My wife wants an RDX and I've finally gotten into the mix. Her best deal for a 2020 SH-AWD with Technology is $42,600, my best price is $41,942. She has an Acura trade in and she got $11,000 and I was able to get another $500, or $11,500. After incentives, tax, title, etc. her out the door price is $32,113 and mine is $30,874. Is there a better deal to be made?

I hate this process btw.

 

There’s a whole thread about “offers accepted” and you might want to check that. I think it gets a little confusing with various incentives, financing and trade-in but I got a slightly better price on an all cash deal 6 months ago, so I would think with the current apocalypse there should be a better deal to be had. It who knows - these are crazy times and nobody is behaving rationally. Could be car dealers are holding on to stock thinking the government is going to bail them out for all the cars they didn’t sell (and they might be right)....

 

Don’t drive yourself nuts.

you have the big thing right: the make and model of the car you want.

Get the AWD Tech, everything else are small details. At the point you are happy with the deal, make it and don’t look back.

 

I get it. The improved deal changed the monthly by a whopping $21. I normally wouldn't finance a car, but home equity loans are around 4% and I currently don't have one set up. I also don't want to take $$ out of the market at this time. I'm virtually all invested with very little cash. 0.9% is pretty painless.

I did read the other thread, but times have changed and I was looking for fresher information. The 2 dealers in town have about 100 RDX's combined. I have a client who is a Chevy dealer and dealers simply don't give cars away. Great deals are typically backed by the factory.

 

ETA: The only play I see is to wait until May to see if something changes.

 

Walk away and have them chase you down. It is close to the end of the month. Sales are WAY down. They need you more than you need them.

 

Wait it out. The ball in in your court. You have the luxury of timing the bottom.

 

A lot of info and it all may be true, but YOU should also have a number in mind that makes the deal work. Even in the current apocalypse rules market, you need to understand going in what's a good price and what you want to pay. IMO, researching dealer cost, hold back money, factory incentives, typical cost for your location, etc. helps you get to a price number. Then think about your financial situation and what feels like a good spend number. Is total cost or monthly payment more important? Have you done these things? I could be wrong, but it sounds to me like you're just looking for the "best deal", relative to the other deals. Are you going to know your deal when you see it? Good luck, either way.

 

I'm not sure how recent you are looking for as far as purchasing information, but I purchased 2 months ago...the deals should be better now.

My vehicle sale price was $36,514.40. The breakdown is on the Prices Paid and Offers Accepted thread, post #446 & #433. (I don't know how to post a link)

Like others have stated, figure out what OTD price you want to pay and keep negotiating. You should have the upper hand in the current climate, plus the end of the month.

 

I am looking for the best, fair deal. As I may have said earlier, I have a dealer as a client and I understand that they need to make a buck. My last purchase was from my client. They charged me invoice and took my car in trade. Because I had a copy of their general ledger, I traced my stock numbers through the general ledger and analyzed the transaction. Here it is:

Trade value and reconditioning expenses $14,429, sold for $17,440 less commission paid to salesman = $2,383 profit
Service department net income on reconditioning expenses = $427
Car sold at invoice - holdback @ 3% = $1,085
Gross profit on extended warranty - sales price of $1,664 cost of $1,164 = $500
Finance department net income = $382
Document fees = 250

Total income on my transaction that was sold at "invoice" = $5,027.

I'm not sure what a good number "feels like". I see above what my friendly client got out of an invoice deal, so I'm a little wary. Monthly payment doesn't matter - if the market wasn't in the tank I'd pay cash. As for my financial condition and what a good spend number is, I'm not sure I understand all of that. I guess great spend number is free. Somewhere between that and sticker must be the figure you are referring to.

So, today I went to CarMax and got an offer for my trade in. Dealer 1 offered $11,000, Dealer 2 offered $11,500 and CarMax offered $10,000.

Next I rode over to Dealer 1. I've honestly never seen an RDX up close - the car is for my wife. I run into the salesman we've been emailing and I tell him about Dealer 2's offer. He tells me that Dealer 2 is selling for under invoice at the price and I reply that Dealer 2 included a copy of the invoice and he's selling for the invoice value (before holdback, etc.). Dealer 1 is getting frustrated and tells me out of the blue that my wife has bonus points from bringing her car in for service and that this month, they are doubling the points - voila! - just found another $500.

