Found a new '04 on a dealer's lot - what to offer?

[Verdoro 68]

Found a red automatic '04 Goat with 216 miles on it at a dealer up the street from my house. It's been on their lot approximately a year and a half. They've spruced it up with chrome wheels and the autocross-style inset grilles, but they haven't had any takers. The sales manager says he can do $25100 which is invoice ($30100) less a $5000 GM incentive for current GM owners. Good deal or should I counter with less? KBB retail on an automatic '04 GTO is $27100. I'm inclined to counter with a lower offer only because I never accept a car dealer's first offer, but I'm not sure what to counter. Anyone have an opinions?

[Deadhead]

Offer 18k. That is what they are giving in trade for them. I would not give anymore than 22 without walking out.

My friend bought his for under 23k new from the dealer a year ago. He went on the 'net & found the best price he could, took it to the dealer, & when they would not match it he walked out. Got a call a few hours later & bought the car for the low price. Barrier blue auto.

You will not be sorry you bought it regardless but...

[red70goat]

Originally Posted by Verdoro 68

Found a red automatic '04 Goat with 216 miles . The sales manager says he can do $25100... Anyone have an opinions?

Bargain for less. O4s are dead in the water from a dealership standpoint. There is a Torrid Red one here that hasn't moved since it arrived. It's marked down to 21k and still hasn't moved...even with an 05 hood.

[Verdoro 68]

I was originally thinking the low $20,000s when I saw the car. $25k is a decent price, but I think you guys are right, I should be able to get it for less. I mean, it's been on the lot 18 months! They should be giving that thing away. I guess it's only natural that they want to try to make back what they can on it. I guess it never occurred to them that it might not be selling because they still have the original sticker price in the window. The bigger challenge at this point probably isn't bargaining with the dealer, it's convincing my wife that I need a new GTO. We've been arguing about the practicality of it all day.

[Deadhead]

You have the perfect set-up for making a deal. Take her in. Let her drive it. She will love it. Nobody can resist after driving one. Then, after portraying your wife as the hold-out/hard sell, walk out on the dealer no matter what he offers you. You will get the follow-up call & likely make a sweet deal on that car. They are dying to get rid of it. $20k is a fair price for them & a fantastic deal for what you get.

[red70goat]

Originally Posted by Verdoro 68

...it's convincing my wife that I need a new GTO. We've been arguing about the practicality of it all day.

" A musclecar will make you look younger honey...." Tim Allen to Jill, his wife on Home Improvement.

[Verdoro 68]

After a little more research, I'm hearing that the $25k figure the dealer threw out was the authorized GM price to move the remaining '04s. I guess he made up the $5000 incentive because I couldn't find it anywhere on the GM site. Consensus seems to be a good price is under $20k. If I could get it for $20k and get about $6k for my daily driver that would make for some small monthy payments.

This is all proving to be a very hard sell to my wife. Part of the trouble is that she is not a car person. Coupled with the facts that I just paid off my daily driver and insurance on the '04 Goat would be $30 more a month she's not budging. She's pulling out all the stops like "If you get the car, then I get a baby." I couldn't even get her to agree to go look at the car today so things are looking pretty bleak.

Originally Posted by red70goat

" A musclecar will make you look younger honey...." Tim Allen to Jill, his wife on Home Improvement.

To which her response will be "Oh, so you think I look old!"

[Mr_GTO]

The $5K is what GM GAVE the dealers to move it. So even if they sell it at invoice to you, they are still making the full amount on the car. I wouldn't give them more than $22K for it.

[Jerry H.]

Vedero68, The $5000 figure is a nonpublic amount that GM gives dealers on vehicles that they have left on there lot on January or February of the following year. It is called 'Final Pay' and it is just that. After that their is NO other incentives from GM to sell that vehicle. No rebates to the consumer, etc. That being said, you still may have little play. The MSRP was what, around 33k? So the 'holdback' on the car was around $1000. I think the dealer still gets the holdback. Got to remember how long the car has been on the lot and how much interest it has eaten up, though. So if the dealer would give up all the holdback, he could sell it to you for $24,100. (not counting the interest he has paid on it). At this point the final price depends on how much the dealer is willing to lose just to move the car.

Jerry H.--retired Dealership Sales Manager

[HUMBLER]

Remind them that it is their fault for the car sitting there in the first place! My guess is that there used to be an LOA on it. Let it stay unless they are willing to look at 18 to 20K for it!

[Verdoro 68]

Well, it's been about three weeks and believe it or not I'm still trying to convince my wife! We drove by the dealer tonight to take a quick look and I think she might be coming around.

I did a little digging online tonight and discovered that another dealer about 6 miles away has 3 '04s on the lot - 2 Yellow Jackets and 1 Metallic Black. I'm not sure if they are manuals or autos, I'll probably go take a look tomorrow. I prefer the red one I originally found, but I'm not really picky. If I get to the point where I can actually deal I'll probably use the dealers against each other to get the price as low as possible. That tactic worked pretty well when we bought my wife's VW. Based on the advice I've been given and the prices I've seen offered on eBay, $19-20k seems to be a fair price. People are asking more, but they aren't getting it. If the car has been on their lot for 18 months they can't seriously think they are going to make anything on it. If they can't go that low then the cars will have to sit until a sucker comes along willing to pay what they want.

Wish me luck...

