How I spent 4 hours negotiating a brand new fully loaded 2016 Infiniti QX50 SUV

TL;DR – Spent 4.5 hrs in the dealership to get a brand new fully loaded 2016 Infiniti QX50 and got a deal below TrueCar’s “exceptional price.”

Introduction

In yesterday’s post, I wrote about how my wife had test driven the Infiniti QX50 and loved it over the Lexus NX200T.  This was around 2pm on a Saturday and we had 4 more cars to test drive before we were done.  However, the Infiniti sales rep mentioned about some great leasing deals at the moment, and I was intrigued since the Infiniti Q50 lease deal was what brought me down this rabbit hole.  So I figured it wouldn’t hurt, so I said, “Sure, let’s go crunch some numbers.”  You know how in life, when you make a mistake, you remember so vividly everything about that exact moment your life changed… well this was it for me.  This was THAT moment.

 

Why my wife liked this car

Let’s recap real fast about what we were looking for in a car and why we chose this car (in order of importance):

• AWD (MUST)
• SUV (MUST) – we could have gotten by with a crossover, but I liked being ‘higher up’ in the SUV
• Backup camera (MUST) – this car had it and most newer cars have this as standard.
• Backup sensor (MUST) – I didn’t realize how nice this feature was until I experienced in my Audi.  Basically beeps at you if you are about to hit something.
• Front sensor (MUST) – My wife is moving up from a Leaf to an SUV and I don’t want her dinging cars when parking.  While you can find this in older cars, it really didn’t get popular until the ~2015 models and even then, you’ll most likely be paying extra.
• Collision avoidance (ALMOST MUST) – Car manufs can’t call it ‘collision avoidance’ since they could be sued if you rear end someone.  Infiniti calls their variant “Distance Control Assist.”  This basically will stop the car if need be if the car in front of you is slowing or stopped.  Theoretically reduces chances of you rear ending someone.  This feature is only available in a small number of 2015+ cars although I just saw a 2016 Honda commercial that featured it.
• Blind spot sensor (NICE TO HAVE) – I mean, my wife can turn her head to see her blind spot, but this is a cool feature.  This is usually an add-on in newer model cars 2013+
• Adaptive cruise control (NICE TO HAVE) – If you have cruise control set at 60mph and you are approaching a slow car, the cruise control slows down.  If you change lanes or once the car gets the heck out of your  way, it goes back up to 60.  My wife loves cruise control on her commute to work.  I have mixed feelings about this feature since I think this makes you less alert since the car sorta drives itself, but then again, if you didn’t have it, you may rear end the car in front of you if not paying attention.
• Self parking (NICE TO HAVE) – My wife is horrible at parallel parking.  This would be awesome.  But if the car didn’t have this, then the next feature would be a poor man’s version:
• 360 degree camera (NICE TO HAVE) – There’s not that many cars that have this.  Toyota only introduced it in the Rav4 in 2016.  When you Google this, it comes up with mostly Nissan cars, but BMW, Land Rover, Lexus, and MB have these too in certain models.
• Lane departure warning (NICE TO HAVE) – When you are driving on the highway and your car drifts into the other lane, the car beeps and you may feel a vibration in the steering wheel
• Rear camera inside rear view mirror (NOT NECESSARY…yet) – I just read about this here.   Seems very cool.
• Pedestrian safety (NOT NECESSARY) – Volvo and Subaru touts this as a feature where the car will brake if a pedestrian walks by, but the Lexus front parking sensor beeped as a pedestrian walked by.  I think beeping is good enough; don’t really need for it to apply the brakes.  Plus, this is a commuter car and she’s not driving in high pedestrian areas *knock on wood.*

As you can see, that’s a pretty long list, and I didn’t realize how long it was until I just typed it out.  Clearly my wife wants a self driving car.  What you need to know is that once you get the fully loaded option, you sorta get most of the rest.  The only thing this Infiniti did not have was the self parking (which I think Lexus is known to have) as well as the bottom 2 items.

Also note that I didn’t write out things like – keyless entry/start, automatic wipers, auto-dimming rearview mirror, xenon lights, etc.  The reason for that is once again, if you get fully loaded, you get all of this with it.

However, the car didn’t have these noteable things – no ‘kick to open’ the trunk feature, worse yet no button to close the trunk automatically (I don’t know how they did NOT put this feature in the car), and it doesn’t have the partial tap turn signal (where you slightly tap on the turn signal and it only blinks 3 times, without you having to turn it off later.)  It also doesn’t have the automatic side windows folding in when you park although it does tilt down when you back up.  It does have steering wheel push back and seat pushback when you open the door, which was a cool feature in the Lexus.

