Are these "we want your car" offers from dealerships legit?

[Scir16v]

Originally Posted by tracerit

I have a 2013 brz now and will be taking over a 2018 Accord touring the next month. I've thought about keeping the brz still since I love driving it but kinda don't want to have two cars.

The plan is to sell it privately but it has a timing cover seepage still that I'm sure will bring the price down. I was hoping that if I bring the car to the dealership, maybe they'll give me a better offer as they can just fix it up in house and refurbish it for sale.

Don't know what the offer is yet, I'll part the car out then bring it in. I'm sure the offers are to just get me in the door to buy a new car, which j MIGHT as the new Forester looks interesting. But it's unlikely.

You do know that there is a coming recall on the valvesprings? They have to reseal the timing cover as it has to come off to get to the valvesprings.

[tracerit]

Appreciate all the responses everyone. I was hoping the dealer would just buy my car off me, but now that it seems they're most likley just using it to get me to buy a new car, I'll focus on private party when that time comes.

Originally Posted by Scir16v

You do know that there is a coming recall on the valvesprings? They have to reseal the timing cover as it has to come off to get to the valvesprings.

whoa... this is huge if true. thanks for the heads up!

[extrashaky]

Originally Posted by Scir16v

You do know that there is a coming recall on the valvesprings?

Originally Posted by tracerit

whoa... this is huge if true.

It is true, but it's not really that huge. It only affects certain cars built during 2012 and 2013, and so far there have been fewer than 100 actual failures spread across all the models affected.

Toyota and Subaru Recall More Than 400,000 Vehicles Over Engine Issue

Some date ranges and VIN ranges have been published for the affected vehicles, but apparently what's being reported isn't entirely accurate. You have to check your VIN in one of the recall sites. The recall is already in the NHTSA database, so you can enter your VIN here to find out if your car is subject to the recall:

https://vinrcl.safercar.gov/vin/vinLookup

Some people have had some trouble with that site. Be sure you enter your entire VIN. Subaru and Toyota also have their own recall pages:

https://www.subaru.com/vehicle-recalls.html

https://www.toyota.com/recall

[Leonardo]

That Worked. It says mine is one the ones....


The wording Toyota.com uses and the language the service guy at my dealership just used are totally different.


"Toyota is currently preparing the remedy for this condition. When the remedy becomes available, Toyota dealers will replace the engine valve springs with new ones of an improved design FREE OF CHARGE."




"We are waiting for Toyota to figure out what they are doing. There is nothing we can do"




I mean, I understand... I was just hoping for a little bit of reassurance.

[NCtoBRZ]

Originally Posted by Leonardo

That Worked. It says mine is one the ones....


The wording Toyota.com uses and the language the service guy at my dealership just used are totally different.


"Toyota is currently preparing the remedy for this condition. When the remedy becomes available, Toyota dealers will replace the engine valve springs with new ones of an improved design FREE OF CHARGE."




"We are waiting for Toyota to figure out what they are doing. There is nothing we can do"




I mean, I understand... I was just hoping for a little bit of reassurance.

The “language” is actually in agreement... Toyota says they are still preparing the remedy and your dealership says that they are waiting on Toyota to prepare the remedy... what more do you want them to say?

[DarkPira7e]

I hope everyone knows that while there is price gouging on trade in/buyout on a used car, it's not like they can pay commission to the salesmen and cost for dealership building maintenance out of thin air. Some people privately list their houses for sale to avoid the "insane" commission fees, it's the same thing. I don't condone thievery, but there's reason.

[Leonardo]

Originally Posted by NCtoBRZ

The “language” is actually in agreement... Toyota says they are still preparing the remedy and your dealership says that they are waiting on Toyota to prepare the remedy... what more do you want them to say?

I said I understood that. And I already stated what more I wanted: reassurance.


The language I'm talking about is "reassuring language".
The dealership where I purcased my car new was anything but reassuring on the phone.

Toyotas language is reassuring "REPLACE FOR FREE"

But, hey this is a forum, and your car is not part of the recall...

[extrashaky]

Originally Posted by Leonardo

I mean, I understand... I was just hoping for a little bit of reassurance.

Apparently there's already a procedure floating around for the replacement, but they haven't put a plan in place yet for actually handling the logistics of informing the people affected, scheduling their visits to the dealership, providing loaner cars, sourcing the parts and getting them in place, etc. It will take some time to put it all in place.

Your assurance is that failure is very rare (a small fraction of a percent), so your engine isn't likely to explode while you're waiting. Even if it did, you'd just go to the front of the line for getting it fixed. Relax. They'll take care of it.

