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Can't decide

7K views 85 replies 22 participants last post by  landoawd 
#1 ·
I keep going back and forth in trying to make a decision in which model to get. I do know I want a 392 auto with leather and NAV in red, green or orange and would prefer the red interior. I wanted to be right around 40k, but that looks to be too optimistic. I found several very low mileage SRT's, but after looking at KBB they look to be a tad overpriced. My first pick is a 18 torred SRT (44k) with red interior, but its on the coast and they want 500 to transfer it to Ohio and I wouldn't get the sales tax savings on a used vehicle here. They also have a 17 torred SRT (43k) at the Ohio store, but its a little older than I wanted to go and has the black interior. There is also a 18 red SRT in IN with black interior and they are asking 44k. Its at a regular dealer so I may be able to haggle the price a bit and also save on the trade in taxes. Also in IN I found an almost loaded new shaker (minus NAV) in my favorite color octane with the red interior for 43.8k (MSRP over 49k). I should get slightly lower interest rate on a new one, but it doesn't have the active suspension and some of the other SRT goodies obviously and it has the shaker graphics I'm not sure I like. The last option is to order a 19 just how I want and either load up a SP with all the options or get a shaker minus a few of them. The problem with going this route is I may not get one with as many discounts as one on the lot already.
 
#3 ·
Not sure, but it sounds like the first couple you were talking about may have been at Carmax. I realize that they get top dollar for their cars, but my 2012 R/T is the forth vehicle I have bought from them and all have been exceptional used cars. I highly recommend Carmax as a source for used vehicles. I'm sure others will disagree (they always do), but my experience has always been good and with their website, you pretty much walk through the door knowing what you want. No annoying salespeople, just people ready and willing to help you purchase the car you've already decided to buy. It's also a great place to just go take a car for test drive if you have a couple of models in mind. I did that when shopping for my last purchase. I hadn't even considered a Challenger, I was thinking Mustang or Camaro. I test drove a Mustang and decided that they were not for me. The salesman suggested a Charger or Challenger and I laughed that I only wished I could afford one of those. Then I went home and got back on their site and found my Challenger at the right price and perfectly optioned. In the little over 2yrs that I've owned it I've put almost 40K miles on it and still can't stop grinning. It's been trouble free and tons of fun. Good luck in your search.
 
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#5 ·
I absolutely agree. I never used CarMax before, but I found one my Wife wanted there. I pre-qualified for a loan on the website. Salesman actually transferred the car to a closer store without me even asking. Walked in, test drove it, sat down to go over the numbers and done. Longest part was the signing. Most enjoyable car buying experience I have ever had. We both absolutely love our '14 R/T and recommend CarMax.
 
#4 ·
For what its worth - you may be able to get something near 40k, new. For instance, a 19' Scat Pack MSRP around $39k. If you add a few options, you'll get to ~$50k. I don't know if you work anywhere with discounts, but with me - I had an entry level discount of bringing the price 1% below invoice. This discount is on behalf of my company and is paid to the dealer from corporate FCA - so you can haggle a bit further. I was able to bring it another ~$1.5k under this price.

For reference - my build '19 Scat Pack Widebody was $56,000 (not including taxes). I signed for $48,500 (not including taxes) at time of ordering. That's 13.4% under the MSRP price.

In your case, if you were to load one with options up to around ~$50k, and you were able to haggle the price down - I would bet you could get around $43-44.5k.

What I did was find two dealerships in the same area that compete with one another. I leveraged them against each other for their quotes and got the best price this way. Ultimately I went with the dealership that treated me the best and gave me the best price.
 