 

The lease deal

Back to my story.  After I told the sales rep “let’s go run some numbers,” we went into his office.  I really didn’t want to lease my future car because I wanted to keep it for a long time, and so I really wanted to buy a 2-3 year old used car.  Well before we can talk about the lease numbers, we needed to know how much the car was.  Because I wanted the fully loaded tech package, the MSRP came out to be about $45,500.  That was way over my budget of $30-$35K.  So then I asked about the ‘great’ lease deal.  The rep was so excited about the lease that he says to me, “Oh man, wait till you see the lease deal.  You’ll tear up this piece of paper.”  Or something to that effect.

He then goes off to talk to the manager and comes back with a deal something along the lines of $3K down and $500 a month (my numbers are vague).  I told him I didn’t want to put any money down.  So he goes off again and comes back 5 minutes later saying it would be something in the ballpark of $700 a month for 36 months.  I told him that was ridiculous because at the end of 3 years, I have no car!  And I didn’t want to play the losing trade-up game.  If you did the math, at $50K over a 60 month finance, it comes out to be about $833 a month (this excludes the 1.99% APR by the way).  The point here is that for a little bit more a month and 2 more years of payments, I’d own the car outright.  So the lease deal was off the table.

 

Two variables in buying a new car – price of the new car and your car’s trade-in value

With the lease deal off the table, we now focused on the price of $45.5K.  I told him that was way beyond my budget.  I told him that the NSX200T was listed at $39K and I never even considered it due to it being so high (my plan was to wait for it to hit the $35K price point since I had time on my hands.)   So I told him the best I could do was $39K for the car, which is really a slap in their face, but I didn’t care because I was indifferent.  Plus, the used 2015 w/o the tech package and 2K miles was priced at $39K.   I basically threw out a number that I wanted to pay.  I had done no price research on the Infiniti cars before going in (bad mistake – information is power in negotiating.)  I knew the price range of X3’s and Q3’s and I figure I could get those for about $35K if they were ~3 years old.

There are basically two variables when buying a car – the price of the car you want and your current car’s trade-in value.  With the lease deal off the table, the sales rep then asked if I wanted to trade in a car.  I told him that I could get rid of my 6 year old Hyundai.  He asked me what it’s worth.  I told him other car dealerships had valued it at $6-$8K in the past.  He then asked how much I’d want for it to take it off my hands.  At this point, I actually had no idea what the Hyundai was worth.  In my head, I figured I could sell it for $8K to$9K privately, so if Infiniti wants to give me $10K for it, that’s a no-brainer.  I realize that I wanted Infiniti to undercut the price of the new car by $6K and overpay my car by $2K, but hey, you gotta start somewhere right?

That’s when the sales rep then had his manager drive the car.  After that, the manager’s manger drove the car, and that’s when the sales rep told me they must be serious with this deal.  About 15 minutes later, the rep tells me that the front hood of my car had been repainted, which makes no sense since we bought it new and no one would have repainted the hood.  Anyway, the rep then does the usual schtick of pulling up the lowest priced Hyundai with equivalent miles for $6K.  I stopped him immediately because at the bottom of the sheet, in the description, it read “reconditioned title.”  I basically told him “GET OUTTA HERE WITH THAT!”

Let me stop right here and say this rep was actually a very friendly guy and was trying HARD to close this deal since it was the end of the month.  I knew this game and have nothing bad to say about him, unlike sleazy Randy from the Nissan Leaf lease.  I wasn’t hating on the playa; I was hating on the game.  Anyway, he told me the dealership would give me $3K for my Hyundai.  I wasn’t even angry at that price because 1) I knew it was coming and 2) I figure I’m gonna run that car into the ground anyway.  Suffice it to say, the trade-in was NOT going to happen either.  Now we’re down to 1 variable.

 

Employee Corporate Discounts

Now that we weren’t doing a lease and I wasn’t trading in my Hyundai, there was only 1 variable left.  The sales rep even brought me the invoice price of the car.  With respect to the car dealership, I won’t tell you the invoice price, but just know my $39K offer was way below it. Haha.  At this point, we had been in the dealership for 2-3 hours.  I wasn’t budging on $39K because I felt that was already going way over my budget.  And there was no way they could get me close to it either.  That’s when he asked me about TrueCar.  I told him I knew about the site, but I didn’t care about it because I wasn’t trying to get the best deal on the car; if I didn’t get the car, I would just move on to another manufacturer.

