response 32 of 120:

Nov 18 00:28 UTC 2003

Re #28: I got rid of my 1986 Subaru in part because it did NOT have airbags.
But if we are lucky only cars with airbags will be on the road in a few
years.

response 34 of 120:

Nov 18 00:38 UTC 2003

Jesus wept. Maybe they did that to ensure kids got in the back, as well. It's
illegal in the uk for kids to go in the front up until about 6 or 7 anyways.

response 36 of 120:

Nov 18 01:51 UTC 2003

Oh, and as to the Cavalier:  Over the past decade, myself and a couple 
family members have owned Cavaliers, and would not hesitate to buy 
another.  Mine, an '89, served me well and faithfully until I sold it at 
170,000+ miles (and it was still running just fine, thank you).  

response 38 of 120:

Nov 18 06:22 UTC 2003

My 2003 VW Jetta has weight sensors in the seats that are supposed to adjust
airbag deployment force based on the size of the occupant, and not have the
airbags deploy for empty seats.  It's still got warning labels saying not to
let kids under age 12 sit in the front seats due to airbag danger.  I don't
know if that's just a matter of not trusting the sensors, or if the sensors
really don't distinguish well between kids over 12 and kids under 12.

As far as Saturns go, my 1994 Saturn has done pretty well at keeping running
once I started mostly ignoring routing maintenance several years ago.  During
the first few years I had it, I was being careful and taking it in for regular
service, and every time I did something would be found seriously wrong with
it, which would be expensive to fix.  For the last several years I've been
pouring in a quart of oil every thousand miles, getting the oil changed at
a quick oil change place two or three times a year (I haven't been driving
much the last few years), and deciding on a case by case basis whether the
plastic components that break off did any thing functional.  For the only one
that seemed critical (the piece of plastic on the bottom of the car that
channels air into the cooling system) I discovered I was able to reattach the
old one using ethernet cable rather than having it replaced at a cost of
several hundred dollars like I'd done the last couple of times.  Still, when
I got to the point were there was some somewhat significant work I'd have to
do to make it a good road trip car again, and I'd already been looking into
buying a new car during the week the Saturn was missing after it got stolen,
I decided I'd rather replace it than deal with it being repaired.  At almost
10 years old with 130,000 miles on it, I think it's done reasonably well. 
Anybody in the Bay Area want to buy a cheap car?

After finding out what a hassle it is to deal with a stolen car, being hard
to steal quickly rose to near the top of my priority list, and that eliminates
Hondas and Toyotas from consideration.  I don't know if the current generation
of Saturns has gotten any better in that regard, but I was told by the cop
who took my stolen car report that mid-90s Saturns are stolen so often that
the police around here run the plates whenever they see one.  Indeed, I was
talking to somebody on the train this morning who was complaining that his
'94 Saturn had just been stolen for the second time in a year.  That mine was
returned with no damage to the door or the ignition presumably illustrates
just how easy they are to drive off with.  The Jetta, in addition to its alarm
system, has a radio transceiver in the key that has to be in close proximity
to the dash board, or the engine control computer won't run.

I ended up choosing the Jetta for a number of reasons, most of which probably 
won't appeal to jep.  Part of it was because it appears hard to steal.  Part
of it was for safety -- In addition to anti-locks brakes and traction control,
the big airbag question now appears to be not whether to have them but how
many to have.  The Jetta has six of them, front and side for each front seat
passenger, and "side curtain" which goes between the side windows and the
heads of both front and back seat passengers.  The high end luxury cars have
eight.  They add front airbags for the back seat passengers as well.  Other
cars in the Jetta's price range tend to have at most four.  Mostly, though,
the Jetta is just a really fun car to drive.  I wanted a Mercedes or BMW or
Audi, and the Jetta was the closest I could comfortably afford.

The big lesson I learned from car buying this time was the importance of both
shopping around and negotiating.  I started out at the VW dealer that's an
easy walk from my house, where the salesman was very nice and quoted me a
price that was slightly below dealer invoice, so I suspected I was getting
a good deal.  To be sure, I sent requests for quotes to several other VW
dealers in the area (car dealers all now have "Internet sales departments,"
to deal with requests that come in by e-mail or via web forms, and which
supposedly quote lower prices than the sales people in the dealership can
quote), and ended up with a fairly large spread, ranging from slightly above
what I'd been quoted by the first dealer to $2,000 below.

