Well, think about it. No haggle has a margin built in to every vehicle. Just like a $130 air filter replacement (buddy texted me Honda “recommended services” list from this week—he didn’t haggle, he declined).
I’ve only purchased 4 vehicles in my life, from new car dealers. No experience with used car dealers, and all private party sales were 3 new was ordered, 1/4 was used.
In all 4 cases I negotiated. The Nissan and the Buick took 5 min each, no test drives. The BMW took at least 1 hour total and 2 visits. The Lexus was used and I got a minimal amount off—asking $14,700, sell $14,000.
Why did the Nissan and Buick take 5 min? Because I did all the back and forth at other dealerships, and reached the point where they said please let us know if we can assist you in the future. This means the price went below their price at which they were willing to sell me the vehicle. Usually this means they are confident someone else will pay more, or, that I will pay more when they follow up with a call in the next few days. I simply took the price and offered it on identically equipped vehicles on the lot, at the new dealerships. Offer accepted immediately. It was the same to them, a bird in hand in 5 min.
The BMW was totally different. Nobody had a car in stock in the nation. Only a stick and an auto for test drives. This is the E92 335 in October 2006. The forum said $0 to $1800 off list (I’ll get to why), so I simply offered $1800 off list which was not accepted. 2 days later got a phone call we have an allocation from a person who canceled and we’ll accept $1800 off. Bird in hand.
One week later I get a phone call “Marcy forgot the training and MACO fees (legit) so you need to come back and redo the paperwork for $1400 more.”
Go ahead and google training and MACO. Not sure if this exists in 2023, and BMW buyer can tell us.
I said go ahead and cancel my sale and give the allocation to someone else, I don’t go for that trick. They said it’s not a trick come in I’ll show you my screen. I said no thank you. So they left the order as is and I got the car nine weeks later.
When people say they don’t want to haggle, does this extend to houses and other dealings in life? Would they have added $1400 to a BMW purchase because the dealer “forgot?”
Haggle doesn’t mean be rude and disrespectful. It means to protect one’s interest, as I do care what others are paying. I want to pay less, not more. This doesn’t mean I insist on $86k out the door on a Rolls Royce, when that’s the going rate on a new Tahoe. It means if I know what others paid for a new Tahoe, I want to be at the low end of that range.