Convenient, but not all that different
Written: Feb 22 '02
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My wife and I have recently been shopping for a new pickup and used carsdirect because of the hassle of trying to find the right vehicle on a lot with the right combination of colors and options. We also like the idea of not playing the silly price haggling games dealers insist you play if you want their best price.
Choosing a vehicle is easy enough. You click a few boxes to equip your vehicle on their website. It even makes sure you don't pick incompatible options, which I would never have figured out for myself. That's a nice plus. Then you continue and your request gets entered into their system. You can choose to either have them find your vehicle and contact you, or have one of their associated dealers handle your request. I don't see any advantage in the latter method, so I chose to deal only with a carsdirect rep. Hey, I chose carsdirect to avoid talking with some sales weasel. Why cut Carsdirect in on the deal if I still have to do that?
In about a day (one of our requests took over a day) a cars direct rep will call you to discuss your request. Our problem with carsdirect was that the rep often seems to not even have your "equipped" information in front of him. My wife had to go through each option to tell him what we wanted. Kinda defeats the point of doing all that clicking online, doesn't it? After that was settled, he said he'd get back to us. After a day or so, he came up with a model in another state that was very close to what we wanted. I was shocked, since this particular options combo is very rare. He said it was the only one even close they could find. So I was impressed that they can search even out of state to find you a vehicle. As everyone knows, pickups can have lots of different little options, so this is a big advantage to using carsdirect. We decided to call him back the next morning after we'd slept on it. Unfortunately, the truck had sold by then and though there was another available in Ohio, CarsDirect now wanted $750 to ship it to us. Not unreasonable, but he didn't mention a fee to send one from Tennessee, so I wonder if he was just not bringing that point up at the time. Besides, there are always other trucks. I'd rather keep the $750.
So far not so bad, but on the other hand, Carsdirect still has a long way to go in convincing me that they're a rue no- hassle, upfront way to buy a vehicle. Here's my problems with their service:
1. You cannot actually check inventory online. This would be a big plus. Most car makers now have a system to do this. Hopefully one day they can integrate with those and provide real vehicles for sale, not idealized options combinations that aren't always available in the real world.
2. The price! This was my main gripe. The little "guaranteed" price you see on the website is not what you will be paying. This sounds a lot like trying to deal with a regular car salesman now, doesn't it? All those neat little games they play.
- CarsDirect tried to sneak in a $350 "loss protection plan" w/o mentioning it. My wife is no dummy. She caught the discrepancy in the figures and pressed the rep about it. It's nothing but horribly overpriced insurance to cover one's deductible. She had them toss it.
-CarsDirect charges a $298 "documentation fee" in addition to the reasonable $22 license fee. This is of course again simply additional profit. Yet there is no mention of this "fee" on the website when you're trying to compare costs. Why not? Another car salesman-like trick. Why not charge "talking on the phone to you fee" or "our office space fee" if you're going to itemize additional charges for things like that? It's silly, but a longtime practice at CAR DEALERSHIPS, which is what people are hoping to avoid by using carsdirect.
-Worst of all, the carsdirect price sheet he faxed over did not match their advertised price at all! Their price was $249 higher than the one we were quoted online. We verified all options carefully, but the rep could not explain why this was the case when my wife asked about it, so we then declined to purchase the truck from them. It was still an ok price, but I don't reward games like this by spending my money there, just on general principle. If someone tells me they'll sell me something for a price, then raises the price on the paperwork, they're simply not trustworthy.
-My wife was repeatedly politely pressured to buy a lojack system, even though we live in a low crime area in the country, our vehicle has a security alarm and computer-controlled anti-theft chip that is said to be almost impossible to defeat. Not the end of the world here, but it simply lowers them in my eyes when they pathetically try to sell unneccesary add-ons. I'd like to deal with someone who is above that. I half expected to get offered "rustproofing" and "scotchguard" too.
- In some cases the Carsdirect MSRP prices do not match those available elsewhere online, or even on the vehicle sticker! Not sure who's at fault, but when the sticker on the auto has one MSRP and carsdirect says another, it makes me doubt their numbers a little.
Overall, their price was $745 over "invoice" when you added in the fees and price discrepancies. It was only $175 over invoice on the website. Quite a difference.
I also didn't really like that it took a full day to get the process started with a rep, and about another day to find a vehicle and get a call back from him, and finally another day or two to get delivery even if it was located locally. We were under time pressure to take advantage of a rebate offer, so I think CarsDirect should staff up a little if they want to avoid losing deals to people in a hurry.
Carsdirect isn't a bad way to buy a car. It's just not much different than dealing with dealerships yourself. If you can find one on a lot and don't mind playing salesmen games, give it a try there first.
Recommended:
Yes
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About the Author
Member: Bruce C
Location: Atlanta, GA
Reviews written: 132
Trusted by: 71 members
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