tsxcurity

Hey everyone,

I'll soon be the proud owner of a new TSX at the ripe age of 22.... There's just one problem: I've never bought a new car before and I need some tips. I've gotten dealer quotes online for an '07 Auto w/ Nav and got 28,800 from Acura of Peabody (Massachusetts), and 29,250 from Acura of Boston, which is ridiculous considering it was his "special deal." I've seen some people on here talking about getting 07s with nav for 27,500. Well, you are the ones I'd like to hear from.

I'm no sucker and have plenty of balls when it comes to negotiating, but there are those few things I'm just not sure about, like, for example, destination charges-- Something I plan on googling/wikipediaing as soon as I finish this post.

Anyways, any tips for buying a new Acura would be appreciated. Also any great prices you've gotten that I can use as a reference would help a lot!

Thanks guys, and hopefull I'll be posting as an owner very soon.

Happy shifting

Don Hoagie

The basics:

- Find the invoice price (go to Edmunds.com).
- Find the customer and dealer rebates (also at Edmunds, and different depending on geography... is there still a $1000 rebate out there?)
- Find the holdback value, which I believe for Acura is 3% of MSRP.

MSRP minus profit margin to invoice minus holdback amount minus any rebates = "triple net", which is a zero profit deal for the dealer. Know what that amount is. Not suggesting you try to get that amount, as a dealership is a business and they do deserve to make some money, agreed? But if you know that amount, you know the range.

-Destination is not a negotiable charge. It's not really even a charge, but rather a given when buying a vehicle. Unless you plan on going to Japan to pick up your car, you pay destination. Dealers don't control this.

-Apply for financing online through a reputable bank (preferably one you have a relationship with, a la the bank who owns your credit card). Knowing the rate you've been approved for will keep the Finance office honest when it comes time to get you financed. The dealer can probably beat the rate you have, but unless you take it upon yourself to go out and get a competitive rate first, you won't know what you're entitled to.

-"Doc Fee" is the primary fee that people bitch about... every state handles the legislation of it differently though, so don't find one answer on google and think you've mastered it. For instance, in NY I believe the law is "no more than $45", whereas in NJ the law is "you can charge whatever you want, but you must charge every single customer the same amount". In most cases you won't want to negotiate this charge since dealers try so hard to make you think it's "built in"... just say you'll pay it and you want your vehicle's selling price reduced by whatever amount the doc fee is instead. If you decide to haggle about that part at all, which I don't necessarily recommend.

The point of the last statement is that if you do everything in your power to prevent a dealer from making money- to the point of being a horrible customer to deal with- they will find ways to get back at you, and rightfully so. For instance, maybe they give you the deal you want, but only on one specific car on the lot, which happens to be the one that has tree sap all over it or sat through 2 winters. Be aggressive when negotiating, but rational. Dealer personnel are human beings too... they appreciate informed, respectful customers.

Best of luck

Don Hoagie

(Yes, I just quoted my own post. Narcissism is a bitch.)

P.S.: A delightful anecdote to illustrate why you don't want to push too hard... this is from back when I was selling Nissans.



A guy was haggling so hard for every penny... past invoice, past holdback, etc. on the 2004 Nissan Quest, which he hadn't even test driven yet. 7 hours negotiating with this guy. Finally we're about to strike a deal (at a loss of $600) and the guy says "wait, what are YOU making on this car?" I tell him that since this qualifies as a "flat", I'm making $75 for my 7 hours of working with him. He says he wants the price reduced by $75. I tell him I make that $75 no matter what we sell the car for; that's the point of a flat. He says okay, then reduce it by $150.

We tell him that the only Quest he can have for $750 under holdback (the $600 we were losing plus the magical $150 he now wanted off the price) is stock#whatever, because it's green and we never sell the green ones. The real reason was because this Quest had a tranny issue where it never shifted out of 3rd gear. Of course he was blinded by price haggling so he didn't even bother to test drive it before signing all the paperwork.

So I put him in the car and he notices it seems sluggish... I shrug it off. Then he takes it on the highway the next day I guess, and calls me to say it's revving alot higher than it should be at 55mph, and that it doesn't seem to shift at all. I tell him that's what the Continuously Variable Transmission acts like on the highway, and that it's all for gas mileage benefits. Of course, the Quest didn't have a CVT.

