<p>speaking of add-ons, I forgot the most ridiculous ever: window etching</p>
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<p>I was underwhelmed with the Costco Auto Program when we bought my Honda CRV a couple of years ago. </p>
<p>They didn’t have any CRVs on the lot at all. When we asked when some CRVs were due to come in, the “special sales guy who handles the Costco Auto Program” basically said–why would we sell you a CRV so cheap when one of our salesmen can sell the car and get a full commission? What? The Costco Program is only useful to get rid of cars that the dealer can’t sell!!!</p>
<p>So the H went on cars.com, filled out the specifics that he wanted (color, package, etc.) and clicked the button. He got 3 email responses relatively quickly–2 telling us that the dealerships had CRVs but not in the color he wanted–and 1 said that they didn’t have the color we wanted, but would get it from another dealer. And the price was the same as the “wonderful Costco price”–no haggling at all.</p>
<p>So no–I wouldn’t use the Costco service again. It was a big waste of my time.</p>
<p>S was also underwhelmed by the Costco Auto Program. He tried it & went to several dealers & said they were “slimy” but declined to elaborate. He almost bought a car from Hertz, but the A/C made him sick, so he had to return & got a refund. He was set to buy a brand new Mazda 6 but ended up literally inheriting a car from a loved one. He’s now arranging to ship it across country.</p>
<p>The thing is the dealer made all the difference - no slime, they had what we wanted (in a ship somewhere in the Pacific on the way anyway :)), the price was right (I’m all too familiar with the auto industry and what a charade invoice prices are) and the car is decent (let’s not get carried away. It’s a college/first car). By semi-ordering the car I made sure to not get any add-ons so we’re in decent shape.</p>
<p>Both times I have bought bargain-basement priced cars so there is much less price headroom… When Mrs. Turbo gets her next midlife crisis car we can re-assess :).</p>
<p>When we bought our last car, I looked into using Cotsco, AAA , and USAA bying services. USAA gets slightly better pricing. Costco has some extra deals if you are an executive member (like $500 towards service or something at the dealership). I also look at the purchases/prices paid section on the edmunds.com forum. Great site. However, I ended up using a service called truecar.com, which not only let me see what prices people were getting in the area, but also what the different participating dealerships were charging for things like destination fees, etc. There were some surprising differences in some of the dealer add-on costs that could be seen by comparing the offers head to head. I also did everything on line/email and signed with my first initial and last name so they didnt know they were dealing with a female :)</p>
<p>I just sent queries on-line to six dealerships specifying the exact model, year, and trim package I was willing to pay for, and said that they were welcome to include any fees or extras they liked but that they had to quote a bottom line price including tax and title (which is based on where you live in our state, not where you buy the vehicle), because that is the only number I’d be comparing. </p>
<p>I had quotes back within a day, and got the car at a good price in a fast transaction.</p>