Thinking of trading my 03 WRX in on an STI. Trying to figure out if I might be able to get the dealer to not mark up the price so much. Would I get a fair trade in price for the WRX? Any way to get the STI at invoice without any dealer markup? What did you pay and at which dealership?
A buddy of mine just bought his via an online service, only $500 or so over invoice. Not sure what service he used, but may be worth looking into. It may have been cars.com.
I have a 02 WRX and my local dealer told me that you pay sticker, PERIOD! So expect to pay sticker.
Seems the STI is in short demand so they know there is no reason to mark down the price. Also, my local dealer told me they do NOT allow test drives in the STI. I told them they will allow me to test drive it if I'm going to buy a 32K car. With that said, when I bought my Ducati they also said "No test rides". However once I was ready to sign the papers, they allowed me to take it for a test drive. They explained that they don't want kids (hey i'm 36!!!) joy riding. I'm sure it's the same for the Subaru.
Seems you need a new dealer. I've test driven the STi at my local dealer, although I know that they have to think you are serious about buying one. And unlike the WRX's, they didn't just hand me the keys and tell me to be back in 30 minutes... :)
Although you are fairly correct regarding pricing---none of the Subaru dealers around me will haggle significantly on the STi price tag (although one of the dealers near me won't haggle on *anything* except trade-in value).
Sticker? You would be lucky to do that here. The dealership that sells Subaru in Knoxville was happily bragging that they made at least $8,000 on every STi they sold (both in up-front pricing and in the back in finance). If there wasn't at least that much profit in the deal (IE: if you walked in with cash) they didn't sell it. They are also sold out. I wonder if they are still trying to get that much for them now that there are a few out there.
Same policy for us on the Evo's. There are a few reasons but most of it is two-fold. No one wants a new high-strung car like an Evo or an STi with 100 miles on it and the other is the break in period. 200 miles on the tires, 300 on the brakes, and 600 on the engine for the Evo and probably similar for the STi. I've driven several examples of Evo's that were broken in properly and several that were hammered from day one. The difference in the two is incredible! As much as a second plus to 100mph and a lot smoother engine over 5k rpms.
You also have to figure that on any given test drive the first thing someone is going to want to do is see what the power feels like, and that's the last thing you want to do in these cars. We are a bit lucky in that a few of our salesforce already own them and don't mind taking people for rides in ones that are broken in. Of course, the average person who wants a test drive is about 16-19, thinks that an Evo is $300 a month with no money down and that at 18-19 they can qualify to get it. Would you want them driving the car before you bought it?
Does the Sti or the Evo come with a turbo? I thought one of them did.
lancer Evo 2L turbo WRX STI 2.5 L turbo in North America (because of low octane fuel) Rest of world gets a 2 L version
Engineering
Both of them do.
Trade in value is the last thing you want to haggle on (and the dealer should know this), every dollar less that you pay on the price of the car is less you pay for registration and sales tax. That's money you save but the dealership doesn't lose either, since they get your trade in cheaper.
Yep, I wish we had another Subaru dealer choice in this part of the country. The 2nd nearest dealer is about 75 miles away.
In Kentucky you pay sales tax (and registration) on the sticker price, so no matter how much you talk them down off sticker, the sales tax doesn't change (shocking but true. Oh, this is only used on NEW cars. Used cars you pay agreed on price.). Yes, talking them down off sticker helps save you money, but not in the sales tax area. That's a little tick this state uses to increase it's revenue on new car sales.
As for the salesman, I'm sure they would let someone test drive the car before they sign papers. I was just suprised they told this to me and my wife. Hey, we are not 21 year old kids. I thought a salesman would be a little more *proactive* when trying to sell a car.
Depends on where you live... Here in NH we don't have sales tax (what's a "Sales Tax"? ;) ), and the registration is based upon blue book values.
Trust that the salesman would likely love the opportunity to get out and play in an STi but frankly the market and the rules of the game (especially given the nature of the car, the buyer, and the break in periods) the no-test drive policy makes sense. You may not like it, but there it is. Most dealerships that have that sort of policy (Chevy on it's Corvettes for instance) have a clause that states if you buy the car, drive it for, say, 25 miles, and don't like it you can bring it back. This is as much to protect the dealership as well as the owner from racking up miles and such on a limited production car.
If you were going to buy an STi, Evo, Vette, Ferrari, etc, would you want to pay full price for something that everyone has joyridden in? It's odd.. everyone wants to drive a car for a couple days then they want to negotiate because now the car has miles on it.. Can't have it both ways you know.
Live Free Or Die! Here in CA, it goes by what they write down that you paid for the car. Even if you buy used from a private party, you pay sales tax, that's why we all write $500 on the title when we send it in to transfer to a new owner :-) Just to make the other CA people who read this jealous, in Mariposa County, we only have to smog our cars when we sell them unless we sell to a blood relative, then we don't have to smog at all.
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