seehunt
San Antonio, TX
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Joined: 11/18/2003
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Happy days are here ! After studying posts on this forum for several months and getting a lot of good advice I did the deed. Got a great price to. The MSRP was 40,388 and I got it for 31,586...this includes the rebate and the customer cash that totals 3250. I know the rebates are not subtracted until delivery time so I will have to wait that out. TT&L to be added at that time too. I am quite happy with the deal I got, I sent out 6 bids and got 5 back, I was asking for the best price below invoice and the first bid I got was 550 over invoice and a 790 fee for advertising. Second bid was 300 under invoice but did not mention an advertising fee. Third bid was a one price dealer that offered 8500 off MSRP and that included their advertising fee. Forth bid was 300 over invoice and that included advertising fee. Fifth one offered invoice and guaranteed the price of truck prices if prices went up but did not mention advertising fees. As I mentioned a few days ago I went to the dealership that offered me 300 under invoice, I told them I would not pay any advertising fee and they said OK, then they asked how much of a deposit I wanted to pay and I told them 500....the salesman made two round trips to see the fleet manager...this is when I started getting suspicious...and when he came back told me they wanted 3000 bucks for a deposit to order the truck...I told him they were nuts and left. I started thinking the one price dealers offer of 8500 off MSRP sounded good but decided to reply to dealers about other offers I had, I sent another email to the first dealer that replied to me [ the one that offered 550 over invoice and 790 advertising fee ] telling him of the 2 best offers I had, one of 300 below invoice and no advertising and the other one price dealers offer of 8500 off MSRP. Next day I got an email back from the 550 over/790 advertising fee dealership with a counter offer of no advertising and 500 under invoice...wow ! almost sounded to good to be true but today I went in and carefully scrutinized the deal and all is well...I ordered the truck ! I was very careful how I worded my offer for bids but basically I included the MSRP, Invoice and codes for all the options I wanted. I also stated I was not interested in any add on's such as pinstrips, seat protection, etc, etc. And that I was looking for the best price under invoice. My main purpose here was to stay out of the dealerships and not negotiate from MSRP down but to start at invoice and go down. Only when I had an attractive offer was I inclined to visit the dealership to verify the stated offer...as you can see one
worked out and the other did not. In a day or two I will thank the rest of the dealers for their offers....no telling what they would have offered on the rebound but I felt I had found what I was looking for and it was time to stop. By the way, thanks to Larry Day and Bill Guisse of this forum for the advice, it helped a lot. If any of you want more details you can PM me. Now for the waiting ! One last item: 4 of the dealers did not reply at first and I called them up and asked about my bid, they all said they were lost in the shuffle and to re-send them...once they knew to look for them they got'em.I also mentioned in the bid email that I was sending out the bid to all local dealers. It worked amd I was able to buy a truck without all the games and the "dealership experience".
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seehunt
San Antonio, TX
2004.5 GMC Sierra 3500 D/A EC dually
2004.5 Sunnybrook 31BWFS
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rsteabag
East Bridgewater.Ma,usa
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Joined: 08/10/2003
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seehunt
Sounds like you did well. I have emailed 3 dealers and only got one back. The others gave me a phone number to call. No way would I call them if they couldn't at least return my email with at lest some type of quote.
Am looking at a chevy 3500 LT crew cab long bed 4x4 drw d/a loaded.Every thing but the dvd in the rear. The one from the internet had a MSRP of 49,580 and he offered 41,000. My local dealer is at 40,289 for same truck. Am trying to see if the local will come down another 1,000 to 1500. Am waiting to hear from him. I will order most likley by this next weekend.
Did you see that the GCVWR on the 3500 drw has gone up to 23,500 lbs???
3500 DRW,4X4,LT, DSL/ALLISON,CREW CAB,LONG BED
2008 EXCEL 35MKE,Air Ride Suspension,20K Easy Rider Air Hitch and LevelAirs
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we3
Birnamwood Wi.
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This sounds very interesting. Is it possible to get more information on this like web sites to gether information on invoice and MSRP. I guess what I'm asking is how did you do that and can I do that? Thank you
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tmm2good
Arvada, CO
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edmunds.com and kbb.com will give you msrp and invoice pricing.
04.5 GMC 3500 SRW D/A XCAB LB 4x4
12 Keystone Fuzion 301 as of 3-24-12
02 KZ Sportster Sportman (Gone)
04 Kawasaki KFX700
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macoshark
Kapaa,Hawaii
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seehunt-Thanks for posting your internet experience.It is very helpful.I have a question for you.You mentioned that you used MSRP,invoice,and coded options in your bid.How did using MSRP help you out.Thanks
Toyota 4x4
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seehunt
San Antonio, TX
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rsteabag; I would call the dealership and ask for the name of the fleet manager or the internet manager and re-send the email attention to one of them, be sure to state in your email that you are sending out your bid to all the other dealers in your area.
macoshark; By using the MSRP I got at the GMbuypower site you make sure the dealers MSRP is the same, not higher.
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Dayle1
Spicewood, Tx
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Joined: 04/12/2001
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Bobby,
Great news that you have the truck on order at last. What is the expected lead time before delivery? Make sure the dealer gives you all the critical dates. As I recall, first GM will confirm acceptance of the order, then provide scheduled build week. Also, the truck can be tracked after build, thru rail and/or truck transit and delivery to the dealer. There is also the possibility of delays due to certain options being in short supply and the build week will be an early indication of a potential problem. Believe it or not, the 2004 model year is very near the end of it's run and if the dealer isn't paying attention, your truck might not get built.
Larry Day
Texas Baptist Men-Retiree Builders since '01
'03 GMC 2500HD D/A EC SB, Jordan controller, custom RKI bed/hitch, TF 45gal tank, grey Speedliner
'11 CrossRoads Cruiser CF32MK loaded
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seehunt
San Antonio, TX
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Stickdog; It was 500 bucks !
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tibbitts
Norman, OK
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Joined: 12/15/2002
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One question I have is about warranty service. It seems that at some dealers, you get more effective warranty service if you can take the truck back to the same dealer for service. Which, if you only have one or two local dealers, sort of defeats the purpose of the bidding process. At other dealerships the sales and service departments are totally unrelated. And in some cases it seemed like the service you get depends on the profit on the vehicle.
With our truck I don't remember exactly but I'm guessing the truck spent 2 of the first 7 months we owned it at a dealer for various little things. Happily everything seems to be fixed now. When our car was new I had more work and didn't have time to fight the dealer over little rattles and stuff, so after three or four tries with a problem we'd finally give up, and now with the warranty long expired we're stuck with them forever. But the point is the factories kind of build partly finished vehicles and it seems like a big factor in buying is not just the price but also deciding who's going to help you finish putting the product together, and how much and in what manner you have to pay them to do that.
Paul
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stickdog
29.820224, 81.94542
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Congratulations on your purchase. Ya did good.  What did the winning dealer request as a deposit?
9-11 WE WILL NEVER FORGET!
04 HitchHiker DA LS 33.5 RLTG
09 F350 CC DRW 4X4
John
“A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.” Lao Tzu
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