Two things are driving my attitude and approach to this:

1 - The insight I got into the dealer world analyzing my previous deal.
2 - The claims of 15% discounts from sticker in the other pricing thread (I'll admit I am dubious)

I mentioned this site to Dealer 1, he didn't seem to know about it. When I told him about those deep discounts he said you're not getting that at this dealership. As I said above, he was getting frustrated and I sort of felt for him, he's probably late 60's or maybe just a rough life.

In any event, the salesman had to see another customer, wife showed up, we talked for a minute from the cars and then left.

I'm going to do some more digging and then possibly give Truecar a try. When I priced a Honda Pilot last year in Florida, the prices were $5K apart on the exact same car. One other suggestion from the guy at CarMax was SamsClub or Costco.

 

Best deals people are getting with the RDX is 10% off MSRP. Work off that.

You're over complicating it. Make a lowball offer and just walk away and wait.

 

Well, I gave TrueCar a try and Dealer 1 discount went from $1,395 to $2,421.

Dealer 2 must not participate

Dealer 3 100 miles away $2,084 discount

Dealer 4 75 miles away $2,844.

 

I probably am over complicating. I'm in the game that I really don't like, but I'm in it. I'm going to let TrueCar simmer, wait for whatever changes in May and possibly widen my search.

By the way, thanks to everyone for the input and advice! The stories of 15% off and now 10% off are what is driving this with me. I need to step away and get back to Quarantining!

 

Your trade in is what's holding everything up. Dealership dont wanna be holding any cars.

The only thing that should be discussed is out the door price. Dont be so committed to the RDX either. Other car companies will be giving out steep discount. Imagine getting a fully loaded BMW X3 for the price of a RDX.

Were only at the beginning stages of this pandemic.

 

My point was that unless you have some target in mind, how do you know when to say yes? Will you just ask all your options and take the lowest and assume that's a good deal? Even if you have a number like 10% of MSRP, that's at least a baseline target you can use.

And yes, people have received 15% -- I was offered 15.176% -- but, in my case, that's based purely on being in the right place at the right time. Asking other people what they pay is not usually transferable to your location or market situation.

I'll shut up now, but you should at least have an idea what people in your zip code are paying. Maybe TrueCar could help with that. Dealing with Costco will likely get you a good price, if not absolutely the best price. That might be a good compromise.

 

Look at out of state prices (TrueCar lets you put in a zip code). Many car dealerships will ship you the car for $500-800, which may mean you can still save a few thousand dollars over what your local ones are offering.

 

Buying a car can be a headache, and often get confusing.

If it were me...to simplify the process involving a trade, I would not concentrate on the discount, per say. I'd concentrate on the OTD price, on the same exact car of course. Get the bottom line from each dealer...that would include your trade, taxes, title, incentives they are offering, any fees the dealers are charging you, etc.

Most likely, they would all want to see your trade. (if they haven't already)

After you get their offers, then you can negotiate over the phone between the dealers.

I would have my own OTD price in mind that I am happy with and let that be your goal.

 

15% must be recent cause last summer most of us like myself only got 5% - 10% off. Time and place of course. Congrats I like hearing stories on great deals.

 

I think 15% is their Hail Mary play. I was at a store that was apparently desperate for a sale, at the end of the month, just as sales were tanking because of Covid. I got lucky. The only thing I did was not accept their first offer a week earlier; 15% was their second offer with 2 days left in Feb.

 

So much for going back to quarantine. I signed on to Truecar and used my Ohio and Florida addresses. I had to put together a spreadsheet to sort it all out. This is just crazy! Some of the dealers play the dealer installed option and fee game after giving an inflated discount.

The best I can do locally at this point is 42,800 out the door with Dealer 1 who dropped the price 1,000 using Truecar. That price is 10% off of MSRP. Now, the question turns to our trade. They originally offered 11,000 and Carmax offered 10,000. Will they stay with that value? There's also the $500 bonus he dropped on me in the lot today.

Some of my problem has been semantics. I was using total MSRP including delivery charges. I still can't get over the $6K+ discounts before rebates. That's crazy from what I'm seeing.

Thanks again for putting up with my rambling....

 

Tell them what specific build you want, don't pick from what they have on hand. They can get what you want or discount what they have to hit your equivalent cost.

