Adrian Helps In Car Shopping, Round 3

Aug 28, 2010

Current mood:focused

During the last round of car shopping my sister Melanie said she wasn’t crazy about how small the Ford Fiesta was, and would talk to the people at Elder Ford in six months.  Well, she was looking at the Elder Ford website, and saw a Ford Focus she was interested in.  She was going to wait until the 2012 models came out, but this 2010 model had everything she wanted.  Besides Dad and I weren’t crazy about the new engines that the 2012’s will have.  Yes, they are new and updated, but they are unproven.  I also suspect they are underpowered.

So Melanie, Dad and I went down to Elder Ford.  Her salesman Paul was really laid back.  He just handed us the keys to the Ford, and just said not to drive it too far.  He was helping another client so he wanted us to take our time.  We looked at it, discussed it, and a lot of other boring stuff.  So I will get to the good part.

He had an offer sheet, and said by no means was this set in stone.  It was just an idea of where to start.  He took $605 dollars of the MSRP price.  He then took $3000 off from the Ford rebate.  There were no mystery costs like Veteran’s Ford had.  He then offered $1000 on the trade in, and the loan was still to be determined.  He came back with $1500 on the trade in, and %6 on the loan, but that could still be worked on.

We told him that Veteran’s Ford would have given us $2500 on the trade in, and Kelley Blue Book said the trade in value was $2250.  That was true.  We told him he could check it out on their website.  We also said that our Federal Credit Union had a rate of 4.74% on a car loan for Melanie.  He talked to his manager for a bit, and came back with these numbers:  $605 off the MSRP.  $3000 for the Ford Rebate.  $2250 for the trade in.  Ford Credit would match the 4.74% interest rate, and go through Bank of America.

So the question is, “Did Adrian call him slime?”  The answer, “Hell no!”  He gave us everything we asked for.  How could I be mad?  I mean think about this, he knocked of f $3,605 off the MSRP.  Gave us full trade in value during a terrible resale economy, and matched the interest rate of our credit union.  I had nothing I could argue with him about.  He literally gave us everything we asked for.  It basically took almost $6000 off the price when you account for the low interest rate.  And the thing was he had to be the most laid back salesman I have ever met.  I have never, and I mean never met a car salesman that laid back.

So then onto the finance manager.  Someone would have to be called slime right?  Well, this guy was really nice.  He was also really laid back, and honest as to what options Melanie would need.  He was honest in saying that due to Melanie’s trade in and Ford rebate she would not need G.A.P. insurance.  I did interrogate him about Ford’s five year warranty.  I looked that thing over.  I looked it over three times.  What I was looking for was to see if the warranty covered seal rings.  Any part of a vehicle can be denied if you can blame it on a seal ring.  However, this warranty was through Ford, and not a third party.  It was a clean and honest warranty.  So Melanie did get the 5 year warranty.

So it took a while, but I was really happy with Elder Ford.  Again, they had to be the most laid back salesmen I have ever met.  Oh, this is funny, Paul the salesman sold the other people before us a car.  So he got two sales in one day.  Good for him.  He is a great guy.  So my advice to anyone and everyone is to check with a lot of dealers.  Even if you don’t like Ford, check with all the dealers in your area that deal in whatever vehicle you like.  It can be like night and day when shopping at different dealers.