New Vehicle from Sam's Club/Costco

[bizlady]

Read the hype, but wandering if any of you have purchased a new vehicle from Sams/Costco, and if it is cheaper than just negotiating with the dealer?

 

[Markola]

American Express also has a program, which I have not used.

 

[Jerry1]

I believe they get you the supplier discount. At times I’ve seen dealers offer employee pricing. In the current market, all bets are off. You might be able to do better if you want something the dealer wants to get rid of, but otherwise, I think supplier discount right now would be pretty good.

Thing is, you can try to negotiate first and then if you don’t do any better, you can have the Sams/Costco price as a backstop. Good luck.

 

[Dash man]

I tried Costco and they connected me with a dealer 100 miles away in another state. I just negotiated on my own and got a good deal. Just contact several dealers by internet and play them off each other in negotiating. I ended up ordering from the factory through a dealer to get what I wanted and still negotiated nearly $9,000 off MSRP.

 

[flintnational]

I checked with 3 dealers in the Atl area. One was through Costco. I was able to get a better price on my own. But, if you do not want to shop around, it might be a good option.

 

[Lewis Clark]

I used Sam's Club just about two months ago. Essentially, they connected me with local dealers via True Car. It was good to get some easy price comparisons, but I negotiated a deal on my own.

 

[Dash man]

If you’re trading in your car, don’t even discuss the trade in value until the price of the car is settled. Find out what your trade in is worth on Edmunds or one of the other sites. I also used CarMax. My trade in with the dealer was exactly the same as CarMax offered, but with the dealer there is a big advantage because it comes off the price of the new car reducing your sales tax amount.

 

[zinger1457]

I tried Costco when I purchased a new vehicle two years ago, did a lot better negotiating on my own with the dealer.

 

[Ready]

You are never going to get the “absolute best” deal going through a warehouse club. Those programs are set up to offer a fair price for someone who does not like to negotiate. If you don’t mind shopping around and using the internet to contact several dealers, that’s almost always a better way to go.

 

[Sunset]

You can try Costco/Sam's. If the price is not low enough, just don't buy it.

 

[tb001]

We used Costco but also went directly to the dealers who had the vehicle we wanted. I did all negotiating online and asked for their best out the door cash price for the vehicle. The dealer who gave us the best deal quoted us a price and said if we were Costco members he could discount it another $X. I think the additional discount was either $1k or $1.5k. They explained how to get the code they needed to authorize the additional discount.

So we got a better deal because we were members, but I wouldn’t go directly through them. The dealer they connected us with was definitely not the lowest cost.

I’ll add that we got a way better price for our trade in through Carvana, thanks to a recommendation we got here. The transaction was totally seamless and they were amazing to work with. I’ll never sell a vehicle to a private party again. So worth the low hassle.

 

[Midpack]

From what I can tell it depends on which Costco location and make of car. Costco can be a good deal in some cases, not in others. When I bought my 2018 Outback, the Costco deal was $3300 off. I got some quotes from Edmunds online that were $4400 off. I took both to the dealer and got them to $4900 off. But I’m glad I had the Costco deal in hand, it allowed me to avoid all the MSRP dance and pitiful first offers. They knew they would have to give me their best price to make a sale, so it went much faster. Good luck.

You have nothing to lose by asking for Costco’s new car price, why wouldn’t you? If nothing else, it could get you to a lower negotiated deal faster...

 

[Midpack]

If you’re trading in your car, don’t even discuss the trade in value until the price of the car is settled. Find out what your trade in is worth on Edmunds or one of the other sites. I also used CarMax. My trade in with the dealer was exactly the same as CarMax offered, but with the dealer there is a big advantage because it comes off the price of the new car reducing your sales tax amount.

You don’t think dealers know and factor that in?

But you’re right about factoring in the sales tax reduction on trade ins.

 

[ncbill]

Plenty of brokers on this site:

https://forum.leasehackr.com

Mostly geared towards leasing, but I'm sure you could use them to buy as well.

 

[travelover]

Like others, I got a Costco price to use as a baseline then invited dealers via email to bid against that price, then each other. If you are not selling your old car yourself, get a trade in offer from Carmax and use that as a baseline for trade in value.

 

[pacergal]

My brother bought one of his cars via Costco, he was happy with it. Reasonable price and didn't have to do the negotiation, which he does not like.

 

[Out of Steam]

I've been interested in the Costco auto program as well, as I'm basically hopeless as a negotiator and will drive a car years longer that I want to keep it to avoid the process.

Fortunately, my wife isn't bad at it.

 

[Venturer]

We tried the Costco deal in 2014 when DW was wanting a Ford suv. They sent us to an Atlanta dealer even tho our local Costco is 10 miles from Chattanooga. We stopped into the Carmax and got the offer for her car and were all set. Went on down the road to the dealer and ended up leaving it really unsatisfied with the experience. The suv we were shown didn't have any of the options we were looking for and the price wasn't what we were told at Costco and the price offered for her car was a lot less than Carmax. We came back to another dealer in Kennesaw was shown an suv with all the options she wanted for a better price and she was then given $500. more for her trade than the Carmax price. She did tell the salesman upfront as we were about to "test drive the suv", about our previous experience and that if they wanted our business they would have to meet or beat the deal we were supposed to get before with now back and forth. They actually had 2 of the suv's she liked in different colors. She picked her white one and we sat down in his office. He turned the paper with their offer around ask how much we wanted to pay down. My wife pointed to the price before dealer prep, extra protection wax,(they had a fancy name but it was a wax job) and told him we would pay that price or walk, and we were paying cash. When we got to the finance manager he told her if she would finance it thru them he would get her the $500. more for her trade. All we had to do was let it ride for 2 weeks then call in to the finance dept. and pay it off and it would not cost her any more than paying cash up front. That did work out but I thought it was more hassle than it was worth but DW was happy.

 

[Midpack]

We tried the Costco deal in 2014 when DW was wanting a Ford suv. They sent us to an Atlanta dealer even tho our local Costco is 10 miles from Chattanooga. We stopped into the Carmax and got the offer for her car and were all set. Went on down the road to the dealer and ended up leaving it really unsatisfied with the experience. The suv we were shown didn't have any of the options we were looking for and the price wasn't what we were told at Costco and the price offered for her car was a lot less than Carmax. We came back to another dealer in Kennesaw was shown an suv with all the options she wanted for a better price and she was then given $500. more for her trade than the Carmax price. She did tell the salesman upfront as we were about to "test drive the suv", about our previous experience and that if they wanted our business they would have to meet or beat the deal we were supposed to get before with now back and forth. They actually had 2 of the suv's she liked in different colors. She picked her white one and we sat down in his office. He turned the paper with their offer around ask how much we wanted to pay down. My wife pointed to the price before dealer prep, extra protection wax,(they had a fancy name but it was a wax job) and told him we would pay that price or walk, and we were paying cash. When we got to the finance manager he told her if she would finance it thru them he would get her the $500. more for her trade. All we had to do was let it ride for 2 weeks then call in to the finance dept. and pay it off and it would not cost her any more than paying cash up front. That did work out but I thought it was more hassle than it was worth but DW was happy.

Hopefully you let Costco know about your bad experience at the first dealer, I suspect they’d want to know, and act on it.

If you don’t get what you want, I’d walk. That’s the only way to find out if a better deal was possible. Trust me, you’ll know within 24 hours, likely less what’s possible. I’ve had reps chase me out to the parking lot to hold on to a deal. Walking is an under utilized tool for car buyers. I always time my car purchases near the end of a month, or better yet end of a quarter.