DanZ

Glad you did the calculation. In my books, ~$6K is a lot, but each person's comfort level is different. To me, only about $1K is a wash. But that's just me.

doubg

Just checking, the local dealership has a in-house test drive 2017ES with 6000 miles. For the same specs on a new 2017ES (say with only the usual 10 miles), how much lower should the test model be? From your numbers, I should only be expecting $600-700 reduction in price over a brand new unit?

Thanks, just want to see how much I can expect if I choose this route.

lesz

I'm not sure that I know what an "in-house test drive" car is. It is not unusual for new cars in a dealer's inventory to be used occasionally for test drives, and that accounts for the reason why a new car might have, say, 35 miles on its odometer, but to have 6000 miles on the odometer would mean that the car had to have been used for almost 1000 test drives, which doesn't seem likely to me. I would think that a car with 6000 miles on the odometer would more likely be one that had been used as a service loaner. If that is the case, since you have no way of knowing how a service loaner has been driven, I'd be uneasy about buying it, and, if I was willing to take the chance, the price would have to at the level no higher than that of a used 2017 ES with 6000 miles on its odometer.

doubg

I think this was used by management to drive to and from home. They said it's still considered "new" since it's never been registered; i guess if it's only used by staff, they don't need to register it. It's hard to find a used 2017 ES to compare price. Just wondering if all things are the same, how much does 6000 miles knock down the price? I doubt it's significant since the miles are still low. The dealership says they are willing to give a good deal on this, but I have no idea where to start. I know the MSRP of this car, I think it's Ultra Lux package w/ navi. Thinking about this option if dealership is really willing to give a good price.

lesz

If the car has not been titled, what you said about it being used by dealership employees makes sense.

It is hard to say what a good price would be because that depends somewhat on how you feel about buying a car that, even if it has never titled, is not truly "brand new". The 6000 miles on the odometer will reduce its re-sale or trade-in value by close to $1000, but it would take an additional discount of much more than that to get me interested in buying it. Considering that you likely could buy a remaining 2017 ES for about 20% off from MSRP, which translates into about $10,000 off from MSRP for an Ultra Luxury ES, I don't think that I'd even consider that car for anything less than about $12,500 or $13,000 off from MSRP.

I suspect that the dealer won't be willing to give a huge discount beyond that offered on a new ES because they know that someone will come along and be willing to pay more than is merited, but the only way to know whether that might be the case is to test to see how low they are willing to go.

doubg

After checking around with a couple dealerships and with very limited 2017 inventory, i agreed to a unit MSRP 43300 for 34500. Luckily it was still the color combination I was looking for. Just a hair over 20% off MSRP. Thanks for much for all the advice.

newyerker

question for you and in general,

when people say 18~20% off MSRP, that's factoring in any incentives, and the same would apply to lease cash (that would be considered in downing the sale price) correct?