Last week I took a well deserved break from my otherwise monatonous military duties and headed back to my homestate of Texas to buy a new car. I am currently posted in California, and frankly the cost of taxes and registration here was far too much so I decided to help the economy of my own state.

Well after about 4 to 5 hours at my local Subaru dealer, I drove out with a 2004 Subaru Impreza WRX Sedan WR Blue with a spoiler, arm rest extension, upgraded stereo, alarm system, and the auto-dimming rear view mirror. It is a 5 speed manual transmission and had 14 miles on it when I bought it. My walking out cost was $21,703, this price includes a dealer discount of around $2,750, tax, title, license, registration, dealer fees, and a down payment of $4,500. I believe the sticker price was $26,700. The car also has the perma-seal treatment for the exterior and interior along with a "hand-painted" pin-stripe. These options I did not pay for, or rather refused to.

I did my financing through a local credit union and received an interest rate of 4.6% for 66 months. I am not sure if Subaru financing would have been better, but frankly the services offered by the credit union far exceeded what Subaru had to offer. That and I didn't feel like hassling with financing all over again. This may have cost me a few hundred bucks in financing fees, but I won't know now, and that is fine by me. Oh well.

On to the negotiations. I worked with a pretty good salesman along with a buddy of mine that used to be a salesman for Subaru, and of course the sales manager. I orignally went to the dealership wanting to purchase a 2004 wagon, but after driving it, I realized it had a few too many blind spots for me, and decided to go with the sedan. I went back and forth with the salesman for a while while he took my offers to the sales manager and they tried to "work" with me. My buddy finally got tired of it and went to talk to the sales managaer directly . We basically told him to treat me as a cash buyer, informed him what I had to put down and what my payments needed to be. After some bantering he brought the walk out price down to $21,703 and I left to go to lunch and contact my bank. It is worth mentioning that the sales manager's showed me the computer worksheet for pricing and he was making a total of $173 on the deal. This was also on October 28, so the end of the month sell-a-thon was in full swing.

While I was at lunch I contacted another local Subaru dealership and asked them what they could do for me on a vehicle with a wing and an arm rest extension only. Walking out the door price on this one came to $20,500, so I headed back to retrieve my down payment check and go to the other dealership. The original dealership tried to sell me a vehicle with a wing, arm rest extension and the turbo gauge for $20,800. They were making $11 dollars on this sale. Anyways after talking with my bank and figuring out the cost of the optioned vehicle wasn't much more expensive I went with it.

And finally the finalizing guy, who I liked to call Mr. Happy Face due to his overwhelmingly unenergetic attitude. He proceeded to offfer me an extended warranty and some other $1000 dollar additions of which I said no. After all I had just spent 4 hours busting the sales manager's ***** along with my salesman's, so why the hell would I want to add more cost to my new vehicle?

Ok, so I think I walked out of there with a pretty good deal, but I would be more than willing to hear your opinions. Additionally, now I am looking for a transport service to get my car from Texas to California, so if anyone knows a good one, I am all ears. The best one that I have found is $595 door to door service Houston to Monterey. I hope you have enjoyed my story, and like I said I would love to hear your opinions.

 

Since I am in the military, I am able to keep a car that is titled, registered, insured, and licensed in any state that I want. It is just one of the perks that we receive for serving. Anyways, the sales tax on a new car in Texas is only 6.25% and the registration fee is lower than that here in California. I assume that when you purchase your vehicle in a different state, you can title, register, and insure it in your home state, however you will have to pay sales tax in the the state that you purchased the vehicle in. I paid around $2500 for taxes, title, registration, and licensing.

The best price I could find for shipping my vehicle was $595, but that is for 2000 miles of transport. If you don't want to drive you car home, do what I did and go to Google and do a search for multiple transport carriers. They can send the quotes to you through email.

Anyways, I was just trying to show that some dealerships are willing to work with you on pricing as long as you use some good tactics. Knowing what you want, what you can afford, and the areas you are willing to give will go a long way in the process. Also, pitting one local dealership against another can yield interesting results. I doubt many dealerships will be willing to compete with an out of state dealership though. And don't be afraid to try some "strong arm" tactics as well. Remember that you are their customer and they are working for you, not vice versa.