Hello all,
I'm in the market for a 2004 Jetta GLS 1.8T right now, and I've been doing considerable homework online to ensure I'm getting the best price. However, even though there are so many research websites nowdays that will give you MSRP vs. Invoice pricing... you still can't take these numbers as 100% fact, because you still have manufacturer to dealer incentives that you can use as a haggling tool. Only problem is, it's almost impossible to find out just what these manufacturer to dealer incentives are in most cases.
So one of the better research tools I've used is CarsDirect.com They don't come right out and tell you what the manufacturer to dealer incentives are, but they give a "Target Price" that the customer should aim for that's almost always well below Invoice price. So I would have to guess that they ARE factoring in current incentives on top of invoice pricing.
So when I put together this GLS 1.8T with all the options I want, the Target Price comes out to $20,948 Here's a screencap of the CarsDirect page with all the options added in:
So long story short... as I expected, the local dealers tell you that the internet research is wrong and they won't come down to match these prices. They're somewhat close, but still around $700 more than the CarsDirect target pricing.
And the reason for this is because the dealer is telling me the actual VW to dealer rebate is $750, not $1500 But of course I can't verify this... so they kind of stick you on this one. I think they're flat out lying to me on this one -- so if anyone knows of a good website that gives this information out, by all means let me know.
Their bottom line price for this car with the same options comes out to $21,653 And in this price workup, they're tacked on some very odd-looking charges. Check these out:
Clean fee - $130 Locate Fee - $100 Floor Plan - $142 Port Fee - $25 Ad Fees - $100
All total, these little misc. fees add up to $497
Now I could be ignorant on this one, but I've never once seen any dealer flat out charge the customer a "Clean fee" for a new vehicle. It's just always been my understanding that new cars are delivered to customer clean... and the customer isn't charged for it!
And these other fees such as "Floor plan" and "Ad Fees" -- for those knowledgable pricing gurus out there, does it look like this dealer is trying to squeeze an extra $500 out of me here? Because it certainly looks that way to me.
Any help on this would be greatly appreciated... since I'll most likely be making this purchase within the week. And I have absolutely no problem traveling a little bit to another dealer get this deal right :)
Many thanks in advance!
KG