Things to do in Denver when you’re dense

We went car shopping for our daughter over the weekend. She and our son-in-law (married to a different daughter) came along, as he’s very smart about cars and a good negotiator to boot. I am neither of those things, but having me there created a bit of a quandary for the sales people. They did not know who exactly they were trying to screw.

But they’re very good at it. It’s not like they don’t know all the angles. We made a bottom line offer at one dealership, cash on the line, take it or leave it. They said “No.” I was under the impression that if they know that you are going to walk, they will come down. Not so. They let you walk.

At another place we found a very nice car, a Legacy with low miles in good condition. We looked at it, expressed some interest, and then came back later in the day. Son-in-law and daughter drove it, liked it, and we proceeded to negotiate. The initial asking price was $14,700, and we came back with $13,000. The salesman, let’s call him Dick, did the old routine where he wrote it down on a piece of paper, had my daughter sign it, and then left the room.

The whole thing is a charade. They go watch TV for a few minutes. They know we know this, but insist that we do it anyway. He came back and said that they would only go $14,600. We said no, and came back with $13,700, and we did the charade again. Dick came back and said they could do $14,400, so we came up to $14,200, and we settled on that price, which we actually thought was OK.

Then Dick started writing down numbers, and said that the final price was $14,200 and then said matter-of-factly that there would be “the $500 dealer fee.”

I said “What?”

“Dealer fee – $500. We add that on to all our cars.”

“What is it?”

“It’s the fee we charge for all the work we did on the car before we put it on the lot.”

“You didn’t mention it before. There’s nothing on the sticker outside about it.”

“Sure I did. It’s right here.”

At this point he pulled out the sheet of paper we had been using for the back and forth, and pointed to the words “+ dealer fee” next to our offer. I said “Dick, you knew what that was, but we didn’t.”

Son-in-law said “We said $14,200 and that was our bottom line. That’s a deal breaker.”

Dick would not budge.

“Dick, I really wish you hadn’t done that,” I told him. “We were ready to deal.”

We got up and walked to the door, and Dick went running off and came back and said “250?”

Anyway, we found a nice car yesterday from a private party, a nice young couple with a black lab and a kid and a bun in the oven. But the thing with Mile Hi Honda, or whatever they were, was that the car we had our eye on was a good one with low miles, and we might have settled on $14,700 had they not been so sleazy about it. But slipping the dealer fee in at the end like that, after the handshake and as the tension eases, was slimy. What they did, what they carefully set out to do, was to pretend to negotiate, allow the price to drop $500, and then after reaching a deal, add the $500 back.

The moral here is to avoid used car dealerships in Denver. Use Craigslist, and be careful there too, as dealers have infiltrated it. There must be some sort of salesperson’s code that says never let a car go for less than sticker, but use thousand ways to circle around and get it. We learned later that most states have outlawed or capped “Dealer Fees.” but Colorado hasn’t.

We bought a new car In Bozeman from a dealership in 2005. When we first went on the lot we were not approached by anyone, and looked around at our leisure. Later, when we wanted to drive a car, the salesman told us that the price in the window is “the price.” They don’t negotiate, and they don’t harass people who come there. If you like the car, they will sell it to you for that price with no add-ons, no dealer fees.

Of course, they’ll hammer you on a trade, so avoid trading in older cars – sell your old car on Craigs – even if you only get $100 for it, it’s more than what appears to be a higher price from the dealer, even after “negotiating.”