So being the price-fixated jackass that he was, he just dealt with it being locked in 3rd gear from then on, and I never heard from him again.

1Louder

I used to sell Acura's back in the dark ages (1990-91). Don Hoagie hits the basics very well. I'll supplement with a few of my observations.

- Understand that no matter what price you finally negotiate someone else will get a better deal. You can't win there. There are differences in regions and dealer stock that will affect the bottom line, and there's a different story everywhere you go. A high-volume dealer in Southern CA will strike a different deal than Acura of Omaha that maybe sells 5 TSX per month on a good month. So be careful comparing what price others got. At the end of the day, the best deal is the one you leave the dealership with, not the one the next guy got. Use other people's experience as a bench-mark, but settle on a price YOU are comfortable with. All those research steps will help.

- Never, under ANY circumstance, get financing through the dealer unless you have the real-time ability to calculate loan payments. Buying a calculator that can compute payments would be money well spent if you want to do this at the dealership. It's a long story why, but a very standard tactic is for dealers to hide more profit by getting you to have the discussion on payments. You WILL get taken, especially if you are negotiating agressively. Negotiate purchase price only, and know what the payment is when financed. Lots of web sites can help on this topic too. I cannot emphasize this enough - young 22 year old first-time buyers get taken like this every day. If you're up for it, full explanation is below.

- In general, be reasonable. They're not going to sell for a loss, and it's unreasonable to expect them to. Research your facts, and come prepared to have a logical conversation. Have the deal you want in mind, and also decide how much money your time is worth. Is 2 hrs of non-sense worth an extra $250 off the price? That's an individual decision of course. I got to my desired deal with my Acura in two negotiation rounds (two trips to the sales manager) - about 60 minutes. When he saw the calculator and spreadsheets, they got down to business quickly.

- Normal things to expect: destination fee, title and licensing fees, paperwork/document fee. This last one you can mess with if you want, but that comes to my earlier point about how much your time is worth. Also, if you are comparing one dealer to the next, ask what this fee is! In Portland where I sold, our 'minimum deal' on an Integra was $X and the dealer across town always would beat us by $150. However, our document fee was only $40, and theirs was $190. Good thing to know about ahead of time.

Good luck!

The full story about payments: You negotiate a sale price of $18,000 which is the amount you want to finance. They say great, come back and show you three choices and ask, "which would you like"?: $597 for 36 months, $472 for 48, and $397 for 60. You pick one and off you go. Then you're in the finance office where they sell extended warranties, and behold you can get a great one for only +$5 more a month! Who wouldn't say yes, right? What you don't know at the time is each of those payments they showed you is $50 higher than it should be. This generates more cash in the principle amount - essentially they base the payments on $19,200 borrowed, not $18,00. But they don't tell you that. The warranty is actually $1600, but they've already set your expectation at the higher payment so a small increase is nothing you'd think a lot about.

tsxcurity

Thanks a lot to everyone who has responded...

There's a lot of useful information in this thread and now I'm much more confident about walking out with a good deal (and not the deal someone else got, as one of you put it).

Thanks again, everyone!

LoveMyTL-S

Wow! I learned something. Good luck with your deal........

Don Hoagie

To add to 1Louder's comments...

Regarding other people getting a better deal: that's exactly why I don't understand it when I see people on this board posting the deals they got or asking others to post deals. Besides what 1Louder said about differences in geography, time of year, inventory, etc., you've got the fact that very few buyers actually fully undersand the deal they got. One of the biggest obstacles in selling a car is when a customer comes in and says he/she wants to get a deal like their friend/brother/mom/babysitter got, which was $XXX/mo or $XX,XXX selling price. Unless someone on this board posts their ENTIRE deal, I wouldn't want to know their figure.


Regarding getting financing at the dealer: I don't disagree with 1Louder's precautionary comments, but I will say that you don't have to make things so complex with the finance office. Any bank who will finance you will tell you what your payment's going to be given the loan amount you're asking for... get your information from them, and then hit up the F&I office to see if their stats make sense. If the dealer's rate is lower but your payment is higher than the outside bank you applied to, you got issues. If the payment's lower, then the payment's lower, and that's what you wanted all along. And there's nothing wrong with making the F&I Manager go online with you to a site with a calculator and plugging the numbers in.

