Taking the position of never doing anything without checking on Slowtwitch, I am looking for advice on whether the following is a good idea and whether there’s a good way to accomplish it.
In short, I need a new car and my mother, who lives near my wife and me, also needs a new car. For separate reasons, we each decided to get a CPO Audi Q5. We each have trade ins - I have a 2016 Mercedes GLA 250 and she has a 2011 M series SUV (can’t remember the model). In short, what kind of negotiating leverage – if any – would we have with the local Audi dealer in looking to get two 2018 CPO Q5s? I realize there may be more opportunity to push for a deal with a new car, but CPO is the way we’ve chosen to go.
Yep, it can be used as a great negotiating tool. You don’t have to buy two of the same model, but, you have to buy both cars from the same salesman. Double the commission is not much more time than a single transaction would take for the salesman. But, you have to be willing to go in as a team and leave as a team. Do your research. Have appraisals on your trade-ins from at least 2 sources. Make sure you research prices on the cars you want to buy. Then go in a hard line it with your highest trade-in prices and lowest purchase prices. The salesman will be working hard to make that double sale. Use that.
Watching this thread with interest. We also need two cars. Unfortunately I cannot get the two drivers to buy the same make of cars from the same dealer.
The car I own is a GLA250 - the smallest Merc SUV - it’s only a little larger than a VW Golf, frankly. Great for parking, not so great for kid/stuff/bike hauling - even with roof racks. Need a bigger ride.
It will help some but it’s limited especially since it’s a CPO and they don’t have any incentives like with new cars. My brother recently did this because a friend was looking to buy a new Q5 for his mom and my brother happened to be interested in one too. They got a better deal by buying 2 but it happened that they were buying leftover '18s in March of this year. Effectively after all of the incentives and negotiating, they probably saved a couple of grand each over buying individually. Dealer was highly motivated to get both cars off the lot and the salesman was very eager to get the deal done. Not sure if it mattered but they did this on last day of March so maybe he was trying to up his monthly number.
Like the Jalopnik article said, probably not. Especially on CPO.
The best deal on both cars shouldn’t be much, if any, better than the best deal on each car individually. The dealer can only go so low on each car. They aren’t going to give away the profit on the 2nd car just to close the deal.
Just make sure you have written quotes from a few dealers, even some that are somewhat far away (out of state if necessary).
It’s so much easier nowadays to see what a particular car is selling for, dealers can’t hang a high price on a car, hoping some sucker walks in and hasn’t looked at the internet or called any other dealers.