Eventually the sales rep went to the manager again when I reiterated I was only going to pay $39K.  After a wait, he came back to ask me where I worked.  I told him my work and he went back to the manager.  Later he came back and said, “I have great news.  Your company is in the employee corporate discount program.  We can sell you the car for $40K.”  Let me take a second to note here that I while I do work for a big company, it didn’t qualify for the Nissan Leaf lease 1.5 years ago, and this is important to note since Nissan and Infiniti are the same company.  So I didn’t really believe that I had a corporate discount, but hey, I’ll continue on with this game.

I was a bit shocked they were going to drop the price of this car by $5.5K, corporate discount or not.  Regardless, I told him, “Sorry.  $39K.  That’s it.”  He was shocked that I wouldn’t take the deal, “Are you going to walk away from this car for $1,000?”  My rebuttal, “Are YOU going to let me walk away for $1,000?”  I mean, we were both playing mind games with each other.  He knew I had no urgency to buy the car today and had 4 more test drives to go do, and let’s face it – the odds of me returning were very slim and we both knew that.  But he wanted to close the deal today since it was month end, and it seems the manager wanted to close the deal too since he hadn’t come in and kicked me out of the dealership at $39K.

We were at an impasse once again.  He offered to tint the windows ($400 retail cost).  He then got the service guy to come in and offer me an 8 year warranty or prepaid maintenance at essentially cost (over $1,000 savings.)  I passed on them all.  I wasn’t budging and he was becoming flustered since he was running out of options.  Eventually, he left the room.

 

The “Closer”

When he left the room, I was talking to my wife about this.  She didn’t really care either way.  I told her it’d be hard to find a 2-3 year used one of these since most people who buy the fully loaded options don’t usually trade them in – usually the base models are the ones that get traded in.  So I knew it would take a long time to find another one.  Plus, if they were offering the 2015 2nd-to-top model for $39K, that means they would have priced a 2015 fully loaded at probably $41K or so.

I also knew that the other cars we were going to test drive – the MB GLA, BMW X3, Audi Q3/Q5, etc were NOT going to have this many features in them, so really, this was THE car we wanted.  Of course I wasn’t going to let them know that.  Anyway, after more time had passed and we were nearing the 4th hour in the dealership, they brought in the “closer.”  The funny thing is that I recognized him, but couldn’t remember where.  Then it hit me – he was the sales rep when I test drove the Infiniti Q50 last year.  Too funny I tell ya!

 

Points and Counterpoints

Anyway, I explained the situation to the Closer.  I had test driven 5 cars already and wanted to test drive another 5 cars.  We were in no rush to buy today.  We were in no rush to even buy the Infiniti.  We didn’t even consider buying NEW.  We had 4 months left on the Leaf and had the Hyundai as backup, so we could wait the whole year to buy this car.  His first argument was, “Look, we have 1.99% financing.  If you had bought the used Lexus, you would have paid 3.99% since it wasn’t new.”  That was a very solid financial point that I learned when I bought my used Audi.  That was worth at least $800.

However, while the argument is sound, my counterpoint was, “Well, I never intended to buy the Lexus at $39K.  I would have waited to find [any other used car] that was in my $35K price range.  It may not have the options of this Infiniti, but it’s less.”  His counter to this counterargument was then, “Well if that’s the case, then let me remove some options.”  Well played.  Clearly, I should have taken debate in school.  My only response to that, “No, I want all these options!”  He knew I was being irrational, but there wasn’t anything he could do.  I was set on $39K and wasn’t budging.  Eventually, the both of them left the room and went to talk to the manager.

 

Check and Mate

Eventually they come back and threw out this offer, “How about you turn in your Nissan Leaf now and we’ll pay the remaining months and waive the disposition fee?  You’ll save on insurance as well.  That’s worth about $800.”  This idea came so far out of left field that I was stunned and didn’t know how to respond.  First off, I had to check if that disposition fee was actually true, and sure enough, it was – apparently when you turn in a leased car, you have to pay a disposition fee that’s usually not waived.  The Leaf’s was $395.  I had to ask the logistics of the deal – do I park the Leaf here and eventually pick it up in May and drive it to Nissan?  Apparently not – I just drop off the Leaf tomorrow and that’s it.  Quick aside – at this point, I had forgotten that Nissan and Infiniti were the same company.