Oh, remember also that different banks have different fees. If one bank's rate is .05% better, but they have a $150 processing fee, then that cancels out the money saved on the better rate.

Point of all this finance crap is that it's a large part of the investment and should be looked at carefully... you can haggle all day over $250 on your car's price and think you got a great deal, and in one fell swoop in F&I you'll lose $500 because you didn't know your figures.

YoshiYup

Hi, I'm in the Boston area too. (I've been poking around the forums alot, but this is actually my first post!) I got an 06 TSX auto w/ Nav a year ago, at age 23. I didn't have a good experience with Acura of Peabody or Acura of Boston (the salespeople just rubbed me the wrong way I guess). I ended up buying at First Acura (Seekonk, MA). They're about an hour out of Boston, but they treated me extremely well, so they obviously deserved my business! If you can manage it, they're definitely worth making a call. I was able to get $28,500, and there were no rebates or other incentives available at the time. To be honest, it was the only dealer that had my color combination, but they really did offer me the best quote and were one of the easiest to deal with.

I completely agree with what the others said about securing financing. I ended up going with a credit union through my employer, and Acura's financing department couldn't come close to the rate (at the time). Also, I agree to be cautious if the dealer does calculate payments for you. They may get you the payment you want, but slightly extend time required. I saw with a friend while he was buying a new Honda, and they tried to extend the loan from 60 to 64 months. Four months isn't that long, but at, say $300/month, that's $1200! This tactic may inflate your final paying price without you realizing it.

Good luck!

TheDukeZip

If you go to First Acura in Seekonk, I highly recommend Mike. There is another salesman there I wouldn't recommend, but I'm not the kind of person to post his name here. You can PM me if you want more information.

YoshiYup

My salesperson was Mike as well! Small world

Nogard13

I don't agree with the ANY circumstances part. I used an online lease calculator to figure out what my payments would be if I leased my car and it came out to be about $7 less a month than what my actual payments ended up being. Obviously there was a hidden fee there, somewhere, that I'm not aware of but, to be honest, I can live with it. After all, I ended up getting free floor mats, free oil changes for life, and paid $250 under invoice for the car itself. Over the 36 months of my lease, that's only $252, which probably means I actually got the car at invoice after the hidden fee somewhere.

What I would say is just be aware of what you are supposed to pay. Make a spreadsheet with the info and bring in your laptop with the spreadsheet on it. There is a member here that emailed me the spreadsheet on how they calculate the lease payments and all you fill in is doc fee, dest. charge, price you negotiate, and money factor and it tells you what your payment should be. Just make sure that what's being offered by the finance department is reasonable.

Also, you should ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS negotiate the price of the car BEFORE you negotiate anything, including trade in and financing. Only after you have a final price will you get a fair deal in the financing department.

Good luck!

black label

The folks buying navi cars in the 27's live in an area where there is a dealer incentive on the car. If you're in the Boston area, this doesn't apply to you. The destination charge is a fact of life, there's nothing you can do about it.

Documentation fee's are different. Every dealer in MA is going to charge you one, but they vary from dealer to dealer. Peabody is just under $200, Boston is going to be slightly over $300.

Most importantly, don't negotiate like a raving lunatic, that won't help you.

bradykp

there's lot of information on here already about this. there is an old thread titled something like "what price are you paying for 2006 tsx" that carried into 2007 models.

basically, contact AS MANY dealerships as possible. send an email for a quote to every dealership that you can reasonably get to for purchasing the car. next thing, of the ones that respond with something below sticker price, call them, internet sales manager, and deal with him. don't deal with salespeople in the dealership, generally, internet manager can get you the best price.

also, unless you're in a rush to buy the car, be patient.


most importantly, search this forum for what to look for when you take delivery.


here's a quick summary:

inspect every inch of the body of the car for dents, scratches, chips, holes.

they drilled a hole in my front bumper to mount the front license plate holder. needless to say, although it is common, i thought this was ridiculous.

the interior lining of my sunroof was not aligned properly against the ceiling.

i'm also dealing with dents near my sunroof right now, which is causing paint to peel on the roof near the sunroof. if i had noticed these dents when i took delivery, it would have been much easier to take care of this at that time as opposed to 30,000 miles into the car.

