BEAR-AvHistory

Edmunds.com provides a lot of help in negotiation your new car purchase price. In another thread here one of the guys who is involved in a lot of posts did not understand how they get a selling price AKA True Market Value (TMV) to beat up the salesman with. If he does not know about it there might be others. I have been using it for years in the car buying process.

TMV is the average price that a car sells for in your region. And it is adjusted for options, the car's color and incentives. TMV figures are based on the actual sales of other cars of its kind in your area. The figure is then adjusted further for accuracy using sophisticated calculations designed by mathematicians at Edmunds.com.

Your enter the exact configuration of what you want to purchase including color interior etc. Its just like the “build it yourself” sections on the new car manufactures web sites. You will also be asked for your zip code.

This info allows them to generate the MSRP# the invoice# & what they call the “True Market Value”. The TMV is the amount other people in your specific zip code have actually paid for the car. This includes the base car + any options or packages so it can be tailored exactly to what you want to spend. You can take out or add in any available options to see how they effect the TMV. They also have info on any rebates or manufacturer money to the dealers.

In a lot of cases if you work for a big company they might have a buying service that does the same thing but also makes the deal for you with a local dealer. Costco, Sam's & a lot of credit unions also offer similar services. I bought a cars through both employer services & Credit Union buying service & was happy with the final cost.

A sample of Edmunds numbers for my zip code look like this for a base TL

Edmunds
TL Base

MSRP $36490

Invoice $34,017

Selling price $33,886 / $131 Under Invoice

Discount off MSRP $2604

mihink

you can do much better than 'tmv' imo. A few emails to the internet managers of local dealers will get you a great price. There is a $2000 incentive from Acura to dealer right now, plus a 'holdback of >$1000 as well.

So..only $131 below invoice is a terrible deal...as the stealership is making a killing on the consumer as the majority of the incentives are kept by the dealer and not passed on to the consumer.

A savvy buyer can ALWAYS beat the quotes from edmunds/truecar/etc. Those sites should be used to gain data on invoice/holdback/incentive/etc.

DannyZRC

You can do a TMV et al. deal in 2 minutes and get on with your life, and the price is generally well within the ballpark of not being worth hosing around with anymore.

g37guy01

^^^^This. For any car, spending countless hours at a dealership trying to get the last nickel out the dealer is pointless. You have to have a deal you feel comfortable with and you never know if you got the rock bottom price.

I did my research, called up the sales person and said this is what I want to pay for the car excluding taxes. He said come on down...I went down spoke to him he went lower by about 500 dollars from my original offer in two minutes and we shook hands. It doesn't have to be hard, one just has to be reasonable.

Rocketsfan

I used to think this, too, until I helped my parents get a new Accord last year. I think we ended up getting the car for somewhere around $1000 less than the truecar.com price (I can't remember, but it was a ton lower). It's not like we had to haggle, either. The dealer was willing to drop down. Another dealer dropped lower. We went back to the first dealer and asked if he could beat it and he did. So we bought it. It took just a handful of phone calls and 2 visits to dealerships.

winstrolvtec

In this economic climate, unless there are any special circumstances, invoice can be the starting point and then whatever incentives and programs there are. IMO that is a pretty fair deal, usually amounts to meeting each other half way on the "we're not making any money on the deal" and "I got beat over the head" spectrum.

There are many who shoot for just a bit better than that and personally, I do not think it is pointless to see how far you can go with it, that's a big part of the process for some and it could be considered the fun part but I do agree that there is a distinction between the TMV prices and going that far, which is still worth noting.

under9hell

I got my car 2.2k lower than TMV price on edmunds. It did take a couple days emailing different dealers, but to me it was worth the time. I actually enjoyed the negotiating process, helped my aunt got her RDX a couple months after that.

Treblig

Try the resources at www.truecar.com

under9hell

truecar.com pretty much gives me a similar price like TMV from edmunds.

For example truecar price for Houston is 33,167 for a base TL, edmunds' price is 33,940.

For internet negotiation you should look at invoice which is: 34,017 - 1,750 incentive = 32,267.
The buying price should be at that figure or a couple hundreds lower, depend on you.

