I was wondering if anyone went through the Costco Auto Buying Program to purchase their car?
I am considering doing that for the TL, but I don't know much about it. How much over Invoice do you pay? Apparently it is a set no-hassle price. Will the dealer add in extras (like the trunk tray) with this, or probably not?
I am going to the dealership tomorrow to discuss this, but wanted to be a little prepared first.
Thanks for your help!

 

Basically, you'll be dealing with a "Fleet Manager".

I started my useful negotiations with it. It quickly got me off the "MSRP-only" deals, and gave me a ballpark figure of where the final price would probably be.

In the end, I beat the Costco dealer's price by a little bit. There wasn't much negotiation room here in Arizona back around December - I've heard that things are better now.

 

I just went with a friend to do the Costco thing with a Toyota. There is a straight forward, no negotiation price book that they immediately brought out. The truck he wanted was $300 over invoice with Costco pricing. Seemed simple enough, right? Well, we just happened to run by another dealer, and it seems that the first one never told us about a $1000 incentive that was available. In the end, the non Costco dealer saved him a lot of dough. It seems like a pretty good bet, but a decent negotiator should be able to get equivalent or better pricing on their own.

 

I called the Costco dealer when I was looking into a G35x. I basically was told that they couldn't quote me a price over the phone and they would look up the price if I came in and picked the car I wanted. It sounded like traditional sales BS to me.

 

It was not the best deal then but it was good enough for me back in Feb.

Every month, Costco will re-negotiate the fixed price with the dealerships that are part of the Costco auto program. In Jan 2004, it was $650 off from MSRP, but in Feb 2004 it was $500 off from MSRP for Navi model.

I was trying to the fleet manager to give me the Costco pricing over the phone, but they won't. You just have to go in and find out the deal is. And the price will be fixed then, I compare a 2 dealership that are both part of the Costco auto program and they both offer the same price.

I think Costco is pretty stricted about the program, if the dealership screw you over, you can probably complains to Costco and they probably will kick the dealership out.

It won't hurt to give it a try.