OP here. To close this thread out, I thought I'd summarize how my car purchase transaction went down. Sorry for the long post, but a lot happened. Feel free to ignore it and move on. Bottom Line -- I got my car and the process was a good one.
1. I did not need to negotiate on the selling price of the new car. I qualified for a Ford program that gave me a fixed/known price, well below MSRP, that I was happy with and that the dealer exactly agreed on. The dealer was informed of, and approved my use of, the discount program pricing well in advance of the transaction date. The program was for retirees from partner/supplier companies of Ford. Keep that in mind for later on.
2. Doc Fees are fixed at $150 by that program.
2a. I had zero interest in selling my used car on my own. Not my thing.
3. I had informed the dealer that I planned on trading in my existing car. I gave them the VIN, mileage and other details in advance to hopefully minimize my time at the dealer.
4. In prep for defending the value of my trade-in, I got online quotes from Kelly Blue Book, Caravan and CarMax. I also drove into CarMax and had them do it in person a while later. Their "in-person" quote was actually $1700 more than the online quote was. All of these quotes were within $2500 of each other or so. CarMax was my primary backup plan because I could just do that locally, in person. Although it was 2 hours in the other direction from the dealer and my home.
4. I live in PA. In our state, when we buy a new car, IF we trade it in at the same time, we only pay sales tax on the difference between the price of the two cars. If I sold it separately, I would have to pay much more in sales tax on the new car. So, my goal was to get the dealer to match CarMax's offer OR at least offer enough so that I would break even compared to having to separately sell it and pay the higher sales tax.
5. I created a spreadsheet of the various possible ways the transaction could go down at various price points for the trade-in. I had a "wouldn't it be ideal" high price and a range down to "I make more money selling it to CarMax". That range was just a little over $2000.
6. I needed to drive about 2 hours to get to the dealer. Just as I was getting ready to leave the house, the sales rep called me to ask for more details about my use of the Ford program participation. He wanted to know what I planned to use to document that I was actually a retiree of my company. He tried to tell me that I needed to bring some form of proof they were currently providing insurance, pension, or some benefit to me. None of these were true. I told him that I could only bring my last two W2s (2018 and 2019) and my employee number so they could call to verify if they wanted to. He was very uncertain that this would suffice. I told him that my definition of being a retiree was that I worked for them for 20 years, left in good standing after announcing my retirement, and never worked again elsewhere. I told him that if they didn't accept the plan, to tell me now, since I wasn't going to buy without that pricing. I would turn the car around and figure out some other plan (after doing more research). He told me he would look more into it. While I was driving, I pulled into a rest stop and emailed him the "rules" of the program that were made available to me on the plan's website. A quick look found that they do not adequately define "retiree" and they also don't elaborate on how a retiree would document their qualification for the program. All the examples listed are more for current employees. He replied that I should not worry, "we are going to honor the deal either way." So that was a big relief.
7. I get to the dealership and we quickly touched on the issue, but he says we are going to proceed to use the program and my W2s and see what happens. They have to submit this info to Ford as part of the program. I assume that if Ford balks, he'll just figure out how to switch it over to a regular dealer discount off MSRP.
8. Test drive goes very well. I love the car. Time to go in for negotiation. I was at a Lincoln dealership and he told me we needed to go down the street to the sister Ford dealership because the Lincoln finance guy was off that day.
9. Up to this point, the sales rep never mentioned my trade-in. I was expecting them to value it while we did the test drive. So when it appeared that had not been done, I assumed they would do it as we drove up to Ford. When I mentioned that, the sales rep looked a little confused and said "didn't I give you a number". I thought he was referring to some sort of number sign that you hang from the mirror to ID my car to the used car pricing guy. So I said no. He then went out and got my mileage and then went behind closed doors, I assumed to start the valuation process. Off we go to Ford. Note, at this point, the only $ I know about is the agreed upon price of the new car.
10. At the Ford dealership, he seats me and says Jenn will be finishing up the transaction. I thought that was odd, since I've only ever worked with the sales rep up thru and including final price agreements. But I didn't say anything, since I guessed they just did things differently at this dealership. Jenn came out and got my driver's license and my title to the trade-in car. Then she came back out and said "ok, I'm ready for you... c'mon in my office".
11. After some pleasant chit-chat, she starts setting up her stack of documents for signatures. First up.... sign this form to acknowledge the current mileage on your trade in.
12. I interrupted her and said... "excuse me, I don't think I want to turn my existing vehicle over until I know the full $ terms of the deal". She looked a little confused. I said, "I have not been told how much you are offering me for my trade-in". She said "Bill, didn't cover that already?". I said "No." She said "excuse me for a minute" and left to speak with Bill.
13. Of note: Up to this point, I had not told Bill (or Jenn) that I was wanting to pay cash for the car. I had previously emailed Bill and asked for their policy on personal and cashier's checks. In that email, I told him that I had not yet decided if I wanted to finance or pay cash.
14. Bill comes in the office (without Jenn) and says, "didn't I give you the amount we're offering for your car?" I said "No". He said he thought they sent it to me. I assume he meant in advance via email. Again, I said "No, unless it was in an email I never got". He sat in front of the computer with a puzzled look on his face and looked up their offer. He told me a number. It was $1500 MORE than the value I had noted to be the value I would switch to CarMax for the trade-in. So I was very happy with their offer. So happy, that I didn't even make a counter offer. I could likely have gotten a little more, but it wasn't worth it to me. I accepted their offer. He then printed out a one-page deal sheet fully spelling out the exact transaction numbers, including the exact $ figure that I would need to pay them. There were no hidden fees, charges, etc. It was very clear what was going on. Mind you, he made an assumption that I was paying cash. It was all expressed at out-the-door pricing. There was no attempt to hide numbers by terming it in monthly payments. I was a little surprised.
15. He left and Jenn came back and we both laughed about this a little. I figured that it was left to her to try and sell me on financing it so they could make their kickback from Ford Credit or a bank.
16. One by one, we worked our way thru her stack of documents to be signed. Almost done, she said, "as you know, we have multiple additional products that we can offer you such as extended warranties and add-on services for the car. Are you interested in any of those?" I said "No". She said, "no problem, I don't try to force those, so we'll move on". I was a bit surprised by that.
17. She saved the payment document for last. I figured, for sure she's going to try and talk me into financing. But no, she never once mentioned financing as an option. Haha. I suppose that if I was interested in doing that, I could have brought it up. I actually kept an open mind about it if they were going to give me a great interest rate since I could keep the cash in the market and make a little interest off it. But since she didn't bring it up, I didn't bring it up. I was prepared to pay cash, so I gave her a cashier's check and a personal check to cover the amount.
18. The entire finance transaction took about 20 minutes of time with Jenn. The least I have ever endured. After it was all done, I thanked Jenn for making this the least painful new car purchase that I had ever been thru. Including the test drive, I think I was in the dealership for only about 90 minutes.
