<p>Thedad-
If you are really completely undecided, go to the Edmunds site and the Kelly blue book (<a href=“http://www.kbb.com%5B/url%5D”>www.kbb.com</a>) site and look up the value of last year’s model. You should be able to put in what color you are looking at (fill it in as if you were buying a used car) ans see if either color adds or subtracts from the value. It may not make a big difference, but it can be a tie breaker. FWIW, I have a navy blue car and DH has a dark red/maroon car. Both are pretty, thoug mine (the navy blue) shows the door dings more.</p>
<p>TheDad- do you have an update on the purchase of a new car? I am helping my parents buy a car on the internet. I have not found a source for the dealer price-only MSRP and invoice. Do you know where to find this info?</p>
<p>Hope you are happily cruising around in new wheels. What color did you decide?</p>
<p>bp</p>
<p>busyparent:</p>
<p>Try the following for the dealer invoice prices and incentives - </p>
<p>Kelley Blue Book - <a href=“Kelley Blue Book - Error”>Kelley Blue Book - Error;
<p>Edmunds - <a href=“http://www.edmunds.com/[/url]”>http://www.edmunds.com/</a></p>
<p>You should also be able to get decent prices from the ‘internet sales’ of dealerships and from places like ‘Costco’ or your credit union. I’ve done better by knowing the actual price from a place like kbb and then going straight to fleet/internet sales of the dealership. However, I’ve found some dealerships better than others so try all of them within your area and compare. Remember that after buting it you can take the car to ‘any’ factory authorized service’ (dealership) for service so don’t be afraid to buy from the dealer across town.</p>
<p>I wound up buying my original target, the Lexus ES350. The color is called “Aquamarine Pearl” and it’s an absolute misnomer. I’ve clocked about 1,200 miles on it and like it very much though I’m compiling a list of flaws. In a way, it’s too bad I needed a car <em>now</em> instead of next year when they could put Version 2.0 out but for business purposes I did.</p>
<p>I got pretty reliable info about invoice from Edmunds.com, I think it was. </p>
<p>Kelly Blue Book (kbb) seems to be consistently high to me, so “$500 under Kelly Blue Book” doesn’t sway me much. I got my car for a little over a $1,000 under invoice, more than $3,500 under MSRP. Two dealerships tied on their e-mail bids and I told the one that I really wanted to deal with to come down by another $54 and they had a sale…I probably could have pushed another $50-$100 but I was happy and I want to have a reasonable relationship with this dealer. One dealership offered me a firm quote by e-mail only with great reluctance and another, the one closest to home, never did, saying they’d “give me the best price.” </p>
<p>I made it very clear that I wasn’t playing that game and after five exchanges of e-mail they never did budge but instead were pretty heavy-handed in their attempted manipulation.</p>
<p>One of the big brokers, Autoland, came up with a decidedly mediocre bid.</p>
<p>Thanks for the update. I have been able to find the invoice price but was not sure if that was what posters were referencing when they mentioned the dealer price. Sorry that you are coming up with a list of flaws. Hopefully you and the car will have many happy miles together.</p>
<p>The ‘invoice price’ is the theoretical price the dealer pays the manufacturer for the car so people will typically pay a price based on this although the dealers prefer to deal from the MSRP instead since that’s in their favor. I say theoretical because there are often incentives to dealers for certain models and other kickbacks based on how many cars the dealer sells so the dealer is actually often paying less than the invoice price for the car.</p>
<p>It’s typical to be able to buy a car for somewhere around $200-$500 over invoice (several thousand below MSRP) for a car depending on popularity and other incentives and the particular dealer. Sometimes you can buy it for even less.</p>
<p>It’s great dealing through the fleet department rather than the salespeople if you know what you want.</p>
<p>BP, the flaws are relatively minor but I was <em>extremely</em> happy with my 1998 Toyota Avalon. The ES350 also has its relative plus points as well and I don’t regret the decision. The Avalon has everything going for it except excitement and turning radius…I think some tanks can turn more tightly (by using the run one tread forward, the other tread in reverse technique). </p>
<p>UC**2, supposedly there aren’t any holdbacks on the ES350 but I’m not sure. What I’ve been told, and do tend to believe, is that Lexus is over-supplied with the model and thus prices are relatively soft. I got the “standard” package…the “ultra,” which comes with navigation, back-up camera, and assisted parking, which I think I’d hate, apparently goes for over invoice because there are relatively few of them.</p>
<p>DS has been casing some cars out by trying them out on his trips around Toronto. He uses Flexcar for a test drive platform.</p>