basically, no matter how helpful they are, and how anxious you are, there are a lot of areas you can overlook, and they won't be helpful once you drive it off the lot. it's a sad truth, but i haven't encountered many people in metro areas that have dealership experiences where they took care of them and worried about loyalty.

bradykp

i disagree with your points. you want to negotiate with the dealer, but you just don't want to sound like a prick. ask the dealer to explain the fees, and explain why you're paying them. i did it, and they reduced my doc fee. i basically found a price slightly over invoice and negotiated that price at a bunch of dealers. they make plenty of profit on people who walk in and just buy, so they won't mind only making holdback plus a few hundred on people who are savvy and do their research

bradykp

also, try to find out who the high volume dealer is in your area. they have more room to wiggle since they move more vehicles. shopping at the end of the month is better than the beginning of the month. you might be able to haggle more for cars that are already on the lot, if they've been sitting there for a while

bradykp

i understand the guy was out of line haggling for every last cent, but does that justify lying to him and selling a car that is defective from the beginning? if that's something nissan supports, you won't ever find me on any of their lots.

TheDukeZip

The Nissan dealer I went to wouldn't let me test drive a car. The salesman e-mailed me a week later, and my reply was "Sorry, you weren't all that helpful at all, and I bought a new Acura this week instead."

I guess it wasn't all the salesman's fault. I overheard the sales manager yelling at him that he wasn't allowed to take anyone on a test drive until he sold a car. Pretty backwards if you ask me.

bradykp

most people who come to a discussion board are generally informed buyers just by the nature of the crowd these sites gather. it's people looking for as much information as possible. when we post our deals on here, we give a lot of information, including where we got it, terms, when we bought it, etc. we try to explain that beginning of month is different than the end of month, etc.

people take that information and it's another tool they can use to negotiate. we saw in the 2006 models that people in cali were getting the best deals by a couple hundred dollars. but we still got some good deals in NJ. people in new england had a tougher time due to the lack of dealerships and competition in the area.

always remember though, there may not be other acura dealerships in the area, but there are other companies all together, and you can use that as a bargaining chip too.

you guys, hope you don't take offense, but it sounds like you've been in the car sales business too long, and you're more supportive of them than the consumer.

the amount of money they make off you if you service your car there or buy accessories more than makes up from them making only a few bucks on the sale of the car.

bradykp

my favorite sales tactic is when the salesman says he needs to go talk to the manager, comes back after talking about the football game, and tells me he can't do the price. i've actually followed them when they go to "talk" to the manager. amazing.

i used to work in sales on a commission basis at circuit city, i know how it works generally. it's a pretty slimy business, and every penny counts.

davidspalding

Loads of good information in here. Something you might consider is ... subscribe to CONSUMER REPORTS online (sorry if this seems like spam). They have several articles about how to buy a car, test drive, evaluate, haggle, blah blah blah. They have loads of articles on vehicles, reliability, etc. It's worth the twenty odd dollars for full access to their reports, data, etc.

If you're buying young and new to it (first car purchase), why not look for a pre-owned, or even a dealer CPO (certified pre-owned). You will save a few thousand dollars, get IMHO just as good a car (if not better, as it's been broken in and any immediate manufacture issues may've come to light (I'm thinking something less reliable than Acuras)). I bought a 2006 TSX for $24,225 ... the money I saved is money earned. You might have to wait, or seach or something, but the money saved is not small potatoes (would pay for new rims, add-ons, etc, if you're determined to spend the moolah).

Another tool is to join Costco (or BJ's) if you're not already a member, and use their car-buying programs. (They have discount loan and insurance programs, as well.) Costco only has a new car program (except a used car program currently being tested out west), BJ's does new and used; BJ's also has a car buying service for 2nd tier "Rewards" program members. You can save some money AND headache by getting a car for a set, discounted price through these programs.

Have fun, and remember,... it's only a car.

If you do shop for a pre-owned car, use your bank's reps to look up black book values for any cars you consider. CR also sells used car price reports that tell you dealer, retail, and trade-in values for vehicles. If you subscribe to their 3-month (?) used car buyers kit, you get unlimited price reports.

bradykp

Also....i forgot to mention, for a few, you can pay someone to negotiate for you. a magazine, dunno if it was kiplinger's or money, recently reviewed a few services.

if you're willing to shell out 200-300, you'll probably get the price that you'd have to work hard to find. it saves you some time, and gets you close to the best price. i figure in the fee as part of the cost, and time saved.

maybe if anyone on the board has used such a service they can offer their opinions

black label

This only makes sense for those who are members of "the more money than common sense" club.

