Online Car Buying

Online for a GTI

Yes, I just bought a GTI 1.8t w/ lux. package and 17" wheels for just a few bucks
over invoice. I started out asking for a quote from an in town dealer via email and got back 22K as an "out the door" price including TX 6% sales tax on cars. I then emailed an out of town dealer regarding the exact same car about 70 miles away and he shot back 20,850. I then asked the local dealer to better this and put the out of town dealer's itemized quote in that email. He then shot back saying you would match the other dealer's 20,850 and that I would have the advantage of not waiting a week for the out of town dealer to get it in. I then emailed the out of town and asked him for an "enticement" to drive 70 miles and he quoted me 20,600 "out the door." I then email my local and told him I would buy the car today if he could do 20,500 - he never replied. So this week I went down to the out of town dealer and picked up the car w/ no haggling or gimmicks. They only thing they tried to do was sell me on the extended warranty. I got 5.5% financing and really good dealer service(he explained everything possible about the car including maintenance) and am very satisfied 22 hours later.

Re: Online Car Buying (VeeDubDriver)

For the record,
We bought the Passat today! Thank you for all the help everyone!
We went with a 2002 Passat GLX sedan; Blue Silver with Black Leather.
The car cost $28,040. After tax, tags, and titling, we were out the door for $29,665. This means, working off the true cost-to-dealer (invoice minus "Dealer Holdback" of $575) of $27,162, the dealer made a 4.05% profit before tax. A reasonable deal for both of us. We also were able to get a 5.5% for 36 mo. loan from VW Credit. Good deal.
Frank Dickinson was a nice guy, at Martens VW in DC, and answered our questions and was reasonably pleasant for a salesman. He was not insulted, or did not appear to be, that he did most of the negotiating with a teenager (I got my parents to the dotted line for their car, and they signed). However, it seemed that when I asked him to match a quote of $100 over invoice before arriving, when we arrived an invoice was shown with several hundred dollars of those damn advertising fees. Maybe (probably) they were ligit; however, I think 4% is a good compromise. Not the best deal on Earth, but a good deal. And when we asked for him to search the area for Fresco Greens while we went to lunch, we were given the excuse upon our return that the "Volkswagen satellite" was down for repairs, as always happened on Saturdays. Do you really think they would do "repairs" on their "satellite" linking the dealers on President's Day weekend? Suuure....
Again, an OK deal. We did pay $100-or-so under Edmund's TMV.
Ben