I said that I wanted a 2020 Advance model, in Fathom Blue, with NO additional fees or markups; the MSRP +dest must be $48,925.00. I sent them pics of my trade and asked for a binding OTD price without trade, and a non-binding price with trade (contingent of them seeing it). Their first number without trade was comparable to another offer I had already. The trade value was low, so trade was off the table. (I sold that to We Buy Any Car for $1700 more). But now I had direct comparables of a specific vehicle. Tell them exactly what you want to eliminate random fees and markup BS.

 

I paid 37.5k for a 2020 AWD/Tech, at the end of February. That's a 13% discount from the list price of 43k, for that model. My price included a 1.5k discount for financing with Acura at their regular APR (5%, I think). I paid off the loan quickly so I didn't care about the interest rate. There are 3 Acura dealers within 20 minutes of my house so it was very easy for me to negotiate a decent price ...

I would clearly separate the purchase price from that of the trade-in. Unfortunately for you, the used car prices have collapsed so I'd expect to get 15-20% less than normal (e.g. KBB or CarMax value) for a trade-in. The dealers are all hungry so they very much want your business but they do have to make money somehow. I'd expect them to either sell you the RDX with a very low discount and offer you a good price for the trade in or do the opposite.

In any case, unless you need a car right away I'd definitely wait. I'm still getting emails from the dealers I got email quotes from, two months later!

Best of luck.

 

Yeah....don't get sucked into playing their game. Tell them exactly what you want and then ask for only the out the door all in price. I don't care what fees they add or what they call it. Just tell me how much to make the check out for and then you can compare. Trade ins always complicate things b/c you get a good price on either the car OR the trade in, but rarely both. Keep the deals separate. I found the best price out of state but actually did not go with Acura. I would not hesitate to go somewhere to get a better deal....the out of state was over $1000 cheaper. Local Lexus dealer did not blink when I tossed out a lowball offer on RX350. So if you have to have an RDX then you are more limited. Great vehicle, but my local dealers were not in the mood to discount at what I wanted to pay. In the end I would not go crazy trying to get the last nickel out of them.

Waiting is almost always better if you don't like the car or the deal. They make more and when the 2021 hit then the 2020 if available will be a better deal. Good luck.

 

Exactly. Let them massage the numbers any way they want. What you really care about is the OTD price, what you are ultimately paying.

 

And then watch out for the Finance Guy. Their last salvo.

 

Picked the car up this afternoon. Nice car, a lot of tech built into it. Another learning curve.....

 

Ask sensible questions here, and RTFM.

download the .pdf, and mail away for the print version.

there is a lot to learn.

 

Ask sensible questions here, and RTFM.

download the .pdf, and mail away for the print version.

there is a lot to learn.

Not sure what RTFM means, but I have a paper owner's manual?

 

RTFM= Read The Fxxxing Manual (Also known as Read the Fine Manual)

You can go to the RDX owners site and order a huge owners manual, or download it for free. lInk elsewhere in this forum, I don't have time right now to search for them for you.

 

Best wishes. What did you end up with?

 

RDX, SH-AWD, Tech, White with Parchment interior.

 

Big congrats. You wont regret it. Welcome to the fam!

 

Yes, welcome! I'm sure you're going to be going through the manual but here's a few things I'd recommend doing;

• Check your tire pressure. Mine came from the dealer at 40+ PSI. Recommended is 33 PSI.
• Make sure your map is up to date. There was a map release a few months ago and it's still not clear to me whether Acura even acknowledged it or informed its customers.
• Set your alerts. The RDX has a done of alerts for things like blindspot warning, and I think it comes from the factory with a lot of them set to Really Fucking Annoying. Check the menus and set them just as you like so you don't get irritated while driving.
• Adjust the sound system. From the factory, the stereo I think has an effect which many find to be not great. I think it's the 3D sound? Anyway, if you dig in the sound settings you can get them to your liking.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head, but there are a ton of little adjustments to be made and tips in all these threads here. Just read the manual, especially about the things you can adjust in the infotainment system, and you'll have the car working just like you want it.

 

edit: it’s the “DTS Neural Sound” I was thinking of. I don’t like it. Makes the music sound thinner and less bassy IMo.

 

What price did you end up paying?

 

$44,025 MSRP plus destination
- 2,083 Dealer discount
-----------
$41,942 = Invoice price
- 2,000 Acura Loyalty
-----------
$39,942 Price paid before tax, title & registration.

The price could have been $1,500 lower, but I opted to use the 0.9% financing.