Well, Jeb won't be involved in any Italian Job-style car chases in the near future. Here's why...
So me and my mom drove up to Hendrick BMW to try to trade in our 1995 Camry for a 2004 MINI. After trying it out, we met with the dealer and started to talk prices. We didn't get very far. The list price was $15,995. After much dancing around, I asked him if we traded thel Camry for the MINI, how much we would owe him. He allowed us $500 on the Camry and with taxes we would owe about $16,400. I then said so we're basically giving you my Camry and paying you an additional $500 to boot? Clearly this was not a good deal. He asked for my price. I told him since I figured he paid about $12,000 at the auction in Statesville for the MINI and since I felt my Camry should bring $2,000 that I would offer $11,000 as a way to give him a $1,000 profit. He said this was unworkable as well because the price he was listing was giving was the absolute lowest he could go. I found this hard to believe that they would price a car for the absolute lowest price they would take and expressed my opinion as such. Since he said he wouldn't give but $500 for the Camry we asked him to price just the MINI. He came back and the price for the MINI straight up was....$16,400. I expressed interest in the fact that this was the same price as before with the Camry. He tried to explain that he was giving me a better deal by cutting the price but it was clear what he had done. As it was the same price as before, he wasn't pricing the Camry at $500 at all. He was pricing it at $0. This continued to no avail. After a long silence, I offered $13,000 with the Camry. He said nope. I asked him if he could come down any since I had raised my price by $2,000 as a good gesture in bargaining. He said nope. I said well bye and my mom and I walked out.
Now I'm not sure why this happened this way but there are several options.
1. It's a BMW dealership so they are snobs and refuse to negotiate whatsoever.
2. The guy we were dealing with was an idiot and apparently doesn't know how to negotiate at all.
3. They assumed since we were just a young lad and his mother, that we were idiots and would do whatever they said. Incorrect.
4. Perhaps the dealer really can get a wholesaler to come in and buy the MINI for more than we were offering. If so, I wish them well. It's my responsibility to understand that a dealer has to profit and to negotiate in a reasonable manner in that respect. It's not my responsibility to maximize their profit.
So no MINI for now. Oh well.
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True Story:
Three years ago, I drive up to the same dealership. In my LS. In a suit. A nice suit.
The LS is about three years old, and I'm getting itchy, so I want to trade it for a 5. Fine. We go for a test drive, everything is great, and then, the negotiating.
They want to give me full KBB trade in value at Excellent for the LS, but they're offering me the 5 at the Edmunds price.
I'm like, no, he didn't just implicitly say I'm that stupid. So, I quote the KBB value of the 5 to him, and he retors again with the Edmunds price (I know it was Edmunds cuz he turned the screen towards me).
'Round and round we go. The sales manager gets involved. Everyone at the dealership must have come by. But, ultimately, they wanted to charge me $3k more than the going rate.
Fuck you. Bye bye, and I wound up taking my biz elsewhere. I'm not sure those guys are very bright. However, if you REALLY want a mini, I'm sure you can get one up here when you get back.
Also, I thought the Camry was a late model; not the Byno Ghetto Sled special from '89 (I'll have to tell you the story of the naming of my car when you get back).
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