I decided to buy my mom a new car today, 2016 Toyota Camry XSE. I wanted her to look at other brands but she was dead set on another Camry and I wanted her to have nicer features since her 2013 Camry L is pretty plain. The car stickered for $27,xxx and they had LE's on the lot for about $300 below that price and a few were HIGHER. I don't see why you'd pay close to or more for a lower level LE when you can get basically a loaded XSE. I got $13,000 trade for her 2013 Camry which I thought was good seeing as how we only paid $19xxx for it. It only had 18,000 miles and they offered me $10k at first and I said no dice and stood firm. I ended up talking them down $2500 on the new car and they gave me $13000 for my trade. I knew they'd try some funny math and hide the numbers somewhere so I was prepared to look for that in the finance office. More on that in a min.
This new Camry is head and shoulders above the 2013 she had. It has XM, heated leather/suede seats, sport tuned suspension, basically everything the XLE has minus a sunroof and full leather seats. She liked white so that's the color I got and for a 71 year old woman it looks like a sporty ride. It has some sweet 18 inch wheels on it too.
So, now on to the argument with the finance manager who almost blew the sale. I bought from the same salesman I dealt with on her previous car. Guy is a straight shooter and goes above and beyond what most salesman do. He's great to deal with. Where this dealership falls apart is their finance managers. If they'd allow the customer to deal directly with the salesman and only the salesman then they'd have something. Most car dealers need to heed this suggestion because every finance manager I've met has the people skills of a government official. He tries to sell me GAP insurance, I tell him I have too much equity in the car and don't want it. He goes on and on about how much the car will depreciate and what if a deer hit it and totaled it. I said "well I thought Camry's held their value better than that, maybe I need to go buy something else." He was dumfounded and then proceeded to tell me if I was his accountant that he'd fire me because I didn't understand depreciation.lol I said I own a farm and an electrical company, I depreciate equipment on a 5 year basis, I've done ok for myself this far.lol Then he tries to sell me some maintenance plan that's pre-paid for $899. The math didn't work at all but I couldn't make him understand that. He said each service (after my free ones) would run me $80. My mom MIGHT have her car serviced twice a year since she doesn't drive but 10,000 miles a year. If I bought the service plan it came out to $89 a service but in his own words I'd be paying $80 if I didn't have it. See where the math is bad? All I know is I'm smart enough to know finance managers don't sell you anything that benefits YOU more than THEM. That's what I tried explaining to him but he just thought I was an idiot when it came to money. I was so close to walking out but I knew my mom wanted this car.
So, we start singing papers and guess what I find in the paperwork as I'm looking it over? Yep, the $899 service I said I didn't want. I was getting mad now, I pointed it out to him and he tried to makeout like I said I wanted it. I said, are you really going to be the one that blows this sale when you're at the home stretch, all over $899? He begrudgingly took it off and printed out new paperwork that I looked over again. I really hope I get a survey from Toyota because I'm going to burn this guy a new one on it. I love the car and I'm glad my mom is happy but this is exactly why car dealerships have the reputation they do.
