CARS Program

My friend happened to come visit last week and pulled up in a new vehicle. I’m not a “vehicle” person, but her wheels were so sharp, that I couldn’t help but take notice. They weren’t sporty or flashy, but stylish and effective for the job she needed them for. I have to admit it, we’ve been friends since we were in second grade, and she’s always been the trailblazer of the two of us.

So when she left, it was natural for me to check out her purchase. I’ve been toying with the idea of changing my wheels and when I read about her vehicle, I was sold. It was exactly what I had been looking for, but didn’t know existed. I need tow power, but do not want to drive a truck or a clunky vehicle, and this was a perfect option!

Read moreSo I started checking online for pricing and called some dealers. I didn’t know anything about the CARS program, so I did some reading on it and found my old vehicle qualifies for the program (though in the end, I found mine will get more money on the used market than for CARS). If you go through the government website, it will tell you if your exact vehicle qualifies and how much you will receive. I then called dealers to talk about it, and the first salesman I got on the phone told me I didn’t qualify.

To convince me, he showed me a statement online for class 2 vehicles, knowing full well that I had a class 1. He made me doubt my vehicle qualified. It was clear he wanted to get rid of me. Either he thought the paperwork for the program wasn’t worth his time, or he knew they had no inventory to sell (since lots are basically empty and pre-ordered cars are all sold already), so why bother? When I verified my vehicle qualified, I called back and had him paged, and you can guess, he didn’t ever pick up. He wasn’t interested no matter what. He knew he gave me a line of crap!!

Needless to say, I was annoyed.

When money changes hands, be careful. People will tell you anything!

Next we went to CARMAX and test drove the vehicle. By the way, CARMAX verified my vehicle qualified and they wanted it! Of course, I didn’t want to give it up. It wasn’t worth it for me.

Anyway, CARMAX didn’t have exactly what I wanted so we came home and I got more price quotes. The prices seemed high for the vehicles (even at CARMAX), so I did some more research. What I found was a pricing guide online that took actual sales and charted them out, for my exact vehicle. It averaged 1200 sales records. With that, you can see what others paid and what is a fair price. You can see an example here (click on Get Pricing Analysis).

Low and behold, the dealerships where I was calling or visiting were all charging on average around $3,000 more than the sticker price, which was, you guessed it, $3,000 higher than what most people had purchased this vehicle for. You can assume that the statistics are from sales prior to the CARS program.

I was like what the hell?! I tried to negotiate, but hit a dead wall. The dealerships are taking away all the incentive and those who don’t even want to participate in the program will be paying top dollar, if they buy a car now. It’s supply and demand, and the dealerships know people will pay, because they think they are getting a deal, even though the reality is, they are not! The dealership and salesman are!! They are realistically giving you $500, but I wouldn’t doubt that gets sucked in somewhere, too!

Do you think this is honest?

The CARS program should have taken this into account as we the citizens, are getting hosed again, if you want my opinion.

I’m delaying my purchased until the CARS program ends. Maybe then they will have ramped up production on the vehicles and they won’t have buyers, which will hopefully drive prices down to near factory invoice again, which will save me thousands!! Literally.

There is always a catch, if you do your homework. Money doesn’t come for free often, and when it does, you can be assured the sharks will come out and feed big time. It’s a feeding frenzy, at the expense of the average citizen. No surprise, for me, sadly.