twocargar,
Sorry to change the subject, but something from your opening post grabbed my attention.
You said you almost bought the vehicle you wanted but bailed because they wouldn't budge on their offer for your trade in - though you would be getting a "crazy good deal" of nearly $10,000 off MSRP on the new car.
Take this from a former car salesman: every dealership is really offering the same price for your trade in, within a few hundred dollars or so, but some places will seem like they're offering more because they know they can make more than the necessary profit from the same price of the new vehicle. They entice you to buy from them because they inflate your trade in value by a couple thousand dollars and then secretly add the same amount to the minimum price of the new vehicle.
Other dealerships do the opposite. They get you hooked on the "crazy" low price of the new car but then they're locked in to paying you the current book value of your trade in.
This, this, this. Congrats, OP, on screwing yourself out of what sounds like a great car deal.
I sold cars for a year, and was Salesman of the Month five times... and got minimum wage about three other months, so to say that I was erratic was accurate. But I learned a ton, and not about cars.
People are what's fascinating. They behave in all sorts of ways that don't make sense.
From the information we have, what you did sounds like a perfect example of 'But my trade-in!' One of the first things my sales manager told me was that the most important number to buyers is what they're going to get for their trade. Psychologically it's not complicated: the trade is what they already own (or what their bank already owns), and if the prospective buyer is presented with what they consider a poor number, it's not just about the car. It's about them, and their worth, and their value. Give them a 'bad' number, and they're personally insulted.
There were ways to combat that. The big one is to simply explain that it's the difference figure that matters. 'I could charge you a million twenty-five thousand for mine, but as long as I give you a million twelve thousand for your trade, you're still only paying thirteen thousand,' and then the opposite example. Sometimes that works, but not nearly as often as you think (I bet your salesperson tried it, and it didn't work on you).
Twice, I had customers walk away from the table because we didn't give them enough for their trade. They had a number in their heads, based on who-knows-what or who-said-what, and they would not budge. On both occasions, they returned in their new car a few days later - the exact same car, purchased at another dealer. This wasn't very nice, but they were triumphant and couldn't help themselves: 'They gave me X for my trade-in, and you wouldn't do it!' Ok, what did you pay for the new one? They'd tell me, I'd do some simple subtraction, go get the sheet from our non-deal, and oh what's this? In both cases, they paid more at the other dealer. In one case it was thousands of dollars more. Enjoy your new car, fellas.
I say 'fellas' on purpose. For some odd reason, it was only men as the primary decision maker who fell into this trap in a way that they couldn't be saved from themselves. Women would see the light. So beware your male ego, I guess.
I'm not saying all this to bust your butt over something that's happened. And I wasn't there. I get that. There are many reasons buyers walk away from the table. Sometimes deep down inside they know it's not the right car, but can't articulate that. Sometimes they don't like the salesman and are too polite to say so. And when forced with a big yes/no decision, our bodies do interesting things. There is physical tension that is not relieved by saying 'Yes' - but it is relieved, instantly, by saying 'No.'
If you went back to the original dealer, the one with a kazillion dollars off the new car, would that deal still be there? Unlikely. Even if they still have the car, they may not be able to do it. Sometimes there are factory-to-dealer incentives that are short term or that a car may 'age out' of. Sometimes the GSM of a dealership will try hard to get a certain car or cars sold before new ones arrive. Sometimes there will be a spiff for the sales staff. Money and motivation change all the time, and they know more about yours than you do about theirs. And even if they CAN do the same deal, honestly, why would they want to? It sounds like they're not making much on this car anyway. They've spent a couple of hours on you already and you wouldn't do it; if you walk back in and change your mind they'll be rolling their eyes.
Everybody in the transaction has a need to 'win,' and if they let you have the same deal after you walked away from it, they've lost psychologically. They won't agree to it. Of course, you can disarm them by being self-effacing: 'Hey guys, I'm back and I know I was dumb to walk away from that one so I'll pay an extra $200 as the stupid tax' might work. Seriously. But nah, no buyer would do that. It's a huge blow to the ego.
Good luck. There are plenty of good cars in your price range, and deals to be had.
(Sorry, had to bust chops...)