#6 ·
Thanks for the advice acid. That new 19 Shaker is already in that ballpark. List price is 49.3k with sale price of 44.8 and he already said in the email they would also give me a 1k true price discount, so that makes it 43.8k before any haggling and considering my trade. Its the right colors and loaded with about everything I would want, except if I were building it, I might go without the shaker graphics and add NAV. But it does have the stock wheels in which I would at least like some wider tires in the back and doesn't have the adaptive suspension, top level audio, steering wheel, better wheels and SRT badges the used SRT has. I just wish those SRT were not at carmax so you could haggle a bit as the black book value is a couple grand less than what they are asking. Like I said, there is one in IN about 3 hours away that may be worth looking at, but wish it had the red interior and I would like it to be 2-3 grand less. You may be right, if I built a standard SP without the shaker, I might be a lot closer to 40k range. Another issue is my stupid schedule as I'm usually sleeping during the day so its hard to find the time for a longer road trip to look at cars. I should have left early this morning and looked at those two IN dealerships, but with the weather and flooding decided to wait for a better day.
 
#7 ·
Plenty of room to haggle. My 2019 SP MSRP was $46,932 with Nav, Tech, Convenience and the plus package. $2,250 rebate + haggling got it to about 41K before taxes, 42ish with taxes.


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#8 ·
if you dont know what you want or willing to settle for without regret..wait, save up a lil more and order it.
Otherwise, there will always be a lingering doubt if you actually got all the car you desired, and if you had only held out a lil longer or done this or that.
These cars are an investment - in ourselves, few if any are "required for daily transportation duties" and there is nothing like the 1st time - or the 101st time that you drive a new car, made to order just the way you wanted, that has never been owned by anyone else!
just my $0.02
good luck with whatever route you take :)
 
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#9 ·
Absolutely!! I made this mistake when i was 28 and I bought a 2013 V6 camaro. I adored the car for the style, it was my dream come true after they came back but deep down I always wanted a V8 and all the stripes and interior options. I eventually added stripes and other little mods and on a whim one day i traded it in for a 2017 RS Camaro. Absolutely beautiful car, had all the style but none of the interior upgrades again. I loved that car for 2 years, more than any before it. I said at the time the car had everything I wanted with the special headlights and all. Back in 2014 I promised myself I’d get a ZL1 one day and I eventually got raises and the idea of paying for it became realistic. So 6 months ago here I am again looking at cars. I eventually realized the ZL1 was just way too much car and unrealistic. So I started looking and I spent 6 months driving, reading, obsessing and saving. Until about a month ago I was looking at Challengers online after I had ruled out the Mustang. It hit me, I wanted a B5 blue Challenger and I knew exactly what options I wanted and nothing more. Next day I told the dealer and they actually found it and I bought it 3 days later. The car had 1 option I could care less about, the technology package. Other than that it’s absolutely perfect and everything i dreamed of. I’m not going to lie I screamed and cheered on my way home when I picked it up. It’s been 2 weeks now and I can’t get over how perfect it is. The feeling of getting EXACTLY what you want with zero restraints is amazing.


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#11 ·
Good points. Yeah hemi4us, I've bought several new cars, but never one built for me with nobody else test driving it. You always find some scuff marks on the doors and seats from the test drives too and it drives me crazy. Of course they are not new forever and the first time you get an oil change or something, it happens anyway. I could order one with the options and colors (mostly except dodge doesn't offer some interior colors I would like) I would want except for the fact the SRT has some of the options that cannot be ordered now. I did notice a few new SRT's left, but most of them are still too expensive.
 
#12 ·
Don't let the interior issue hold you up. Pay for the leather interior in order to get the ventilated seats, then order exactly the color leather you want from Katzkins or Leatherseats.com....yes, it's more money, but at the end of the day it will be EXACTLY the way you want it. You can even arrange for the dealer to coordinate the install of the seat covers before they notify you it's ready to be picked up, so when you see it for the first time, it is complete.
 
#13 ·
So you can't make up your mind on this forum either? Hint: Sleep in the afternoon, and look at cars in the morning, and finally decide what you want and then just do it. In case you don't know who I am, I'm 10HORT in the other forum.
 
