If you felt like you needed to jump on the car right then and not wait to shop around, you could just sign with the dealer and immediately refinance. They'll get hit with a chargeback from the bank. F&I will be pissed, but who cares? They marked the car up. You don't owe them anything. I've had someone do this before when they bought a car on a holiday weekend. Banks were closed, niche car, afraid it would be gone later, signed up an 820 or so credit score with around 8%.etc. Waited until the contract was signed and told him thanks for insulting us and ripping us off. Car will be refinanced next week. We were out in 5 minutes. It was funny to watch his facial expression change as we took the wind out of his sails. Once the first bank got the title, the 2nd bank paid it off and the title was transferred over to them. No big deal. Interest rates are awful right now, so paying cash would be the preferred option if you can do it. I always try to buy private party or from a decent reputable small car lot with low overhead and no insane dealer/doc fees. I'm looking at 2013's also; hardly anything out there, and I'm picky about color combo, mileage, wheels, has to have ML, etc. You have to look daily for months on end sometimes. Took me a month of daily searching to find my 2011 ES UL pkg, and I had to get a on a plane and fly 800 miles to get it and drive it back home.

 

From your description of the car it most likely was desirable, but whenever any salesperson tells me I have to "act now", my antennas go up, way up.

But whatever, there's always another car.

 

In this situation I believe the “act now”

 

Go to your bank and get pre-approved for an interest rate you like. Then go shopping.

 

Don't be afraid of high mileage. Got a 2012 ls460 l AWD all options but executive seat with 235k for 13k 18 months ago. Put 30k on it with zero issues, was 100% dealer maintained when I got it. 10k can go a long way to repairs!
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/ls-...l#post11331056

 

Sorry this one didn't work out, but in reading the post it feels like a fair deal all around on both the rate and the asking price. Asking price was only $1,300 higher than you expected which is negligible in impact of monthly payment. I think you have to know going in what rates are going to be like and just do the math on a website ahead of time so you know what monthly payment looks like and what you're going to pay in interest over the life of the car. If you would've researched this and seen you were likely to be in the 6.5 to 7% range and done the math, you would've known you weren't interested and saved yourself some time and agony over wondering if you made the right/wrong choice.

IMO, things always work out. So on to the next one. You are more informed now and another car will pop up with proper patience.

 

How long did it take them to sell the car to one of these "several people chomping at the bit"?

 

That's a good question!