I then went to talk to the guy with the $2,000 lower quote, and found him to 
be really slimy, but also rather easy to push down on price even further.  We 
talked for a couple hours, with him becoming progressively ruder, me becoming 
progressively angrier, and him lowering the price more and more whenever I 
indicated that I didn't like him and really would prefer not to buy from him.  
By the end of that session, we were $2,500 lower than my quote from the 
original dealer, and had moved up to a car with significantly more options.  
He refused to give me the quote in writing, which I thought was strange.  I 
refused to buy without spending the night thinking it over first.  The more I 
thought about it, the more I really wanted to run screaming from the slimy 
salesman, but his pricing seemed just too good to do so.  

I called back the original dealer, and it turned out he didn't have the car 
he'd originally quoted me the price on, just cars loaded with lots of options 
I didn't want to pay for.  I offered him a couple hundred dollars less than 
the slimy dealer's quote for a fancier car, and he said no, as I expected.  I 
then called back the slimy dealer and told him I'd accept the deal we'd 
negotiated the day before, but he responded by raising the price $500.  I 
hung up on him, expecting him to repeat the previous day's pattern by calling 
back, but haven't heard from him since.
 
I then started looking around on the web, and saw that the dealer who had been
my second lowest bidder had three identical cars in the inventory database
on their website.  I called them and said, "hi, I see you have these three
cars in your database.  I had a deal with with (the other dealer) for (the
price that had been offered and withdrawn), but they're really unpleasant to
deal with and I'd much rather buy from somebody else."  He responded by
quoting me a price $500 less than what was no longer available at the other
dealer, and e-mailed me a written quote (a big improvement over the other
guy).  I told him I'd take it.

I ended up buying the car for $4,000 under MSRP, which was $3,000 under
invoice and $3,000 under the original quote I'd gotten, and around $2,500
under the Edmunds.com "true market value."

The salesman who had given me the original quote and refused my counter offer
(which, as it turned out, was more than I ended up paying) called me back as
I got in the door from buying the car.  I told him he was too late, so I don't
know what he would have offered at that point.

response 40 of 120:

Nov 18 12:57 UTC 2003

Yep, I recognize a fellow negotiations warrior up there. ;-)

Go in fully armed with information, check out the incentives,
know how long the car has been on the dealers lot and why this
is important.  Time it for the end of the month.  Don't look
anxious to own the car.  Be firm and willing to walk away.  Don't
muddy up the issues by throwing a trade in into the deal.  

I've never let a deal get hostile but it's gotten tense.
What a shame you need these skills to get a fair price.

response 42 of 120:

Nov 18 14:04 UTC 2003

Is this a good time of year to get a discount on a 2003 car?

response 44 of 120:

Nov 18 15:48 UTC 2003

Ah.  I see now:

}     = $6500 / ( 1/280 gallons/mile * $2/gallon )

and

}       = $1800 / (.015 gallon/mile * $2/gallon)

differ by at least one omitted step.  280 gallons/mile is .0035 gallon/mile .

And yes, it makes sense that a difference of 5 miles per gallon would
take longer to make up than a difference of 15 miles per gallon.

response 46 of 120:

Nov 18 17:30 UTC 2003

(I know someone who'd make a GREAT professional car negotiator
counselor if she ever decided she was interested...  ;-)

response 48 of 120:

Nov 19 16:04 UTC 2003

The reason 2 people have given me for buying a Saturn is because the 
price at the dealer is fixed. There's no haggling like with other 
dealers, and so they don't leave with a car and wonder if they could 
have got it cheaper

response 50 of 120:

Nov 19 18:00 UTC 2003

Saturns are built in Tennessee, and are sold only in the US and Canada 
as far as I know.  They're usually rated by magazines as pretty 
ordinary cars, but their customer satisfaction scores are high because 
of their no-haggle pricing and because they really try to make people 
feel happy.  People go to Tennessee to tour the Saturn factory, and 
there's a Saturn-owners "reunion" every year.