#14 ·
Dang it, the only day this week I can take a road trip to look at cars and there are more severe thunderstorms in the area I wanted to go to. There were a couple of them in southern IN, a new 19 Shaker in the color and options I wanted (all except NAV) and also an hour or so away a used SRT in red, but with black interior. So I'm thinking maybe I'll go up north to Detroit to check out some regular Scat Packs. They have a red one fairly loaded with most of the options I wanted, plus a sunroof. Only things I wanted it doesn't have is the red calipers and red interior. But its listed with over a 7.5k discount. I'm just wondering if that's the actual price as it says near the bottom "New vehicle pricing includes all offers and incentives".
 
#15 ·
That price will include all of the corporate incentives, as well as (possibly) some reductions they are applying via their particular dealership, to get rid of it.

Keep in mind you can always order one and wait the long wait.
 
#18 ·
He just called back and won't give me a price until I go in and yeah he said they couldn't find one like I wanted and most likely found that shaker which was the closest (it had everything but the NAV). What I think I want is a octane auto with red interior (plus and convenience packages), red calipers, Alpine and brass monkey package. What I'm not sure of is if I should upgrade to the Harmon Kardon for 600 more and if I should get the standard or forged wheels instead of brass monkey. I'm thinking you can't beat the BM wheels for the price though as I think they come with the 275's. Oh and still haven't decided if I should go with the shaker, I guess it will depend on how much of a discount they will offer.
 
#19 ·
Nobody cares to the upgrades stereos, you can do it aftermarket if it’s that important and it will sound better. Any dealer that wouldn’t tell me the price I’d tell to take a hike. I had a guy try that on me and I told him if I wanted a pressure situation I would have just gone in. I negotiated my entire deal over email and just went in to sign the papers. Find a different dealer.


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#20 ·
Well I'm not sure what dealership to go with then. I'm not sure about the one in my town, because they don't seem to listen to what you want. The other one I just called is in another small town nearby. I just did a search on the bigger city of Toledo about an hour away and it looks like their discounts are not that good. Maybe I should try Fort Wayne in Indiana or the guy up in MI that was trying to give me a decent deal on the 1320. You don't get to save the difference in trade in taxes up there though.
 
#21 ·
I was able to do most of my shopping online, save the test drive. I knew what I wanted before I talked to any dealership and also knew there was not an Indigo Blue Manual period, much less with my options, within 1000 miles. I had two dealerships quote below invoice over email and I went from there. I kindly rejected the dealers that would only work with me in person. I was not willing to play 4 square with anyone. I used edmunds.com as my starting ground when I knew exactly what I wanted and could afford it.

Because of this, I have 0 regret and no stress (other than waiting for it to arrive, lol).

Good Luck!
 
#23 ·
There are too many dealers willing to cooperate on a deal to even think about having to drive a long way because they won't do it by mail/online/phone. I had my deal pretty well worked out before I went in, and it ended up being almost exactly what I had it in my head it would be, except for the HK stereo upgrade in the car I bought, versus the one I didn't get with SGII. They were identical other than that. If somehow I could have avoided the F&I guy, it would have ranked at the top of my all time most pleasant deal ever. But it's easy to just say "NOPE" over and over again to the F&I stuff (Some people have problems resisting the Dark Side, and seem to go under the F&I guy's spell) for me, I kind of enjoy it now..



My only real compromise was color. Torred was my second choice after Yellow Jacket. It was a very very close second choice. Every time I see it, i think how great a color it is and am totally happy with it, even when I passed a YJ Scatpack like I did this morning. In my apartment complex, there are Octane, B5, Granite, black, and my Torred Challengers. I'm the only V8 out of the bunch, which are all SXT's and GT's, and the only one the neighbors seem to remember.
 
#24 ·
Same here. Got every option I wanted except this car had the technology package that I didn’t really care about either way. I went in, test drove and left. I went back and showed them my car and they gave me an offer and I left after 45 minutes there. I emailed them and we negotiated the whole deal over the phone/email and I went in at 5PM and left at 7pm. Perfect experience.