You already have a person who is being paid to negotiate the price for you, the salesman.

How much do you think he gets paid if you don't buy the car? In case you didn't know it's a big fat zero.

Every Acura dealer I know of has a base commission or the sales person is entitled to a percentage (typically 20%) of the gross profit, which ever is higher. I would assume that everyone who frequents this forum negotiates the price into the minimum commission pay. Once the sales person is at a mini and they have no chance of making a good commission through gross profit, they don't care about the dealership anymore, they just want the deal, they want you to say yes.

Essentially, once theyare selling for less than $1300 over the invoice (and how many of you would let the dealer make $1300 over invoice?), the salesman could care less whether it's $1100 over or $200 under, they just want it to be a price you will say yes to so they can get the mini commission and another unit for the month.

1Louder

I don't take it that way - we're trying to warn the consumer because we've spent time in the business. Dealerships are not in business to look out for your best interests. Every penny they concede in negotiations is one penny less profit. They'll fight for every dollar, and they'll use ignorance, hype and time as weapons to get it. However, just because they try to sell a car above invoice does not mean they're trying to rip you off or they are criminals. It's a business and they have a right to make a living.

Imagine if it was your car to sell - how would you react to a kid off the streets telling you they know everything about your business and your car and by-the-way your a crook for asking for a penny over invoice. Then spend 4 hours with that person to make $50. Do that 2-3 times a day, 6 days a week, 52 weeks a year. It's not excuse for salesmen behaving badly, but it's not an easy way to make a living either.

Actuallly at the dealer I was at this is not true. The sales department was different from service and parts. Each "ran their own business", so the profit from vehicle sales paid the sales staff. Profit from parts the parts staff, and so on. I was surprised that my sales manager could care less if I sold accessories, because the profit form them went to the parts department. We didn't get credit for selling them, or the commission. So the only person who cares about the whole picture is the general manager - everyone else was out for themselves. Money did not flow from one to the other.

bradykp

yes i understand that, but the salesman doesn't have the final say on the price in my experiences. the price the salesman gave me at a dealership, his finance manager superseded him and said no, he can't do it.

anyways, i'm just pointing out that there's a service out there if you want to spend no time negotiating but still want a good price. from what i've read in a few financial magazines, it's a good deal if you want to save time.

my personal opinion is if you do it yourself, you save the fee as well, as he'll probably negotiate what you could have on your own, but you have to spend time to do it.

i went to 3 dealerships, contacted about 10, and spent a lot of grief getting my deal. including getting screwed by one dealership. to me, paying $200 more for someone to do all that negotiating for me, would have been worth it. anything more than that though and i'm glad i spent the time.

time is money to some people

bradykp

i see your point at your dealership, but that's just a poor business model then. only the GM gets to profit from the big picture.

here's the thing i saw when i was a salesperson at circuit city, working on commission:

if i sold you a computer, i'd make about $10. the accessories, i made more money (printer cable was like, $7, discs were a few bucks, etc etc).

so i wasn't making a ton off each transaction. but i knew, that by spending that extra time with you, to make sure you completely understood the transaction and the product, that you would most likely tell a friend about me, or maybe 2 friends, or maybe 10 friends.

that's what people care about and that's how you grow a business.

guess what? i loved my salesman, so if anyone ever considers an acura, i would point them right to him. maybe he only made $50 on me, but if i send him a couple customers, and he gives them a similar deal from the start, he'll make $50 on them with almost no effort at all.

pretty good return on his investment of time with me.


see, that's the difference, where i come from, the dealerships valued loyalty, and took care of you. they knew you'd be coming back for service most likely, since the only other choice was a local mechanic, which isn't a bad thing.

they knew you'd buy their accessories off of them, and they'd make up profit there. dealerships, if they cared to, could clean up their image by letting the salesman in on the total piece of the pie up front. if i buy $1,000 worth of accessories because the salesman let me know about them, he should get that credit.

and maybe the salesman could take care of reminding me when i need service, taking care of setting up my loaner, etc etc, and get a small commission for that.

i don't service my car at the dealership because they are a rip off for one, and two, because they don't make the effort to make me want to come there.

pollofrito21

Lots of good stuff in here about what its like to be a salesman. I was in the business at one point too and all I can say is that I wish all these ball busters that argue doc and holdback etc would spend a few weeks on the other side of the desk they would change their tune.

