<p>I am in the market for a new car. I have AAA and Costco memberships. Both offer car shopping assistance.
I was wondering if anyone had any experience with either and which would you recommend.
I have a specific model in mind, so I am interested in who would get me a better price without having to deal with the
dealer haggling process.
Thank you.</p>
<p>I didn’t think the Costco discount was very good, but did not try AAA. I did try USAA, my auto insurer, and got the best prices. </p>
<p>You may get your best price from a dealer in a nearby city. We’ve had that happen twice and they drove the car to us. </p>
<p>I used the car-buying service offered by my credit union. The experience was completely painless. I am a huge fan of this service.</p>
<p>Can you ask both Costco and AAA to help you with this, and then choose the best deal from the two that they come up with? </p>
<p>I used truecar about 3 years ago, before it was as known as it is now. It gets mixed reviews, but I found it got me , back then, a better price than even USAA.</p>
<p>Use truecar.com to see a range of prices people have paid for your exact model. They also have guaranteed pricing from local dealers without haggling. Also, check local dealer inventories then contact them vie email. They sometimes offer some amazing internet prices without you asking. It’s a buyer’s market!</p>
<p>Have bought five cars with the Costco program. Got the lowest (internet) price we would have gotten eventually without a lot of haggling, plus bonus (once a $100 cash card, once free service for a year etc.)
It works especially well if you already have done your homework and have a specific make/model in mind.
Once you start the process you of course do not need to follow through, but we have always found the price to be just a bit better then the best we saw out there.
Basically it just makes it so easy, pick a car or two you want, call the program and they will set you up with their local dealer for that car who is mandated by Costco to give you a certain % over cost (or something like that.)
Disclaimer - hubby works for Costco, though since we did not disclose this that didn’t factor in to our dealings with the dealerships until after the deal was done.
Costco does monitor the program and if a dealer is at all shady or doesn’t follow the plan they are out.</p>
<p>Oh thank you. I will check truecar as well. I have never used these services but thought it might be worth it.</p>
<p>It doesn’t hurt to try different programs. I got a quote from the Costco program. It was easy, direct, no hassle and no haggling. But I was able to beat it by calling around. The Costco price was competitive but not the absolute lowest.</p>
<p>We’ve always used our credit union. I didn’t realize Costco has this program and we just bought a new car. :(</p>
<p>True Lerg - if you have a Costco quote you can use it to negotiate with other dealers. The difference was so close we just went with it, the point was a good price without hassle :)</p>
<p>We used Costco to buy a car for D in a different city, so that was handy. I could have beat it by around $150, but it was efficient. However, you have to really know exactly what you’re looking for, and be very, very clear with the “internet sales manager” that you want a bottom line price with absolutely no add-ons. I cross-checked with three other dealers.</p>
<p>They guy tried to pull a switch - “Oops – the new grad discount has been discontinued” when we were ready to do the deal, but we just walked out to our (rental) car and he was running out to us with one of those “the sales manager says we’ll cover it anyway” lines. </p>
<p>We used both Costco and USAA to get quotes when we bought our last car (December 2012). We ended up using the USAA quote which I think was $500 cheaper than the Costco quote. I don’t see any downside to using multiple buying programs and seeing which one gets you the best deal.</p>
I am going to revive this thread because I used the information this week. I just bought a car through the internet sales locally. But because I have a used car to trade in- I had to negotiate in person. That is when I used the Costco quote. Costco was not helpful, except for the price- the nearest dealer was 2.5 hrs away and they wanted to see the trade in (not a 4x4)- the photos were not enough and we are in the middle of a snow storm and they could not find the color I wanted. I got the feeling that they did not want to do the work.
I also tried AAA that was not useful at all. They wanted me to wait until the 2016 came out! The 2015 is on sale.
So all said and done I got a good price for the deal. The trade in price was low- I told them they had a choice- lower the price of the new car or raise the trade in value. The first car offered was a not good price and the wrong color. But after several emails over a few days, they found what I wanted in their trade system with a good price.
I had never heard of an internet sales department. Thank you parent cafe CC.
We’ve used the Edmund’s car buying service to buy 2 cars. Truly painless and easy and great price.
Our last two cars were internet purchases. I met with the salesperson only one time to sign papers and had just a few emails and a phone call or two.
Have not used Costco to deal with $$ advice but will in the future for a baseline.
The last car–3 yrs. ago–the salesperson offered me a job! He was $500 more than a dealer 1 hour away–I told him to get down or leave it–He was 10 minutes away-- and I was there within 15 of his matching price.
Also, negotiated my old car on the spot–never mentioned it until I arrived to buy.
I have had some fun. All dealers have designated internet dealers who only do this.
The main thing to do is NOT to give out your phone number as you are searching on general sites.
Also, I say in the script that if anyone calls me (in the event they find my number) that I will not buy from them.
When I have figured out the model/price-- then I post my phone number and --gads!–within hours I have offer after offer.
I have had my best successes with Cars.com.
It is all a huge game! and I have been willing to play 2 times now but it takes commitment!
Trying to get the energy up for the next, much needed, car…
I mainly do this as I simply refuse to sit and be barked at
and refuse to feel bad about such a major purchase.
I bought a used car in June and first used Costco and AARP (not AAA), but found the dealers both were using were not convenient locations. I wasn’t looking to drive 20-25 miles to buy a car, especially when there are plenty within 5 miles miles of my home.
I used Costco and had an awesome experience, but it may depend on the fleet dealer and the fleet sales person. I wanted a particular car, with certain options, in a particular color. As soon as he located it and got it to the lot, he called me and the price was exceptional.
However, I’ve found that if you want a car with lots of options (which I’m guilty of), the price will be “better” since there is a huge mark-up on options so discounts can be huge there.
We bought our last ‘brand new’ vehicle - since there are so many sources of good gently used cars with reliability checking (accident record…) and I had such a good experience with Car Maxx.
However we did use a new car dealer due to the ‘cash for clunkers’ program - we were in such a tight window and the fleet sales person wasn’t available (thus we had to forego a Costco discount for the much bigger clunker $$). The lazy sales person didn’t want to ‘find’ the color/options we wanted - was pushing what they had on the lot - what I wanted was popular - where did he find it? within 50 miles. When we went later to pick up, something wasn’t done - had to come back again, then was supposed to wait. By this time I am annoyed - the sales manager got things moving.
We liked the new car so well that we bought a second used one through Car Maxx. There are differences, but both are the same color and almost same interior.
I agree about looking around at smaller towns in your vicinity too. Some of the new car sales people are not very customer oriented - they actually do well with leases and financing, so if you aren’t in those markets they are less interested in you as a customer.
It is ‘endurance’. Post your success stories!
Living in a rural has a lot of pluses, but the minuses are usually in shopping. 250 miles is not a big deal… You get used to it.
I am also shopping. I tried AAA but it just forwarded me to TruCar. I won’t complete it because it requires a phone#. I only communicate with car dealers via email so I won’t fill out their form (yes, I could enter a fake #, but I won’t). I’m looking at Honda CR-V and Toyota and the Costco plan says no one in our area meets their prices.