BillsWatch Posted August 1, 2009 Share Posted August 1, 2009 My wife has an 1997 Ford Aerostar van and we decided to go looking for an inexpensive replacement for her van and take advantage of government giving away money. Note we do not need to replace it since her van still runs fine after 12 years after a tune up so we have some leverage. Aerostar gets 18 mpg according to government figures so to take full advantage of it we need to find a car getting on average of 28 mpg. She wants (1) automatic (2) hatchback with (3) air conditioning hopefully with (4) cruise control (deal installed, package or added) and (5) folding, split back seat. She does not care about "sportiness" nor is worried about resale value since we usually drive until they drop cars. The Pontiac G3 was best match in her price range but hard to find properly equipped so we were looking at the sister car the Aero 5 LT. She drove and was happy about the combination when we came to first surprise. We discovered CARS is not a typical auto rebate but more like a tax rebate in which the government pays you back after deciding it has taken enough time and paperwork not takes money off sticker price. We also discovered that dealer installed option are much more expensive than independently installed systems with some warranty justification for cost. We did not purchase car today. Typical attempt by salesman then sales office person then sales manager to tell us that they are not 'typical dealership' and will work with us to find a way to purchase it but we do not finance hence other than factory rebate I do not think they had many things they could do. Toughest part of turning it down is that there are not a lot of these Aero 5 LTs with these options in stock hence hard to compare dealers. Will try again some other day to hook bigger fish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MattyT Posted August 1, 2009 Share Posted August 1, 2009 My wife has an 1997 Ford Aerostar van and we decided to go looking for an inexpensive replacement for her van and take advantage of government giving away money. Note we do not need to replace it since her van still runs fine after 12 years after a tune up so we have some leverage. Aerostar gets 18 mpg according to government figures so to take full advantage of it we need to find a car getting on average of 28 mpg. She wants (1) automatic (2) hatchback with (3) air conditioning hopefully with (4) cruise control (deal installed, package or added) and (5) folding, split back seat. She does not care about "sportiness" nor is worried about resale value since we usually drive until they drop cars. The Pontiac G3 was best match in her price range but hard to find properly equipped so we were looking at the sister car the Aero 5 LT. She drove and was happy about the combination when we came to first surprise. We discovered CARS is not a typical auto rebate but more like a tax rebate in which the government pays you back after deciding it has taken enough time and paperwork not takes money off sticker price. We also discovered that dealer installed option are much more expensive than independently installed systems with some warranty justification for cost. We did not purchase car today. Typical attempt by salesman then sales office person then sales manager to tell us that they are not 'typical dealership' and will work with us to find a way to purchase it but we do not finance hence other than factory rebate I do not think they had many things they could do. Toughest part of turning it down is that there are not a lot of these Aero 5 LTs with these options in stock hence hard to compare dealers. Will try again some other day to hook bigger fish. Lots of people are complaining about it. Check this thread: http://www.stadiumwall.com/index.php?showtopic=90823 What's an Aero 5 LT? Is that a Saab? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillsWatch Posted August 1, 2009 Author Share Posted August 1, 2009 Sorry typo, long day and no sleep last night. 2009 Chevrolet Aveo 5 http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/2008car1tablef.jsp?id=25223 25 City, 34 Hwy, 28 Combined Looks like a compact with front and back end flattened. Lots of people in thread complaining about existence of whole program and politics in general. Most of complaining is in line with previous posted political views anyways. I did not like it when they changed rules about retirement accounts I set up, started charging me welfare tax on education reimbursements, bailed out speculators responsible for recession, tax avoidance of oil companies, car companies bailed out, etc but just trying to deal with constantly changing government laws. I was thinking of buying new car during $4 gas run up but tuned van instead and now will take advantage of it if I can find deal as well as rebate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fezmid Posted August 1, 2009 Share Posted August 1, 2009 Skip the dealer BS -- go to a site like Edmunds.com, enter in what you want, and let all of the local dealers email you their best quote. That's how I've purchased two cars and it's worked great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillsWatch Posted August 1, 2009 Author Share Posted August 1, 2009 Skip the dealer BS -- go to a site like Edmunds.com, enter in what you want, and