[Comanche]

The last time I bought a new car was in 2007. At that time, after the deal was made, they would escort you over to the guy in the back corner who would try desperately to coax you into buying an alarm, lojack, Body side molding, mats , seat cover etc.. I read this was how they make a lot of money on these addons. It was hard to get out the door without buying at least one thing extra.

Now, I notice a lot of cars already have a lot of these things installed by the dealer, before they are even sold. Some have body side molding, some have trunk covers etc.. Is this the new way to force people into buying these extra goodies, instead of the guy in the back corner? The only alternative from what I see ,is to refuse this extras and have to wait a long time to get one stock, or hope the dealer will just offer the extras at no extra charge if you dont want them. Has anyone had any experence dealing with these extra goodies.

BTW, It turns out, with the Forester, I do want a few of these extras, but I dont want to let the ealer know that yet. Hoping I can get a few things thrown in. I pick mine up sometime next week, but since its coming in from another dealer in another state, neither I nor the dealer Im working with, knows what may already have been installed.

Rob

 

[Wyldcat89]

Hi Rob, welcome to the site. First let me start by saying there's a difference between port installed options and dealer installed options. If it's port installed, it's listed on the window sticker and cannot be removed prior to the sale. Dealers may choose to add options to vehicles which usually results in them marking up prices to make extra profit. If you don't want dealer installed accessories, you can usually get them removed.

I would recommend being completely up front with what you want and what you don't want. Why make negotiations harder than they have to be? Their job is to sell you the exact vehicle you want, optioned the way you want. What could you gain by holding this info back? Dealers aren't going to thrown in a bunch of extra accessories for free, that's money out of their pocket.

 

[GreyingJay]

What could you gain? Sometimes you can use them as leverage if you (or the dealer) really want to move the vehicle sitting in front of you, rather than waiting for another one to come by that's optioned the way you want. You could say something like "I really like this vehicle, but I really don't want to pay the extra $500 for that (accessory)." and then follow that with either a "Can you take it off and remove the $500 charge?" or "I guess I'll visit (other dealer) and see if they have the vehicle configured without it". The dealer would try to follow up with "well, let's get you one configured just the way you like" if they have the inventory, but if they don't, and knowing they can't just "take it off", their options are either to let you walk away from a sale, or negotiate down the equivalent cost, e.g. throw them in for free.

 

[Wyldcat89]

that's all well and good if the vehicle has been sitting on the lot, but not if they're bringing it in on a dealer trade FOR YOU. Obviously the OP isn't being completely up front with the information presented because he did initiate the trade from another dealer and he said nothing of the packages he was interested in. Surely there had to be some exchange about options that were desired vs not desired otherwise a dealer won't take you seriously. Yeah, you could get a hood deflector or something like that thrown in if its installed on the vehicle, but don't ask for a fully optioned vehicle and then back out cuz you wanted a base model, that's all I'm saying.

The Forester is too popular of a vehicle to have dealers throwing in lots of free accessories just to make a sale. Supply and demand.