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#25 ·
How do you guys word it then by email or phone? Do you just tell them what you want with options and everything and then ask for a quote, their best price or what? Also I just emailed a place and they want to know if I have a trade in and want me to send the vin, ect. before they give me a price. I read somewhere you shouldn't do that, but that's another thing picking a dealership, some we give more for the trade in than others.
 
#28 · (Edited)
I just said plainly(using the contact thing on the website) I was interested in the XXXX, stock number, 123 and wanted to know their out the door price. NO trade in mentioned at that point. The trade in, if you do it, should be talked about after they give you a price. If they don't want to give you a price, then just decide, "That place is dead to me", and move on. Charlie's in Maumee USED to be great for this, but not so much since 2010 or so.



If you find a car you want, and to be honest, I wonder if you ever will unless you order it, tell your local place about the car, and see what they will do, you can always say no, and talk directly to the dealer who has the car, and see how the prices line up. It might be worth a drive, but if it's close, go local. I got crap from the local dealer I took my car I bought in FL to for service and a lot of warranty work. I got a great deal on the car and the salesperson was related to me, so I almost had to do it, and the attitude of the local place due to me not buying the car from them guaranteed they wouldn't get me to buy a truck from them 2 years later. I went literally down the road to the GMC dealer.



You should be able to find a '19 now that is "close enough" that a dealer wants gone, if that is possible for a car to be close enough for you. Wow, I just looked, Yark got rid of the white T/A that had been there forever, now the '18 silver T/A 6 speed is the last of the leftovers.
 
#26 ·
When I was looking for my previous challenger, I found a scat that I wanted. Not the right color, but had all the options I wanted and a good price. I emailed them asking if the car was still available and what the OTD price would be with the max care warranty. I was ready to buy right now. They wouldn't answer either question and kept trying to get me to come in for a test drive of I have no clue what of, as they dodged all my questions. They kept calling and emailing me for a week after the fact that I told them I bought elsewhere. Really really pushy.
 
#27 ·
Yeah my local dealer was like that. They kept calling me about a green RT they got in and I told them several times I wanted the scat pack. One thing about going in to a dealership is sometimes you get a decent deal after hours of negotiating, but it does get tiring after awhile.
 
#29 ·
Well yeah, I know how to ask for a price for a stock car, but I was wondering how you ask for a price if you were to order one. Of course they would have to know the options and such and then you have to think about your trade because they could always low ball you on that if they gave you a good price on the car to be built. I did find a new shaker that has everything I wanted except for NAV, but looks to be no way of adding it as they never responded when I asked about it. There are also a couple low mileage 18 SRT's I'm still thinking about that are close (2nd or 3rd favorite color, but one has black interior), but they just seem to be a bit overpriced for a used model and the one I like better would have to be transferred at my cost before I could even look at it in person.
 
#63 ·
You just go in, after having decided what you want, and that seems to be your major issue, to be blunt about it, and say you would be interested in ordering a Challenger, and pick the trim level and go through the options and packages, etc. They should give you a price that has the MSRP on it and their price. You can take a calculator and find out how much off sticker their price is. You dicker and make offers back and forth and you do the deal or you walk. You can build a car exactly how you want it online and then print it out and it will be obvious what kind of discount you get. My car stickered at $48.7K, and I got it for $42.9 something, I can't remember the exact amount at 4AM. You should be able to do about as well ordering a car or buying one off the lot. If you find a leftover '18, you can do better, and soon enough, there will be leftover '19's sitting around. Don't bother with the NAV, you can get a cell phone with it on it for free and it works better and is always up to date, unlike the built in NAV, and with Android Auto, you can put the phone on the car's display. The cost of the NAV will pay for a decent smartphone and a fairly long period of service, and unlike the NAV, you get all the other cellphone functions along with it. Having a car transported to look at is just blowing money out the window, you should be able to find something within 90 minutes that should, well, maybe will, satisfy you. Honestly, just go to any larger dealer, drive at least an R/T, and a Scatpack, decide if you need XXXX (Shaker, whatever), and lock in WHAT YOU WANT TO GET. Once you do that, start looking on dealer sites and if you find a car that matches, call them and get the ball rolling. In your case, I think buying used is a mistake, as if something is wrong, and it's not covered under warranty, like the paint has a scuff on it, etc, I think it will drive you nuts. I kind of wonder if you can handle it when you do get the car, and some pinhead dings it or scratches the paint when he opens his door into your car. IT WILL HAPPEN! I seriously don't understand how you can have gone into this deal so long and you still don't know exactly what you want! I had my car spec'ed out almost exactly in late '14-early '15, thinking I would buy it in '17. The only change on my options was the HK stereo instead of the SGII Alpine set up, and that was simply because the Torred car I bought had the HK versus the Alpine set up the Yellow Jacket car I tried to get had. I knew early on the shaker wasn't going to happen, and the T/A I just don't like. :soapbox:
 