So now the deal was “Turn in the Leaf and take the Infiniti for $40K.”  Being Asian, I of course had to counter with, “Take the Leaf and I give you $39.5K?”  He smirked for a bit and I knew that wasn’t going to happen.  “How about you tint the windows too?”  Grasshoppers chirping.  The closer then reminded me that I would save $800 and we were $1,000 apart, so we could split the $200 difference and call it $39,900.  I then took a walk out to the showroom floor and checked out the car one last time.  He gave me a minute and walked out to me, put out his hand, and reiterated the deal.  I told him to make it $39,888 since my wife was Chinese.  And we shook on it.  

 

Paperwork and the analysis of the deal

We had to wait another hour for both the finance guy to draw up all the paperwork.  The car still had plastic wrap on it, and so we had to wait for them to get the car ready.  The finance guy then tried to sell us the same warranty and prepaid maintenance.  I was so tired after 4 hours that I waived everything just so I could get the hell out of there.  When he printed out the final papers, I noticed a rogue $120 Leaf payment charge on the paperwork.  He called the sales rep to confirm it was a mistake, which it was.  I asked him how that was possible for Infiniti to take the Leaf lease.  He said they were the same company.  And that was my “Aha!” moment.

I was paying Nissan $120 a month.  I’m sure the Leaf was depreciating 2X-3X that a month.  By me turning it in early, this actually helps Nissan/Infiniti save money by selling it faster.  It helped me by not paying having to pay $800 for the next 4 months with the car (plus the hassle of having 4 cars at the house.)  It was a win-win for the both of us, which is rare in these types of negotiations.  

By the way, I also put down $5K on my 1%+1% Discover card.  The max supposedly was $2,500 but the finance manager let me do $5K.  I would have used my 3% Miles card, but my stupid CL hasn’t cleared in almost a week.

When we finally walked out to our car, I told the sales rep, “Congrats on the Leaf turnin-move.  I didn’t realize you were the same company, so that’s why the deal worked.”  He even said he had no idea that was even a possibility.  Maybe that’s why the ‘closer’ was brought in.  Or maybe the manager had to contact corporate or the dealership owner to see if it was possible.  I don’t know.

I know some people had these long car negotiations.  When I was telling friends at dinner, one of them told me his Toyota purchase took a total of 6 hours.  I know some people like to do everything over email and only come in to sign paperwork, but I can assure you I would not have gotten the deal I did over email.  This deal wouldn’t have happened w/o the corporate employee program (or fake program, who knows) and the Nissan Leaf trade-in, which is hard to convey over email.  I mean, we essentially laid all our cards on the table to make this deal work.  By the way, I did have to forward over my paystub to verify employment; not sure if it was to keep up with the ruse or not.  Whatever; I’m not complaining.

The irony of this story is that I had spent a similar 4+ hrs in that exact same building when I negotiated my Leaf lease.  This was the Nissan dealership before it moved about 6 months ago.That building has sucked way too much out of my life.  The question remains – could I have gotten the deal earlier at $39K if I had seriously tried to walk out?  I don’t know.  Possible.  I think the lowest they could go was around the $40K mark.  I mean, why waste both of our times for a $1K difference?  For your information though, here is the TrueCar screenshot, which I looked at when I got home.  I honestly think I was more excited about the deal than the actual car.

 

Addendum

The next day, I was afraid they would give me a hard time when I turned in the Leaf, you know, to make back some of the money.  However, it was very painless.  I met with the sales rep, he signed some paperwork, checked the mileage on the car, and I gave him the keys.  Took about 5 minutes and we were on our way.

I drove the car home that day and a bit on Sunday.  It has a lot more acceleration than I expected.  That probably explains the 16 mpg average.  Dough!  Good thing oil is so cheap and I have thousands in gas gift cards.

Lastly, don’t go around to your local dealership expecting the same deal I got.  Every dealership and region is YMMV.  It just so happened things aligned for us (end of month, corporate discount, Leaf turn-in.)

The actual color/car we got (wife thought white would get too dirty.)

 

Lessons Learned

Now that I have leased a new car, bought a used car, and bought a new car within the past 2 years, here are some tips I can give you:

• Lease if you want to only keep the car for about 3 years.
• Buy a 2-3 year old used car if you do intend to keep it for a while (more options, the better).
• If you’re going to buy a new car, come at the end of the month and even end of year if possible.
  • Be ambivalent about the car.  Don’t let them know it’s THE car you want.
  • Have a budget and stick to it (unlike yours truly.)
  • Some people don’t like the ‘let me talk to my manger’ game, but really, if you want the best deal, you’ll have to play the game.  It’s like when people email you lowball offers on Craigslist.  You immediately delete the emails.  But if you meet them in person, you’re more likely to negotiate down since you just want to get rid of the thing and not waste more time on it.  That’s how this game works.