My wife and I bought a black one (Eclipse GT) this past Saturday for $22,000. There are several factors, as has been mentioned in previous post, that will determine weather or not you get a good deal such as geographic location, how long the car has been on the lot, time of the year and or month, and last but by no means least - how much the buyer is willing to go toe to toe with the dealership.[sm=vader.gif]

This is what We did:

We checked several Mitsy dealers inventory earlier that day and found 3 GTs (no options) of varing color within a 25 mile radius. We targeted this dealer because he was located in an area where there is furious competition from other dealers of varying makes and it is not in an affluent part of town. Plus, it had lots and lots of Eclipses in various trims on the lot so I figured they really needed to get rid of some of them and this particular black one had been on the lot for over 2 months according to the carfax report that I got that day. And luckily, this was the closest Mitsy dealer to us (only 8 miles away).

We waited till just before closing time on Dec. 30 knowing that the sales staff would probably be frazzled by the end of the day. Dec. 30th is typically the busiest day of the year and it is the end of the year for the dealers. And they really need to move cars before Jan. 2nd. My wife and I walked right into the show room, by passing two salesmen hanging out outside, and asked loudly "any body want to sell one more car today? ". Several heads immediately jerked in our direction including the sales manager *hehehe*. A bleary eyed salesman came over with his hand extended and said "of course". I said, "well lets talk [sm=smiley35.gif] about that black GT you got out there"

My wife and I were fresh and we are cracking wise and generally having fun at the salesman's expense and dragging things out with witty/goofy banter [sm=chattypair.gif] that would probably not have been so obnoxious earlier in the day but being late in the day and knowing that these guys have been there all day and really want to go home, it probably was grating his nerves.

After he got our personal info, he wrote a figure on a piece of paper (it was approximately $50 under sticker price) and eased it across the desk to us. I glanced at it and grinned and said "are you kidding, we didn't come here to propose marriage. And then my wife and I started again with a bunch more of goofy banter [sm=chattypair.gif] and nonsense and yucking it up with the guy all the while knowing this guy was ready to roll his eyes into the back of his head [sm=headbang.gif] *hehehe*.

He hastily got up and said, "let me ask my mgr. what we can do on that car", and off he went. A very few minutes later (they usually like to make you wait longer in order to build anticipation) he came back and showed me another piece of paper and began his spiel "this is our invoice price and we can't go... yada, yada,yada,........". I stopped him in mid sentence and said "you can stop now because I know that is not your "true" invoice figure because I did some research before I came over here. I said " I don't want to pay more than the average of what other people are paying in this area for this car which according to my research is $22,500 ....can you do it or not". He didn't even question where I got my info from which I'm almost sure that had it been earlier in the day and he was fresher, he would have put up a better fight. He lumbered out once more to the sales mgr. and came back and said "congrats its a deal!".[sm=owned.gif]

BTW, I arrived at my $22,500 figure by going to Edmunds.com and getting a "TMV" (true market value) report for my area. Here is what the report gave me:
MSRP = $23,499. (black GT/no options)
Invoice = $22,222
Destination chg =$625
TMV =$23,526
Incentives = $1000 rebate or 0% financing
Final TMV = $22,526 (if you were to take the $1000 rebate)

We opted for the 0% and still got their selling price down to $22,500 and with no interest for 60 mo (we come out better in the end with no interest compared the the $1000 rebate). The final price of the car was $22,000 because we got another $500 off because Mitsubishi is offering $500 to customers who currently own a Mitsubishi. [sm=smiley32.gif]

What the report couldn't give me was info on hidden "factory to dealer incentives" (perhaps ad money) which is possibly why this dealer could sell at $22,500 and maybe even lower had I been a little more ruthless [sm=shootshoot.gif]


Moral of the story - "you can't always get what you want but if you try some times you just might find, you get what you need". Mick Jagger/Rolling Stones..

P.S. My one rule that I really stick to when buying a car is: if the sales person gives me bull**** about having to stick close to or at MSRP, I immediately say, "well sir/ma'am, if you can't deal then this car and this dealership isn't for me" and I leave without further adieu and no second chance (you should see some of them follow you out to the car trying to apologize...you can almost feel sorry for them until you remember that they really are out to get deep into your wallet). There are too many other various makes of cars and dealerships to sell them in my large metro area (DFW) that I don't need to put up with that crap.

 

Nice informative post, thanks. I've doing doing a lot of research myself, getting armed and ready to buy in a couple of weeks. I just test drove the GS and actually liked it better then the GT, seemed a bit quicker with it's get up and go on city streets. I'm going to go back and test drive a GT again.