#31 ·
Or to make it somewhat easier with less haggling, join Tread Lightly at the $100.00 level and automatically get what you want for 1% under invoice. Plus, you help support a good cause.

https://www.treadlightly.org/support/members/

"
$100 & $250 Level
•Chrysler, Jeep, Ram, Dodge, SRT, and Fiat Affiliate Rewards Program
Preferred Price, 1% below factory invoice on purchase or lease of new vehicles.
•Member t-shirt
Plus prior levels."
 
#33 ·
I was were you are two weeks ago, I knew what I wanted and started my hunt. I thought I wanted 6.4 rt scat pack with shaker octane red.

After searching online I found a dealer 3 hours away that had just got in a 5.7 rt blackout without shaker and some added option etc.. He had a different colour shaker scat pack so I thought I’d compare the two and make the road trip to look at both. He knocked a couple thousand off and I left with my new 2019 5.7 rt and have not looked back and I’m 100% happy with my decision. I guess for me I had to touch, see and drive both to decide what best fit for my lifestyle, wants and budget. (Notice I didn’t say needs hahaha) I ended getting want I wanted and what a wanted changed a bit once I drove them and seen them.

Go for a few test drives and see them up close and personal, then get what want and what you can afford and enjoy!

I’m still smiling when I jump in it! Love it! It’s sounds and looks awesome.
 

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#37 ·
To be completely honest you have to play the dealers a little bit. I set out and emailed about 5-6 and said, “hey I’m william and I’m looking for a 2019 scat pack in B5 blue and I want these options and these options are negotiable. Let me know what you have and what your lowest out the door price would be. I also need you to list all incentives and rebates and give me an idea of what I’m looking at. If you can do that I’ll come down and check them out. It worked for all of them but a few only wanted me to come in. Some went out of their way and searched around the US for me. Once I found what I wanted I negotiated by bringing in my trade. I got their offer and said I wasn’t ready to discuss it tonight and would come back tomorrow. I emailed them my demands...I told them 43,000 with the 2,250 in rebates as well. I told them admin fees were crap and that needed to be excluded from the deal and they could roll that minus into the 3,300 off sticker. There was a theft fee for engraving or something and I told them I refused to pay that because it wasn’t on the window sticker.

They got back the next morning we went back and forth and I went in later and signed.

We agreed for 43,500 and 41,250 after rebates with the theft removed and the admin fees removed. You can demand anything you want, the worst they can say is no.

Oh and ALWAYS say, “I’d be willing to give you all 10’s on your satisfaction survey if you meet my demands.” That survey is their entire life mission, that’s ALL they care about.

I always got had when I bought cars, I was more excited to buy a car than haggle. I’m 33 now but I spent 6 months looking at cars and figuring out what I wanted and how to do the deal.

Also check out what the price they’re selling for nearby. Go to KBB.com and fill out the car you’re looking for with those options. They’ll tell you what the list is and what they’re worth. I knew mine listed for 46,900, I knew it was worth 43,500. Good luck. [emoji1303]


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