I have used a variation of methodology outlined in the original post for purchase of my last 2 new vehicles - a Toyota Prius Four purchased in 2015, and a 2018 Honda CR-V EX-L purchased a couple of days ago.
Some Takeaways from my experiences:
1. As someone noted in an earlier post, it is impossible to get an e-mail address where you can send a Request For Quote (RFQ) to the dealer. It is clear that in this day and age, that this is done on purpose. They don't want to make it easy for buyers to force them to compete. In both cases, to start the process, I had to go to each dealer's website; find the Contact Us form; fill out the form and copy the text of my RFQ to the Comments field; submit the form; and wait for a response. If I got I response via e-mail that was not a quote, I would reply with a copy of RFQ attached and ask for a quote in response.
2. The author of the article referenced in the original post seems to imply that every dealer to whom you e-mail a RFQ will provide a firm quote in response. This is not my experience. Only about 50% of dealers will respond with a firm quote to a RFQ provided via Internet (Web or e-mail).
3. I always got a firm quote from dealers affiliated with regional or national chains, or from a local dealer that owns multiple dealerships (the high volume dealers). These quotes were always the lowest I received. I never got a serious quote from any of the local owner, 1 lot dealerships. In most cases I never got a quote at all.
4. The dealers associated with regional and national chains know how to do business via the Internet. They have staff dedicated to Internet Sales that understand that selling to a serious internet customer is different from selling to a walk-up. They would reply promptly with a firm quote via e-mail. They did not try to contact me via phone or text message. The 'internet staff' at the small dealerships are just there to generate sales leads.
5. Quotes have to be normalized. My RFQ would request that the quote be provided in same format as a Buyer's Order (or Retail Purchase Agreement). Since both of the purchases I did were cash only, no trade-in, I expected the numbers including computed sales tax to be exact. And yet, almost every quote I received estimated the sales tax even though my RFQ detailed how to compute the sales tax for my county of residence. As a result, I had to compute the Sales Tax for each quote to ensure that all quotes had correct Out-The-Door (OTD) price. I also substituted a flat fee for Tag and Title as this fee would be same regardless of who I purchased vehicle from. Everyone had estimated this fee differently (because they didn't know my DOB). Once I had normalized the quotes, I could do a fair evaluation.
For those who would like some more detail, feel free to read on.
Prior to each purchase I prepared a single page RFQ that specified the vehicle I wanted to purchase and stated that I would purchase vehicle next day from dealer who provided lowest OTD quote by 6pm of day I sent the quote. Their quote was to be Best and Final as there would be no subsequent negotiation. The RFP then specifies acceptable exterior/interior colors for quoted vehicle; states quote must be for specific VIN; specifies format of the quote; and states that all quotes must via e-mail. All other forms of communication would be ignored.
For the Prius purchase I provided the RFQ to 5 dealers within 60 miles of my residence.
Dealer A responded within an hour with a great OTD quote.
Dealer B responded 15 minutes later with a OTD quote $150 more than Dealer A.
Dealer C phoned multiple times. I did not answer. Never contacted me by e-mail.
Dealer D first tried to call then responded with e-mail asking me to come to dealership so they could tell me all about the Prius. No quote. My reply was to tell them to send a quote. The response was they would be sending a quote shortly. Never did get a quote.
Dealer E never responded. No phone. No e-mail.
I purchased vehicle next day from Dealer A for the quoted price (Which was at low end of the Truecar, NADA, Edmunds, etc. price ranges).
Dealers A was owned by a large regional chain. Dealer B was owned by a national chain. All the rest were local.
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For the CRV purchase I ended up providing RFQ to 6 dealers within 60 miles of my residence.
Dealer A responded promptly with a great OTD quote. However, the vehicle he quoted was non-compliant with the color requirements. This was because he had no compliant vehicles in inventory.
Dealer B texted and called, but never sent a quote.
Dealer C acknowledged receipt of the RFQ, but never heard anything from them after that.
Dealer D requested some additional information and stated that I would receive a quote by the deadline. Never did receive quote by deadline. However, did receive quote next day after I had already purchased vehicle. The quote was not for a specific VIN and had bunch of contingencies. So, even if they had met the deadline with the quote, I would have had to discard it.
Dealer E responded with a quote that included $1000 of dealer add-ons. I replied that their quote was their quote, but if they wanted to be competitive they would need to quote a base vehicle per the RFQ. Dealer's response was that only vehicles they had which didn't have the add-ons were in colors excluded in the RFQ. However, when I had looked at their website it showed they had 6+ vehicles that met the color requirement and all were listed at base MSRP (which indicated no add-ons). It was evident that this dealer did not really want to participate. This was disappointing as it was dealership closest to my residence, and it was dealership with most EX-L in their inventory.
Dealer F is owned by same local family that owns Dealer E. Dealers E and F used to be independent, but E bought F 15+ years ago. Initially, I did not send the RFQ to Dealer F because I assumed that their operations were completely integrated by now and sending a RFQ to both would be redundant. But, after Dealer E declined to send a quote on a compliant vehicle, I decided to send RFQ to Dealer F anyway in hopes of working with some different personnel. A while later I receive the lowest quote of the day, but the quote is for a vehicle in wrong color. I look at their website and see they have 2 vehicles in inventory that are in required colors. I respond to their quote asking if they would provide a quote on either on those vehicles as I would have to reject their first quote.
Right before my deadline, they send me an e-mail informing me that they would sell me a particular one of the vehicles for same OTD price quoted previously.
The quoted price of vehicle (excluding dealer fees, tax, tag/title) was outside the low end of the price ranges provided by Truecar, NADA, Edmunds, etc., so I knew it was an exceptional price.
I bought CRV from Dealer F the next day.
Dealer A is owned by a regional chain. Dealer E/F own by a local family that owns multiple dealerships across multiple manufacturers. All the rest were smaller, local dealerships.