I'm thinking (planning?) on getting a VDC. I'm trying to understand how the market works on this.
I did a bunch of research on all the car buying services, etc., people like Costco, Autobytel, etc. It appeared that most of what these folks do is contact the local dealers, charging them a referal fee in the bargin. Heck. I can do that and since the dealer doesn't need to pay a referral fee, maybe they can quote cheaper. Subaru makes it easy enough to ask for a quote from the dealers through their web site. I'm guessing Subaru doesn't charge for leads.
So I contacted a bunch of dealers in the area. Nice thing on the Subaru quote form is that you don't have give a phone number so you can decide when to switch from e-mail to phone to in-person.
It's actually gone pretty well. Nice easy e-mail exchanges with a few dealers in the area.
But here's the question: they seem to be consistent on saying you pretty much have to order a VDC. Using the Subaru inventory searches (don't know how accurate those are), it does in fact look like there are few VDCs on any lots. At the same time, I've always heard that Japanese car makers don't do factory ordering.
So does anyone know how this works? If I order with a dealer, does that go all the way back to the factory? Or does Subaru make a smattering of these cars and use the orders to figure out how to allocate them with any extra (are there extras?) going to lots? There are some on the lots, it appears, unless these are ordered cars where the inventory system isn't taking that into account or where the order fell through. But very few.
I've had dealers give two prices: one for picking up immediately/soon vs. ordering. Low for ordering, high for not ordering. I'm trying to figure out the economics of this. Are these things order-only even though there is sufficient walk-on-the-lot demand? That's about the only way I can see the pricing making sense. An artifically low supply?