No where else can you go into a business demand to see there cost plus incentives and demand that be reduced from the price.

In my store, if you even said the world holdback, id tell you to have a nice day. Not worth my time to waste 7 hours of my day for 75 bucks.

Its one thing if you want invoice for the car, you come in sign all the paperwork and leave in 2 hours.

But its the guy who fights for every penny etc that gets thrown out of a store.

bradykp

yet so many people that come in asking for invoice are given a huge runaround.

wouldn't it be wonderful if car prices worked like other merchandise for the most part? instead of letting dealers take advantage of people who don't care (i don't mean that in a negative way) and have to work with people that do care, why not just have a flat price somewhere in between and that be the price? would this just ruin all the fun for the dealerships?

davidspalding

That's what the BJ's personal buying service does. Club membership is, I think $100 a year (refundable later if you don't like BJ's, but check with www.bjs.com). The service is a benefit, no extra charge IIRC.

It took a year for me to stop snickering about the club's name. "BJs." Who thought of that??

bradykp

just as bad as dick's sporting goods.

but yeah, if BJ's does the same, that's great. i thought it was more of the case that BJs had a deal to get the car at a certain price, like costco does

davidspalding

Dick's Sporting Goods. Yep, we have one of those in the same mall as Bj's. Stop laughing, no really, stop your laughing, and get up off the floor and back in your chair.

I tried the BJ's basic program trying to find a CPO RSX before taking a TSX out for a spin (and looking at the numbers.) I called a number, told the rep, "I want a 2004 RSX-S, or a 2005 or 2006 RSX or RSX-S," they searched and came back with, for example, "We found a 2005 RSX in Burpfart, VA, Yankovic Acura. The BJ's program contact is Stanley Spudowski, talk directly to him, he'll tell you the BJ's member price. We found a 2006 RSX-S in Hawkenspit, SC, at Annakin Acura, the rep is Crispy Chris Critter." Couldn't give me the prices, I had to talk to the specified reps, who had the printed price list, which is supposed to be a discounted prices. No haggling, simple. With CR and bank black book research, it's easy to know if the price is good, or not. 5 minute phone call, deal or walk decision.

The catch is that only certain dealers have agreements with the club. So in my case, I didn't find a RSX in NC at a dealer who dealt with BJ's. There were a few in-state, but not what I wanted (CPO), or not at a discounted price.

The personal buying service is someone who goes out and finds one of the cars you want at any dealership, and if you're interested, talks/negotiates to the dealer to get a good price. I used something like this with my credit union in Houston to buy my new 1987 Wrangler, though that rep simply worked with dealers to buy vehicles at invoice price.

tsxcurity, you don't need to be near one of these club stores to join. Costco has extensive products and services available online. $50 to join Costco and you could be getting that new TSX at the Costco cut-rate (?) price tomorrow. BJs' Rewards membership is $80, and the service I'm referring to is called the Auto Buying Program Personal Vehicle Shopper. Their basic car buy program (what I described above) comes with the basic membership. Okay, enough hawking about these, you can get more info online. Happy hunting, got my fingers crossed for you!!

Nogard13

I agree, anyone coming in mentioning the holdback, thinking he's smart, will just get shown the door. Dealerships must make money and you have to recognize that. I got my car under invoice but I did it without mentioning the holdback and by just getting dealers to beat other dealers' offers. I was in and out in 2.5 hours (due to financing).

pollofrito21

HAHA this is the funniest thing Ive read today. Umm they are sold like other manufacturers goods. That thing on the sticker has an MSRP. Thats called the suggested retail price. Just like when you buy a pair of jeans. You cant walk into macys and ask them to take 20% off the tag for the jeans. You dont think theyre selling the jeans to you at cost do you? Who pays for the building, the lights, the workers etc? Theyre making a profit. When you buy anything at retail, you are doing that, paying retail.

People are so happy that they get a car for invoice yet theyre more than happy to lace the pockets of furniture salesmen, mortgage guys, matress salesman, realtors, jewelry salespeople etc who MAKE A SHITLOAD OF MONEY.

End of my rant.