BEAR-AvHistory

Wow, I am happy to hear that you all are doing so well getting below invoice pricing on the 4G. I posted about the TMV because I was told in another thread by someone who has very strong opinions about all things 4G that semi quote, “the supposedly slow selling 4G is not being discounted very much”

Agree on internet pricing. I get the TMV then contact the stores internet sales group & negotiate from there. I just go into the dealer to sign the papers. In a lot of cases the TMV is listed without the rebates or factory cash but they are always listed in the separate rebates & incentive section.

lji

The dealer will be more than happy to sell you the car at the TMV price. Truecar used to be real good until about a year and a half ago, but seems like they succumbed to dealer pressure (they don't show holdback and dealer cash now). I bought my TL SH Tech in Nov 2010 when Acura had a $3000 dealer cash on it and ended up purchasing the car for $36,600+TTL (invoice minus 50% of holdback money which is sacred to dealers). On road, it was around $38,500 with 0.9% for 60 months. Had I gone by Edmund's TMV, I would have ended up paying a lot more... I've also helped several others buy cars and I could always beat Edmund's TMV price.

Currently, there's $1,750 dealer cash on the base TL and $2,000 on base TL's with the Technology package. No dealer cash on SH models per Edmunds...

BEAR-AvHistory

Again happy to hear everyone is doing well on the pricing. Economic 101 will always suggest lowering prices stimulates sales. Can’t see any point in holding a price line if you kill sales.

Aaron1121

The dealers are getting a large amount of incentives - as shown above. I purchased a new TL with tech package on the last day of February for close to the same price as you were quoted without the tech package.

This is what I did:

-I got a free trial to Carwoo.com (but it's worth the $50 bucks) and received 10 dealership quotes. Most of them were cheaper than Truecar and Edmunds.

-About 2 days before the end of the month, I found 3 dealers that had given me pricing and had the exact make / model / color options that we wanted in stock. I called them and told them I wanted to buy a car on the last day of the month, and asked for the best price they could give me - which had to be below the lowest Carwoo price I already received.

-I got several calls from each dealer, undercutting each other, until we bought on the last day of the month.

The car was approx $6500 under MSRP w/Dest.

jjdrivesajazz

supply and demand

when i used to work at toyota, right after the tsunami last year, we sold for MSRP, not a penny less, we'd even install dealer upgrades like aftermarket navigation or aftermarket leather seats for an additional $6-8k

because of the lack of supply, and the 30+ customers that came in asking to check out the same car, usually prius or camry, it didn't matter to us that we didn't make this sale now, because someone else was going to pay asking price today or tomorrow, and that was always the case

but of course that doesn't apply to honda/acura currently

BEAR-AvHistory

^^^

Yeh, BMW did that with the 1 series 1M's because there were only 600 or so made & it was sold out before it was released.

winstrolvtec

It depends really, most here got the TL model year 09-11 so things were a bit worse with the industry as a whole then and there is the issue of timing and of course, supply and demand. Sometimes it should be judged on a case by case basis as well.

The 2012 was barely discounted until recently due to supply issues and possibly because of the early mid model change. This time last year when the 2012 came out $1 above invoice was a considered a lot and hard to come by with invoice being nearly impossible, as a whole. That really hasn't changed much until the past holiday season where early clearance usually begins, incentives went up and in the TL's case, supply picked up. I think Feb was the first significant increase in refreshed TL's sales since it came out compared not only to itslef but to the previous model years.

docboy

FWIW, I was one of the very first one to buy the TL 6MT when it was first released. The dealership I went to had 4 ordered. 2 were already presold (presumedly at full MSRP). My came full decked with 19" HPT, spoiler, splash guards, trunk tray, wheel locks, blah, blah, blah. Needless to say I wasn't much in a negotiation position and the dealership wouldn't budge from MSRP. I loathed the 09 Lexus IS 250 AWD I had recently purchased, so I bit the bullet.

Also FWIW, I checked out a few 2012 TL, RDX, and MDX a few weeks ago at a local Acura dealership. All three models were going for full MSRP plus an additional "market adjustment of $1,500-$3,000

As negative the 4G TL have been labeled on Acurazine (at least its exterior design), the TL is being marketed here in the Seattle area with an additional "market adjustment." IMHO, this suggests the demand of the local market here is outpacing supply.

That's awesome. Post like this made me wish I bought out of state AND that I should have waited for a few months after the TL 6MT was released.

BEAR-AvHistory

^^^^

You always pay through the nose to be the first on the block and pricing is always regional.

It would be interesting to see what the buying services currently show for the Seattle area vs. Raleigh.

My BMW dealer is also one of the two area Acura dealers, the other dealer also sells both & the TL is discounted by them with $2000 dealer cash & .9% interest