Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Used Car "Sale" - Disappointing as Usual

Every now and then you come across what seems like a good car sales event.... usually they turn out to be disappointments.  Actually I have found they always turn out to be disappointments.  One of the larger, if not the largest used car dealership here in St. John's had advertised a "Drive Home Happy" sales event with at least $1,500 off every used car on the lot, which currently consists of about 150 vehicles.  They have a lot of used Hyundai Elantras, Santa Fes, Accents, Mitsubsihis, a bunch of Civics and a smattering of other vehicles.  As with most other used car dealerships they are priced anywhere from $1000 to $3000 over what you could get a similar car for privately.

 I emailed the dealership on Saturday asking them what exactly they would be offering at their 3 day sale.  As a backgrounder, most of the vehicles (those with under 100,000 km) come "certified".  Certified boils down to a one year bumper to bumper warranty, which gives you some piece of mind when buying used.  You know they are fairly certain nothing major will break within the next year.

I asked if the $1,500 was actually off every car and they responded that yes every car was $1,500 off if I didn't want it certified, if I did want it certified it was $500 off.  Of course the advertised price on the cars was certified so the Drive Home Happy was actually only $500 off the current sticker price.  You can get $1,500 off but they won't give you the extra year warranty.

So once again what started out looking like a very good deal turned out to be an ok deal but I would suspect you could probably get $500 off any car on the lot if you haggled a bit anyways.  As usual with car sales.... all sizzle no steak!

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