They used to use a Japanese style of management.  When my brother hired 
in, he had to interview with the people he would be working with, and 
get their buy-in to be hired, for example.  There was not much division 
between management and line workers.  That's gone now; Saturn is owned 
by GM after all, and that's not the GM way.  But I guess it was fun 
while it lasted.

response 52 of 120:

Nov 19 23:37 UTC 2003

Re #44:  Even a difference of 5 MPG takes more or less time to
make up, depending where it is.

The problem is that fuel consumption is the inverse of miles per
gallon, and people have a poor feel for inverses.  Put it this
way:  making one vehicle improve from 20 MPG (0.05 gallon/mile)
to 40 MPG (0.025 gallon/mile) saves twice as much fuel as
taking an 80 MPG (0.0125 gallon/mile) vehicle and making it
run on no fuel at all.

The savings due to going from 25 MPG to 40 MPG is not 3 times as
much as the savings due to going from 35 MPG to 40 MPG, it is
more like 4.5 times as much; the difference between 20 MPG and
40 MPG is seven times as much as that between 35 MPG and 40 MPG.

response 54 of 120:

Nov 21 06:23 UTC 2003

Congratulations, jep!

Regarding the recommendations earlier in this item, and over and over again
in Consumer Reports, to know all about the dealer's costs to get the car and
refuse to pay more than some set amount over that, I'm not convinced.  Partly
this is because any formula for that sort of negotiation I've seen would have
resulted in me insisting on a price significantly more than I paid for my new
car, and partly this is because it doesn't seem to make much business sense.
If the supply/demand equation for a given car (or any product) is such that
the dealer can sell every one they get at a large profit, they're not going
to accept offers that don't give them that profit margin.  If they can't sell
something for what they paid for it but they would like to get some of that
money back, they'll cut their losses and sell it for less.

What I'd suggest instead in negotiating car prices (from what little
experience I have at it) is to treat it the same as negotiating anything else
involving large amounts of money -- real estate, telecommunications capacity,
employment terms and sallary:
 - If at all possible, don't make your opening offer until you've heard
   theirs.  You don't want to end up asking for a worse deal than they would
   have just given you.  If they ask you to go first, claim ignorance: "I'm
   just starting to look.  I'm going to get a few more offers before deciding,
   but you know the market better than I do.  Tell me what you think is fair."
   If they refuse to play that game, and won't go first, give them a number
   you know to be way out in left field.  This generally forces them to
   counter with something.  If they instead try to end the conversation, you
   can respond with, "ok, if that won't work, tell me what will."  But then,
   stick to, or close to, your ridiculously low number.  You'll have to go
   up at some point, most likely, but see how low you can get them to go
   first.  They did, after all, ask you to come up with a number.

 - You've said you were going to get other offers as well.  Do it.  Get as
   many other offers as you reasonably can.  Tell any but the lowest that
   they're too high, and see if they respond by coming down on their own. 
   Negotiate down from the lowest, making it clear that you're still talking
   to the others and aren't ready to buy that day.  Also, indicate with some
   hesitation that even the lowest bid might be high enough that the deal
   won't work.  Never say it defnitely won't -- you lose credibility if you
   later end up taking it -- but insist that it will be difficult and that
   you need some time think it over.  When you get to a point where you can
   get up and leave, saying you aren't sure if it's going to work, and they
   don't come after you, you've probably gotten them down as low as you're
   going to get them on your own.

 - Once you're pretty sure you've negotiated a good deal, you're at the point
   of being ready to go to the competition and name your own price, probably
   a few hundred lower than the offer you're about to accept.  If the
   competing dealer accepts your offer, you're probably at the point where
   you should take it -- you're not going to get them down lower than what
   you've already offered them without some significant work.  But at that
   point it might be worth calling another dealer and offering even less, to
   see what happens.  If the other dealers refuse your offers, thank them for
   their time and take the deal you've already negotiated.  That's a good
   indication that you really have done well in the negotiating process.

On a slightly different note, I notice on Saturn's website that while their
dealers aren't supposed to negotiate on price, the dealers do get to set
their own prices.  This presumably means that even if for some reason you
were to buy a Saturn, it would still be worth doing a fair amount of shoping
around for the best price.  I wonder if they really just tell you to go away
if the dealer in the next town turns out to have a lower price.