Everyday is a new learning experience or you don't grow, right?
Well today a local dealer (okay 50 miles away) was happy to take my business. However he wouldn't come of the MSRP of the car; now there are reasons for this.
Average time on the lot for Focus ST's is about 30 days, IE they do sell here. In-fact one of my local dealers had 10-11 in-stock, now only had ONE. The other has nothing but heavily optioned models left with some less expensive cars on order.
They sell a bit slower as you move up the to the Pacific Northwest, which is where I find the more aggressive pricing starting in the Bay Area/Sacramento Valley.
Max amount is right at $26,000, how do I know? MRSP + TTL + Rebates + Negative Trade Balance = $29,xxx. I was told to put down $3,000 to take delivery. Sorry but there's enough room in the car to not require down and they will still make a sizable profit.
They also could only pull my Transunion because of some computer issues, came back with 580 which is about right which Ford will take but he then went on some spiel about Ford not being a lender for people with credit problems. Eh? What? Ford's mendoza line is 580 and if you have a 580 score, son you got credit problems...
So unless I came up with $3,000 down, my time was over and I was ushered out.
Okay that is the par for the course, all the dealers in California start negotiations at MSRP. But most won't budge and maybe rightly so, if I don't want to pay their price, somebody else will.
But I am starting to think there's more too it than that. Unfortunatly I read an article on The Atlantic's website about discimination against minorities and women at car dealerships. True to form, I get told to pay MSRP or leave while the entire "What Did You Pay" Thread on Focusst.org is full of people paying under invoice for cars optioned out the way I want and getting rock bottom pricing on base models.
My credit is then used as an excuse to keep the pricing where it is. My score this time last month was 647, paying my accounts down to 28% hadn't shown up yet. So when it finally updated, it was 656.
Despite having utilization at 60%, my CL has increased to $1,304 so my score is now 657. That means as soon as I pay down my balances to 30% or lower, I should hit 660.
657 is considered Fair to Good credit with the majority of auto lenders. I was only unable to get pre-approval from Capital One because by the time I considered them I had too many inquiries, most of them from when trying to buy a car last time.
I then tried Auto Credit Express which was a massive fail, not because the program doesn't work, I worked with the only Ford dealer in the area that they worked with.
But I have figured out what needs to happen and I don't need those lenders, I know what Ford will take and what they won't take.
$26,000 is the limit, anything over that, I have to come out of pocket IE down payment.
I am sure I can go over a few hundred over of that and nobody will cry. That means spending no more than about $24,000, the incentives make up for the negative balance (almost) but don't quite knock out TTL, basically the car's price after rebate and taxes is about $21-22K
That is enough to get what I want, but that requires coroporation from the dealer. There is a slight chance I may jump on a plane to parts unknown to take advantage of pricing in other regions of the country. One of my biggest gripes about this loan amount is I can get a loaded Fiesta ST and I may just do that and call it a day or continue to try and get more than a base Focus ST.
There are positives and negatives to either, but either are fun to drive and plenty quick stock, only made faster without a huge investment.
I hope to wrap this up tomorrow and no later than Monday night because I have several job projects I need to do and I won't have time to drive anywhere or spend an inordinate amount of time at a dealership.
