Costco auto program

We looked at the Costco and X-Plan pricing when I got the last F150 for kicks. Sales guy at the dealer who I beat to death on a previous truck purchase said I couldn't do better than X-Plan. A couple hours later I was more than another thousand lower. I'll be honest though... I'm a bit tired of the whole process every time, especially with the family in tow. Next time I'll just shop those and True Car and use the lowest price to call it a day.

Thank you all for the great information. I think I will start their and see what happens.

on our new 2015 denali Sierra I tried Costco, a dealer fleet and my local credit union buying service. The credit union buying service beat costco by about $500, (both went throught the same dealer) and responsed to my request much much quicker. Needless to say I went through the credit union.

But, like others have said, if you like to spend time and have the temperment to haggle, you can probably do better on your own. But IMHO the costco price is very competative.

I don't have the temperment, nor the desire,if the price is reasonable I pull the trigger, Took less than a hour of my time to give all three the vehicle specifics I wanted, decide who to go with. and less than another hour to pick up the deal, sign the paper work, get an extremely detailed walk through and drive home.

I went through Costco and it beat the best deal I could negotiate by about $1800 on a +/- 40K Ram truck. And by "negotiate" I did the whole sit in the cubicle, leave once and wait for the call back and all the other BS that goes along with buying. I had actually forgotten about the Costco program and it turned out the dealer I was in the cubicle at was the Costco dealer for my area. Kind of an embarrassing moment for them when I came in and bought the EXACT same truck from them for $1800 less than the price they let me walk away from.

From my reading on the net it seems there is a lot of variation in pricing and Costco experiences. The bottom line is if you don't want to screw around and spend hours of your life you'll do reasonably well.... maybe even great. Everyone on the internet seems to have a story about how they beat the Costco price by $2000 but keep in mind, it's the internet.

From my limited research, most of the car buying discounts you can get from credit unions, USAA, Costco etc. seem to use "True Car".

If you don't want to go through the negotiating gauntlet, they're probably ok. If you want to spend a few more hours and test your patience you can probably get a few more thousand off doing it on your own.

Personally, I'm cheap. I'll beat a salesman to death over a few hundred dollars.

How does it work?

Costco will ask you what make you want, they'll pass you along to a dealer they have a contract with. The person there will likely be in the dealership's Fleet/Internet department. You tell him/her what car and options and they'll give you a no-negotiation price.

The dealership still has the ability to work additional things in their favor if they provide the financing and if you add additional options.

It can be a pretty stress-free process if you don't want to do the legwork of really working for a deal. You'll pay less than the average guy who walks in and buys on a whim, but maybe more than someone who is aggressive with the buying process. How big those gaps are depends on what car, popularity, incentives, and stock levels.

Dave Smith beat all of the "discount" programs on my 2006 Dodge purchase. I would use it as a negotiating tool.

Majja13 wrote:
I know I have read on here a few of you have used this. Can some one tell me how it exactly works. We are in the process of looking for a new car and I am exploring using this to get a good deal.

Thanks
Matt

We bought our last new car, the wife's Chevy Traverse, using the Costco program and it was the best buying experience ever. Every model has it's own discount in the dealer's Costco price book. The Traverse was listed as $700 below invoice as I recall. With the added $1500 back from Chevy at the time, it was a great deal. The sales person explained there was a $1500 hold back on the car so they made about $800.

years back when I ordered my Dakota I got the Consumer's reports report on list prices for all options and also the "cost" figures. yes we all know that those are semi fantasy but something to work from. at the dealer we got his "cost" sheet and it matched exactly with the CR one. I added $300 to "cost" and figured that was fair. and I got the rebate. One thing I didn't like about the CR prices was that they included the dealer advertising fee or whatever that was so I think I eliminated that.
bumpy

Thanks for the info. I have just seen many mention it so I figured I would look into it.