[Jeff R]

Ken, I think you're on the right track holding out for the right price. Some dealers just don't get it. They can't make money on every car, and your price is totally reasonable seeing that the '06s are already hitting dealerships.

My wife needed some convincing too, but not much. Once she saw the GTO in person she said, "You absolutely have to have this car!"

Oh, and FYI - Yellow Jacket is no longer produced and much more rare than red or black. It doesn't show swirls like other colors, and it IS the fastest color.

[Verdoro 68]

Busy day today. I finally got my wife to drive the red '04 - she liked it. By the way, it is a special edition (Pulse Red) car. We spent about 3 hours at the dealer's haggling of the price. The "Red Tag" sale price was $27,500. I reminded him of the $25,100 price he gave me a few weeks ago and I told him he needed to get realistic. I told him that I knew about the $5k allowance GM gave the dealers to clear the remaining '04s and any dealer should be able to sell me a leftover for that price. After all that, the lowest I could get him to go was $25k so we walked. He did get the payments down and had a decent rate on the loan but the length of the loan was 6 years!

After that I took at look at the yellow and black cars at the other dealer near by. Sorry Jeff, the yellow really wasn't doing it for me. They also had some really ugly aftermarket wheels on the yellow cars which didn't help. I asked what the could do on the black/red car and told him the other dealer would only go to $25k and I was looking for low $20s. He talked to the sales manager and told me the best they could do was $24.5k. BTW, the battery was dead when I went to start the car up. The salesman said it had been sitting for 7-8 months.

What is wrong with these dealerships? Don't they realize they are going to take more of hit in the long run instead of selling these cars for a loss now? They are almost 2 years old! I don't know how these guys on ls1gto.com managed to get new '04s for $21k because the dealers around here certainly aren't letting them go for that price.

[red70goat]

Originally Posted by Verdoro 68

What is wrong with these dealerships? Don't they realize they are going to take more of hit in the long run instead of selling these cars for a loss now? .

Ok, I could get my buddy who works a the local Pontiac Dealership in trouble here, but he told me GM primarily targeted these cars for the racer boy /ricer crowd. Therefor the dealers are banking on the assumption that your typical pre-pubescent racer boy ricer weasle will be buying on impulse / emotion rather than intellect / experience and pay top dollar. He went on to say they don't want to sell to an experienced "car guy" that knows Pontiacs. FURTHERMORE ( jeez, I hope he doesn't read this ) he went on to say if somebody came in and said : " Look, I know these cars aren't moving. Anybody who knows anything about a GTO knows this is little more than a re-badged Monaro. The gig is up. So, what is your rock bottom price?"...would have a pretty good shot at walking out the door with a "new" 2004 GTO around 18-21k depending on color, etc. For what it's worth.

[Mr_GTO]

Originally Posted by red70goat

Ok, I could get my buddy who works a the local Pontiac Dealership in trouble here, but he told me GM primarily targeted these cars for the racer boy /ricer crowd. Therefor the dealers are banking on the assumption that your typical pre-pubescent racer boy ricer weasle will be buying on impulse / emotion rather than intellect / experience and pay top dollar. He went on to say they don't want to sell to an experienced "car guy" that knows Pontiacs. FURTHERMORE ( jeez, I hope he doesn't read this ) he went on to say if somebody came in and said : " Look, I know these cars aren't moving. Anybody who knows anything about a GTO knows this is little more than a re-badged Monaro. The gig is up. So, what is your rock bottom price?"...would have a pretty good shot at walking out the door with a "new" 2004 GTO around 18-21k depending on color, etc. For what it's worth.

Wrong. GM targeted the car at BMW buyers who are from 30-45years old and made $50K+. It even said so on GM's internal website.

[red70goat]

Originally Posted by Mr_GTO

Wrong. GM targeted the car at BMW buyers who are from 30-45years old and made $50K+. It even said so on GM's internal website.

Uhhh, yeah, was that the 2nd or 3rd version of who their target market was? As if somebody who is considering a BMW would buy a Pontiac!!!

[Verdoro 68]

Sounds like I need to get to know your buddy. Maybe I should wear baggy jeans and put some decals on my Eclipse the next time I hit up a dealership. I emailed a friend of mine that works at a small town dealership in Texas to see what his take was. I'll be curious to see if he has any insight. I'm really surprised I couldn't even get them close to what JerryH suggested, which I thought would be a piece of cake. I expected 20k to be a bit of a fight.

[HUMBLER]

Dealers are amazing...

[Verdoro 68]

I'm starting to think that a new '05 would be a better buy right now with plenty to choose from on dealer's lots and a couple incentives going on. I know they've got the red tag sale going on which gives an '05 a price of$29,111, but it also looks like they've got an other incentive going on of $2,000 cash allowance or 1.9% APR for 36 months, 2.9% APR for 48 months, 3.9% APR for 60 months. Anyone know if this is in addition to the Red Tag price or is it an either/or situation? How set in stone is the Red Tag price? Seems like there should be some room to move in there. The dealer invoice price I have for an '05 is $29,873 which is more than the red tag. What's the real invoice?

[T.D.Vick]

I traded my '04 about 3 weeks ago. I got $19,700 on trade and they already sold it for $21,900. The car had 13,500 miles on it. They had it on the lot for less than 2 weeks. A new one with zero miles should be worth a couple grand more.