck. Several more back and forth's with him going to talk to someone and he told me he worked it out to beat the other deal. He thought he had beat it by $250 which was bad enough because I told him I needed a significantly cheaper deal to be interested. To make it worse, his didn't do the math right and was actually still $250 higher than the other deal. When I pointed that out, he argued that I couldn't do simple math in my head.
Of course this whole thing took the better part of two hours and we were ready to leave. While he was out on his final disappearance to talk to someone, my wife and I stood up and were waiting. I wasn't personally offended by the guy trying to make a living and I had every intention of at least thanking him for his time for the sake of politeness, but the last straw was when he came back and saw we were about to leave. He suddenly said he could make something work for a few thousand more off to get where we wanted to be. I declined and said he had his chance to make a deal earlier and we didn't have any more time to give him. He just turned to walk away and said "Ok let me tell my sales manager." I stood there dumbfounded for a second before my wife and I just walked out.
I texted the other dealer after I left and let him know I'd be in first thing in the morning to put a deposit on the truck in the morning. shortly after I put the deposit down, I got an email from the GM of the other dealership. They found the same truck I had just paid a delivery deposit on and offered me a deal that worked out to be about $3k less than the deal I had with the one I was at. I was willing to pay the extra $3k just to avoid dealing with them again, but I did mention it to the SGM. He didn't want to budge on the price and I didn't feel like pushing the issue. He ended up knocking a few hundred more off to drop me to an even $52,000 and that was fine with me.
I've never bought a vehicle that wasn't in dealer inventory before and all in all I'm happy with the deal I ended up with. I definitely knew I was not in a strong negotiating position not buying off the lot, but I was counting on the dealer wanting to add another closed sale to their quota without needing to make too much money off me. I'm sure I could have saved a good bit more on an in-stock truck, but it was worth the extra I paid to get something delivered that was exactly what I was looking for.
My Ram was the 5th vehicle I've purchased in my adult life and the third new one. I'm not an expert negotiator by any means, but I'm pretty confident I can go into a dealership well-informed and come out with a good deal. The first was a 2004 GMC Envoy I bought used in 2010. I traded that in on a new 2013 Subaru Legacy. Later in 2013 I cosigned with my girlfriend (now wife) to trade her clapped out 1999 Chevy Tracker with 197,000 miles for a 2006 Subaru Impreza. In 2016 my wife and I had a house built and I decided I needed a new truck for house stuff so we traded the 2006 Impreza towards a new Chevy Silverado. It wasn't my proudest moment because the impulse literally came from wanting to buy a table saw that afternoon and knowing we couldn't fit it in either of our sedans. This year I decided if I was going to be paying a nice healthy truck payment, I wanted to get into something I really wanted to keep for a while.
I was very particular about the options I wanted on my truck. I required that it have the ASG and that was a bit of a sticking point with the purchase because I didn't want to spend over $50k. Locally, there were only a few Limited's with that option. I could not find a Laramie with the ASG within 150 miles. The handful that were even farther than that were loaded with every other option too and had MSRP's closer to $70k. I looked into ordering one but the incentives on the 2020's weren't as good.
I visited a Ram dealer near my work and asked what they could do about locating one for me. The salesman I dealt with was pretty relaxed. He was straightforward about my options and didn't push back when I steered the conversation towards final purchase price and trade value of my Silverado instead of monthly payments. He offered a fair price for my trade the first time out and he found a truck I was interested in located at a dealership in Chicago that they could get and sell me for under $51k. It wasn't exactly what I wanted so I told him I'd talk it over with my wife and decide if we wanted to go for it. I found the dealership that had the truck and looked through the rest of their stock. Listed right next to the one he showed me was the truck I ended up buying that had every option I wanted (except the RamBox) and was the color I wanted for only a couple thousand more. I shot him a text and asked if he could get that truck instead and he told me he could.
Just to keep the impulse down and check myself before I got caught up in the first thing that came my way, I went to visit another Ram dealer that was closer to my house. Pretty much total opposite experience. That guy fit every stereotype of an aggressive salesman and my wife got quite a kick out of me telling her what his next trick would be each of the dozen times he got up to "talk to his sales manager." Extreme lowball on trade, very reluctant to talk about price instead of payment, casually asking for SSN to run credit without asking me to, arguing about the impact of hard versus soft credit pulls, said I was screwing over the next guy by asking for a higher trade value, absolutely without a doubt could not move on the price of the truck. He tried to impress me by saying he had to call his GM at home (this was around 8:30PM). The truck he located had a cheaper MSRP than the one I set up with the other dealer, but he wanted to charge a higher purchase price while offering 25% less trade value for my truck.
I was very straightforward and told him he was trying to sell me a truck I wanted less than the other one and that the only way I would make a deal with him is if he gave me a low enough price the justify giving up some of the optional stuff I wanted in the other truck. Several more back and forth's with him going to talk to someone and he told me he worked it out to beat the other deal. He thought he had beat it by $250 which was bad enough because I told him I needed a significantly cheaper deal to be interested. To make it worse, his didn't do the math right and was actually still $250 higher than the other deal. When I pointed that out, he argued that I couldn't do simple math in my head.
Of course this whole thing took the better part of two hours and we were ready to leave. While he was out on his final disappearance to talk to someone, my wife and I stood up and were waiting. I wasn't personally offended by the guy trying to make a living and I had every intention of at least thanking him for his time for the sake of politeness, but the last straw was when he came back and saw we were about to leave. He suddenly said he could make something work for a few thousand more off to get where we wanted to be. I declined and said he had his chance to make a deal earlier and we didn't have any more time to give him. He just turned to walk away and said "Ok let me tell my sales manager." I stood there dumbfounded for a second before my wife and I just walked out.
I texted the other dealer after I left and let him know I'd be in first thing in the morning to put a deposit on the truck in the morning. shortly after I put the deposit down, I got an email from the GM of the other dealership. They found the same truck I had just paid a delivery deposit on and offered me a deal that worked out to be about $3k less than the deal I had with the one I was at. I was willing to pay the extra $3k just to avoid dealing with them again, but I did mention it to the SGM. He didn't want to budge on the price and I didn't feel like pushing the issue. He ended up knocking a few hundred more off to drop me to an even $52,000 and that was fine with me.
I've never bought a vehicle that wasn't in dealer inventory before and all in all I'm happy with the deal I ended up with. I definitely knew I was not in a strong negotiating position not buying off the lot, but I was counting on the dealer wanting to add another closed sale to their quota without needing to make too much money off me. I'm sure I could have saved a good bit more on an in-stock truck, but it was worth the extra I paid to get something delivered that was exactly what I was looking for.
