@Brian_Earl_Spilner wrote:Mazda's have very little room to haggle. I paid cost for mine and after taxes, docs,etc., I paid something like $40 below sticker, and that was after adding gap at employee price. That also included a $1000 incentive.
A trick I used to use for getting them to spit out quotes was emailing a dealership in a nearby city. Tell them the locals don't want to play ball and you're willing to travel, but only if the pricing is done. They come with their final offer and you email it to the locals telling them to beat it. Someone will answer, and someone will beat it.
Well, I know that after fees, taxes, etc. the final price is obviously higher. My goal is just to get the car price as low as I can. But the incentives are coming from the manufacturer and dealers have wiggle room from the MSRP, so there's no way I'd pay sticker AND fees, taxes, etc. on TOP of that. In fact, there's wiggle room from the "factory invoice," because the dealer actually pays less than that. US Car News and TrueCar says I should be able to pay $3,410 below MSRP (which includes incentives, before taxes & fees), or $18,716 in my case.
What rates are you being offered by your credit union and CapOne? I see that Mazda is offering a 1.9% on your model. That's what you want. And assuming your scores, auto enhanced included, are like your EX8, you shouldn't have any problem getting it. Though to double down on your odds of success have you considered paying off your cards and employing AZEO?
I'm glad you got email responses back and I'm not trying to be a debbie downer but as I mentioned up-thread, those are likely just canned responses. But, that 1,500 off gives you a baseline to haggle from and lets you know you can do better in person. You can always do better in person -- with the right dealer that is.
As for your trade-in, sorry, I can't be of any specific help there. I'd just research the car value sites and see what the tiers are for yours. What you'd get as a trade-in and what you'd get private party, factoring the car's condition, mileage, etc. Decide the minimum amount you're willing to take for it. Then, work the trade-in angle and see if the dealer can meet it.
As far as I know, they won’t email you the invoice. The best you can do is ask for a price on a specific model. Once I knew what car I wanted (trim, color, options, etc), what I ended up doing was finding every nearby dealer with that car. Then I emailed them for their offer price on that particular car (with the VIN). Three of the five replied and gave me a price. The fourth went to my spam (so I missed it) and the fifth refused. I went directly to the first one with the best offer (they met my goal price), but I had also made a backup appointment at another place just in case I needed to walk away. Once you’re there, you can get all the details and in writing. Just make sure that when you’re emailing, don’t let them get off track with a million questions. Give them the basics and tell them that you just want a price because you’re ready to buy.
Also, check out US Car News. You can find out about rebates and pricing for all types of cars. You can also do an inquiry through them. When I was originally looking at Civics, I made an inquiry and immediately got contacted by three dealers with pricing. So it’s definitely possible.
I did the email dance about a month ago for the car I have now. I shot off emails to a few (8, 9? I lost count) dealers, asked for their best price, broken down. If they didn't give it to me, I told them I had too many other conversations with other dealers in the works to deal with the back-and-forth. More often than not, they came back with a solid number. A good example of this was a new model at a dealer that was their "showroom car." This means god knows how many asses sat in those seats, children sneezing on the interior, etc. etc. It was almost a year old, even though it had 8 miles on it. They had a price on their site. I told them it's not "NEW" if it saw more asses than a donkey farmer and gave them my offer with the asterisk that I was shopping other dealers and I found several others exactly like what I wanted but I want this one because I can't turn down a good deal when I see one. They told me it was too low and gave me their counter. I said no thanks.
A week later (after I bought what I have now), I got an "updated" quote that was a few hundred away from my offer. I think that car's still on their lot as I write this.
I ended up using Car Gurus and contacted the dealer that had the car I wanted through that site, instead. In my case, I got super lucky and found one with the price under book value (slightly used, like 1800 miles, exactly the model/trim/color I wanted), but I told them before I came in that I'll take the car for exactly what the listing said and I have my own financing already lined up. I let them do a credit check anyway (like 4 pulls in total including my financing) and their financing wasn't as good and they knew it (what's up Chase?).
It definitely helps to have the number ahead of time, and don't be afraid to tell them you're marking them off your list for playing games. This was a Honda I bought and there are probably 8 Honda dealers within reasonable distance of my home. You bet they love competing with each other, too. 
A dealer that doesn't play games will be up front with you and gie you all the information you need. It might be a pain, but if you're being hassled now, you'll be hassled even more when you go into one of those locations for a 'price' that somehow changes or extras get added on.