If you are buying a new car, why restrict your car purchase to just San Diego dealers?
Do your test drive in a San Diego dealer. Make up your mind (car selection, trim, options). Get your best price from SD dealers.. Call up the L.A. dealers and ask for the internet sales division/fleet sales division. Ask for a fleet/internet salesman's email, because you are from san diego and want to deal over email.
Do the complete haggling over email. If the salesman says he/she will only deal if you come in, refuse and say you live in san diego and don't want to drive there without a written deal in hand..If he/she still refuses, ask for another salesman.. If no salesman are willing to deal this way, move on to another dealer.
Over email, ssk for the out the door price because dealers love quote you the price of the car excluding tax/license/registration/"fees". Tell them you're willing to drive up to L.A. to pick up the car if the price is better than S.D, but you don't want to spend a lot of time haggling over it and if you get the runaround, you'll just buy in san diego. Don't tell them how much SD dealers are offering. Most dealers with an "internet" sales division will deal all over the phone/email. Traditional salesman will try to lure you into the showroom. It's simply because interent sales division is counting on volume sales regardless of where the person is from. Showroom salesman will try to milk you, because generally he has less customers he can work with at any time. And most people that work out a deal ahead of time usually are commited custoemrs, as opposed to those that walk in who most of the time are just browsers.
Get a few offers from a few L.A. dealers. Each time you talk to a new dealer, never be the first one to name a price. Get the "best price" from the dealer first. The first person that names a price loses. Period… After you get that price, play dealer X off of dealer y, with some reasonable cushion. For example, Keyes Acura in Van Nuyes is willing to do X, are you willing to do X-$200? Or don't even say that. Subtract $200 from what dealer X is actually giving you, and say are you willing to "match" dealer Y's price of blah blah blah. If he/she is a good salesman, you'll never get them to agree on a good price the first time anyway. While you shouldn't lowball (otherwise they won't take you seriously), you defiitely should go a few hundred below what another dealer will actually give you/ You will be surprised how competitive pricing is and how much all the deals come in at the same price. If you get some crap about "we give better service than dealership Y, just remind them you aren't going to be using any LA dealership for service anyway because you are from san diego. I find doing this all over email is great because
1) I suck at this in person
2) I get too emotional in person at times
3) You have a paper trail of all the discussions.
Try to do everything over email and not use the phone.
Get your best L.A. price, and if it beats SD dealers, take that price back to the SD dealers to see if they will match. (You did get this in an email right?)
1) If SD dealers matches the price, great. End of story.
2) if the SD dealers don't match (which sometimes they won't because the market price are different in SD and LA), then ask the L.A. dealer to fax you a sales contract with the OTD price. Make sure you have the VIN number that is the car they plan to sell. Tell them you plan on going to LA to pick up the car. Don't give them a deposit, unless you get an assurance (in an email) that the deposit is fully refundable. Arrange with the salesman a time to go to LA. Don't forget to bring all your email correspondence, the OTD price, and any contract or deposit papers your signed.
Drive to LA and pic up the car..(You did remember to bring all your correspondence with the dealer, right? And you aren't planning to change any of the financing terms or options once you get to the dealership, right?) Arrive at the LA dealer, verify the price on the contract is what you were quoted. If not, ask to speak to the sales director and rage hell that you drove all the way to L.A. and the salesman didn't honor the sales term. if the sales director doesn't help, leave and call a complaint to the auto manufacturer's customer service. They won't do this if there is a paper trail…(You did remember to bring the OTD price in an email or contract right?) Alternatively, negotiate the deal with two L.A. dealers, in case one dealership doesn't honor the price, drop by the second dealer. Verify the vin of the car, inspect the car, test drive the car, sign paperwork. Done.
Regardless of where you buy, you'll pay the same sales tax (7.75%) because sales tax is computed based on the address where you will be registered, not where you purchased the car (LA sales tax is 8.25%)…There is definitely more competition among L.A. dealears than in San Diego. Most San Diegans are too lazy to go to L.A. to haggle. But there's no need if you do it all over email. Ah the virtues of technology…
Note this works for typical, mass production average consumer volume cars. It might not be so effective with cars that demand is exceeding supply, or high end cars, cars produced in limited quantities, or specialty performance cars. You can forget about getting M3's, M5's, S4's, RS4's, R8, Mercedes AMG's, or any Porsche products at invoice this way. However, if you are in the market for exotics/high end luxury/limited edition sports, it is an effective alternative to being gouged by SD dealers marking up ABOVE MSRP (*cough* Miramar Audi/VW/Porsche *cough*). Plenty of dealers in Newport Beach for never charge above MSRP for low production vehicles. Also, if you need to get on a wait-list or pre-order list for some vehicle, your chances are better in L.A. because L.A. dealers usually have a larger allocation (they deal higher volumes).
Two examples:
Wife and I bought an Acura MDX from a dealer in L.A. SantaMonica and Power acura both had the same price. I think the Van Nuys dealer were willing to do $100 below the other two, but required us to drive 45mins extra, which wasn't worth it for us. While SD dealers were quoting $1000 above invoice (Kearny,Carlsbad), 2-3 dealers gave us $2500 below invoice. SD dealers weren't willing to budge, so we picked it up in L.A. over the weekend.
About 8 months ago, I was looking at a Lexus LS for my parents. While everyone was charging MSRP here since it was a pretty new launch, a few dealers in L.A. was willing to do $2000 below msrp. I then took the price to Kearny Mesa who was then more receptive to matching the price. (Deal fell through because my parents decided they didn't want the car)
Just remember, get the deal before the arriving at the dealership in L.A. The only thing you should be doing at the L.A. dealer is inspecting the exact car you will buy, signing paperwork, giving them money, saying no to all the options like extended warranty/clearcoat/etc they offer in the finance office prior to delivery, and driving off.
