Originally Posted by
Yachtzee
Did you use the USAA car buying service? If so, how was your experience?
I'm in the market for a new car. I've been doing my research for the past couple months through USAA and other sites. I've noticed things have changed a lot since I last bought a car, as I previously found that the Internet was an amazing resource that could be used to play dealers off each other. My current car, a 2006 Pontiac G6 GT, we were able to buy for about $8000 under MSRP because we played 5 different dealers off each other using the internet. Now it seems most of the dealer sites tie into each other so that most dealers are offering the same deal, pretty much right around invoice give or take $100. USAA uses the TrueCar pricing, so that helps give me a good idea of where these offers are. So now I'm delving deeper into USAA's offerings and wondering if it's worthwhile to use them for financing.
The other thing I've been wondering is if people have had success using USAA to sell their current car. I might want to try that too.
So here's something I just need to get off my chest. My G6 is a decent car, but we've had it for 10 years and I'm to the point in my life where I'd like a car with some more modern amenities. Plus, I think my car officially qualifies as a "beater." Two months ago, I took it in to the dealer who we'd had a long history with and had treated us well in the past to check out a problem with the heater. Turns out the water pump had gone bad and needed to be replaced. Oh, and there was a bad control arm bushing on one side and a bad ball joint sleeve on the other side. Total repairs, $1500. So I asked them how much they would give me in trade if I just decided to be done with the car and get a new one. In the past, they would just send a guy out, to give it the once-over, knowing it's not something they're going to sell, but probably either junk out or send a long to a budget used car dealer, they'd at least offer me $1000 for my trouble. But this time they sent out a guy who went into the entire history of the car, pulling up all our old service records and grilling me on every single repair we ever had done. After about an 1 and a half hours, which was about 1 hour longer than I wanted to discuss the issue, he comes back and says, "Well, we can't sell it in it's current state, so we'll give you $200 in trade." It felt like a real slap in the face. One of his issues was that, right after we had bought it it 2006, it was in a major accident where someone hit my wife, which required $10,000 to repair (all covered by insurance). The dealer did all the repairs and promised that they stood by them all. At $10,000 for repairs, I flat out asked them if it made sense to do the repairs or just ask for the money to use toward buying another car. Our guy told us that their repairs would be so good that when we traded it in later, they would treat it as if it had never been in an accident. So we had the car fixed, and the repairs were very good. Never really had any issues other than normal wear and tear. Kept taking it to that dealer for repairs because they always seemed to deal with us straight. Now it seemed like they were using all that information they had collected about our car against us.
When we bought the car, the dealer was a Pontiac, Olds, and Buick dealer. Since the GM bail out and GM getting rid of Pontiac and Olds, we've noticed gradual changes in the dealer and how they do business. I don't know if it's connected, I think not. I think it's more likely that there's been a changing of the guard from the older generation in the dealer's family to the younger generation. The older folks in the sales and service department were more willing to work with you on cost of repairs if you could show things like regular oil changes and that you were taking care of the car. They seemed intent on building a trust relationship in order to keep you coming back. I'd say in the past 3-4 years, a lot of those guys have retired or moved on. The woman who sold us the car originally, who was just awesome to deal with, had taken a position that allowed her to work from home to be with her young children. The guy at the body shop who made all those guarantees had moved on to bigger and better things. Much of the sales staff was new and basically the only guy who recognized us as a long-time customer was the service guy who did the estimate for us, telling us it would be $1500 to fix. When I came back and told him what the guy in sales told me they would give me for the car, he just shook his head, said "I understand. Thank you for your business, I'll get your car ready for you. There are a few shops you can talk to that might be able to do the repairs more reasonably." The look in his eyes pretty much told me he knew he probably wouldn't see me again and it was kind of sad.
In the end, I had the repairs done at two separate shops and got completely new control arm assemblies on the front end and a new water pump for less than half of what the dealer wanted for the repairs. The car runs well, but has some cosmetic damage, mainly dents and scratches, a few tiny blemishes with the first hints of rust, but no major rust spots. Engine is good and has had regular oil changes for its entire life. No issues with the automatic transmission. Brakes good, new tires, 170,000 miles on the odometer. It was in a major accident in 2006, but nothing since and you can't tell it was ever in an accident. I do have a "D" sticker (for Germany) on the back to cover up a spot where last year a disgruntled former employee of my office keyed the a-word in to the paint (he keyed 3 of our cars total). Has remote start, but one of the annoying things about the car is that the key fobs no longer work, so you can't remote start or unlock the car. All unlocking must be done old school, with the key in the door, and it only has a keyhole on the driver's door. So if I want to put my kids in the car, I have to go all the way to the driver's door, unlock the door, open it, and hit the unlock button to unlock all the other doors. It runs mechanically runs well, but has all those idiosyncrasies that are fine for a young person in need of cheap wheels but kind of a pain in the butt for a guy in his forties constantly hauling his kids around.
I test drove a Subaru Legacy a while back and, once I get my car buying war chest together, I think I might go that route. The question is, what to do with my current car. The salesman at the Subaru dealership was pretty on the level and basically printed out the page from kbb.com that would give me an idea on a trade. He actually suggested trying Craigslist to see if I could get a better deal, but I've never sold a car private party before. So I'm intrigued by this car buying service. I wonder if it will get me something more akin to a private party transaction or fall more inline with what I could get in trade.
Okay, long rant over. The search for a new car has been consuming me for the past few months. I have a pretty good idea of what I want. Now it's just getting what I need to get that car together and then getting the best sale price on the new car and the best sale/trade in on the old. Based on what I've seen, it looks like the sale price on the new car is going to be pretty standard. It's going to be on the financing and trade/private sale where I might be able to find my deal.