- Dad's '93 Ford Ranger (the 0.5)
- Sister's '87 Nissan Sentra
- '97 Ford Escort
- '98 Subaru Legacy GT
And now; the 2004 Subaru Impreza WRX.
I managed to get quite the deal out of this car; and it makes for quite the story.
So, I found this car on eBay. It seemed like a great deal, and the Sales Droid (SD) was quite helpful w/ my pre-bidding questions. I had researched the current high-bidder, and noticed that their bidding history was quite erratic, and that this car was much higher than the previous things he had bid on (10k max for the couple cars he had bid on, and other than that, crappy jewelry). With this in mind, I bid \$19.2 for the car. When I was outbid, I bid \$19.6 just to see if it was still higher, and it was (not surprising). This seemed quite odd for this guy, so I emailed the SD again to let him I was still interested in the car if the high bidder didn't follow through.
I wasn't too suprised when I got a 2nd chance offer from eBay after the auction ended. I decided to call the SD and talk some numbers outside eBay:
me: so, high bidder didn't work?
SD: yeah; he bid \$130,000; we couldn't work that out. He seemed a bit unstable.
me: oh.. okay. I can do \$19.6 w/ taxes, tags, registration
SD: hmm.. I don't think so. I need \$19 for the car. It would be \$20.3 w/ tax
me: okay; do \$20 with everything I said before.
SD: okay; I'll talk w/ the Sales Manager; I have a meeting til 3.
me: okay!
(hmm.. this is starting to sound like someone else's recent car-buying experience)
I was feeling pretty good after this call; it seemed I had done a pretty good job at making my bid, and he seemed like he bit at the \$20k. All he had to do was check with his sales manger...
Well, around 3:30p, the Sales Manager (SM) calls me. I was quite a bit more nervous for this call, because he didn't seem quite as thrilled about my offer...
SM: we can't do 20k 'out the door'; you bid 19.6, we can do 20.9 w/ taxes tags
me: no; 20k
SM: you bid, it's a contract. It says "without taxes and other fees"
me: no, I didn't win; it's not through ebay anymore.
SM: why'd you bid 19.6 if you weren't going to pay it?
[I'm getting irritated and very nervous at this point; I wished I could point out that I wouldn't have bid that if the dork hadn't bid \$130k]
me: I didn't understand how things worked, sorry.
[I could tell he was getting irritated with me; I needed to lighten the conversation and end it quick while leaving the ball in my court]
me: it's no big deal; there's other cars in the area that I'm interested in that I don't have to drive to Pittsburgh for.
SM: we'll call you back..
I was very nervous at the end of this call. I wasn't sure how things would turn out; but either way, I was very happy with how I dealt with it. I could tell he was getting irriated that I wouldn't pay the eBay price, but I wasn't bound to eBay since I didn't win the auction. After all, it is just a car on their lot, it doesn't have to be sold that way..
About half an hour later, the SD calls back
SD: it was rough [riiight], but I talked the SM into accepting the 20k "out the door"
me: sweet!
Whew! I would have to say, that was the first time I've ever succesfully negotiated something like this before. It was quite a rush, and I'm ending up with an insane deal on this car (probably about \$18.7; KBB Trade-in is about \$18.8, KBB Retail is about \$21.7). Amazing!