Originally Posted by DarkPira7e

I hope everyone knows that while there is price gouging on trade in/buyout on a used car, it's not like they can pay commission to the salesmen and cost for dealership building maintenance out of thin air.

Not my problem.

The car salesman's job is to separate you from as much of your money as possible, well above what it takes for the dealership to break even. It's your job to keep as much of your money as possible. They won't sell you the car if they're going to lose money on it, and the salesman has much better info than you do on where the break-even point actually is (asymmetric information). Thus it's simply not possible for the buyer to screw the dealership or the salesman on a car deal.

It's just business. You have to take the emotion out of it. There's no reason at all to worry about whether they can keep their lights on. It's not as if you will ever have the salesman over a barrel, taking food from his children's mouths because you didn't accept his lowball offer for your trade.

[DarkPira7e]

Originally Posted by extrashaky

.


The car salesman's job is to separate you from as much of your money as possible
It's just business. You have to take the emotion out of it. There's no reason at all to worry about whether they can keep their lights on. It's not as if you will ever have the salesman over a barrel, taking food from his children's mouths because you didn't accept his lowball offer for your trade.

Haha I know, I'm just saying that there's causation beyond only being sheisters

[NCtoBRZ]

Originally Posted by Leonardo

I said I understood that. And I already stated what more I wanted: reassurance.


The language I'm talking about is "reassuring language".
The dealership where I purcased my car new was anything but reassuring on the phone.

Toyotas language is reassuring "REPLACE FOR FREE"

But, hey this is a forum, and your car is not part of the recall...

Yes, you said you wanted “reassurance”, which was an incredibly vague thing to say. So based on your comment above, the reassurance that you want is that it will be free... recalls have to be performed for free as they are related to safety issues. I hope that was reassuring enough for you.
No, my car was not affected by this particular recall, but I’ve had a number of recalls performed on previous cars that I’ve owned and I never started panicking and calling the dealerships demanding comforting words. I just waited for the letter to show up in the mail and then scheduled the work to be done with the recall letter in hand.

[Leonardo]

Originally Posted by NCtoBRZ

Yes, you said you wanted “reassurance”, which was an incredibly vague thing to say. So based on your comment above, the reassurance that you want is that it will be free... recalls have to be performed for free as they are related to safety issues. I hope that was reassuring enough for you.
No, my car was not affected by this particular recall, but I’ve had a number of recalls performed on previous cars that I’ve owned and I never started panicking and calling the dealerships demanding comforting words. I just waited for the letter to show up in the mail and then scheduled the work to be done with the recall letter in hand.

Thanks for the reassurance.

[Tiberium]

yes it's legit. The dealer wants to buy your used car so that they can hopefully sell it to someone for a profit. Duh. That's how they make money. They get used cars by trade ins, auction purchases, buying cars from other dealers that don't want certain models and by customer curb buys. Most used car managers would love to pick up a quality used car to resell. Don't expect the same treatment for your 1999 buick with 250k. Almost no one wants that POS

[bcj]

I got the same buy back offers on my 157k '95 Dodge Caravan when it was 15 years old.

They think I don't buy enough new cars. Proof I'm a slacker.

[Irace86.2.0]

My friend was able to get retail value for a trade in on a pristine truck, so he could get the payments "right" on a new truck. They didn't start their offer at retail value, nor did the price of the new truck or the interest rate on the loan start out as good as it finished.

The key is to say, "I'm not a buyer at that price." Their ears immediately hear that and translate it to, "I'm willing to buy today if the deal is right." This tells them that you have money or are confident in financing and that you like the vehicle.

At some point you can regress if they aren't sweetening the deal enough by saying, "Hmmm, maybe I need to do some more research." It needs to be ambiguous like you went from wanting to buy to unsure if this is the car for you. This might put them in a panic mode thinking you may walk out, so they are more aggressive with sweetening the deal. They will want to quickly get you back on the path to a sale.

You have to be willing to walk away. "Can we schedule this for a later date? I have an engagement this evening that requires some preparation." Again, this gets them in panic mode because they had a potential sale today who is going out the door, and the statistics on returning are poor, so they know they need to act fast with a good offer.

it is a game that can be in the favor of the customer if they know what they are doing. it is good to know where they make their profits. Sometimes it is on the price of the vehicle, sometimes it is on fees/gap, sometimes it is by adding interest on the loan (they say the bank can finance at 4% when they really can do it at 2%, but the plan is the dealer is tacking on 2% for themselves), sometimes it is extended warranties or service agreements.