let all of the local dealers email you their best quote. That's how I've purchased two cars and it's worked great. Did that last time with Edmunds.com when I was looking using a unused e-mail address and new phone number. Neither was getting junk messages but after I did I was getting all kinds of junk mail and messages including very specific mailing address typo matching what I provided. Either Edmunds.com or someone paying for addresses as a dealer (I do not imagine it is very difficult to register as dealer for them) was using it for spam harvesting directly or for resale. It does not surprise me since many places put you on default marketing list automatically require you to opt out and then saying it will take 10 days to a month to remove you. May try again but it may be easier just to do web searches myself and make some phone calls. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fezmid Posted August 1, 2009 Share Posted August 1, 2009 Did that last time with Edmunds.com when I was looking using a unused e-mail address and new phone number. Neither was getting junk messages but after I did I was getting all kinds of junk mail and messages including very specific mailing address typo matching what I provided. Either Edmunds.com or someone paying for addresses as a dealer (I do not imagine it is very difficult to register as dealer for them) was using it for spam harvesting directly or for resale. It does not surprise me since many places put you on default marketing list automatically require you to opt out and then saying it will take 10 days to a month to remove you. May try again but it may be easier just to do web searches myself and make some phone calls. Just make an email address for the purposes of buying the car and throw it away when you're done. I never gave them my phone number because I didn't want to talk to them until I was ready to do it on my own terms. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stussy109 Posted August 1, 2009 Share Posted August 1, 2009 autotrader.com and vehix.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miyagi-Do Karate Posted August 1, 2009 Share Posted August 1, 2009 Sorry typo, long day and no sleep last night. 2009 Chevrolet Aveo 5 http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/2008car1tablef.jsp?id=25223 25 City, 34 Hwy, 28 Combined Looks like a compact with front and back end flattened. Lots of people in thread complaining about existence of whole program and politics in general. Most of complaining is in line with previous posted political views anyways. I did not like it when they changed rules about retirement accounts I set up, started charging me welfare tax on education reimbursements, bailed out speculators responsible for recession, tax avoidance of oil companies, car companies bailed out, etc but just trying to deal with constantly changing government laws. I was thinking of buying new car during $4 gas run up but tuned van instead and now will take advantage of it if I can find deal as well as rebate. I looked at Aveos a few years ago when I bought my car (ended up with a 2001 chevy prism, which is great--it's a Toyota Corolla but at a lower price). But if she's looking at Aveos and wants all those feaures, she ought to check the Honda Fit. My in-laws really like their's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PromoTheRobot Posted August 1, 2009 Share Posted August 1, 2009 We missed the Clunker cut off by one MPG on our old Caravan. But we found that some dealers were willing to offer huge deals before the clunker program because people stopped car shopping waiting for the govt. money. I bought my wife a brand new '09 Nissan Altima, base model 2.5 S, for $17,300. No dickering either. We walked in and gave us the price and we took it. The other Nissan dealer we saw the day before tried to pull the ol' "grid" move on us. When we finally pinned them down they were asking $20,500 for the same car. The dealer we bought from, by the way, was Peter's Nissan in Nashua NH. It's the second Altima we bought from them. Ironically we bought an '05 from them and paid $18,500 in 2004! We paid $1,200 less 5 years later. Oh and we sold the Carvan on Craigslist. PTR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillsWatch Posted August 1, 2009 Author Share Posted August 1, 2009 You could have gotten clunker money if you had bought another minivan. Program rules are different for minivans and cars which we found out when doing car comparisons. We went to one dealer who was willing to do $15,300 for car we wanted ($15,000 was our price before our $300 GM credit card rebate) but car was red and my wife did not really want a red car. I called original dealer back and said my wife was going to sign and buy another car. Sales guy talked to manager again and managed $15,750 with $3000 on credit card (not GM credit card) which was close enough for my wife to buy the moon blue car. We always pay off credit card so basically it is a free loan while we reorganize accounts. The smaller dealer is closer, includes oil changes for 1st year and free car washes for life so while we paid a bit more my wife is happy. Dealer has accepted car so getting money from government is dealer's issue. Oh and we found out GM credit card rebate was $218 not $300. The GM credit card rebate program sucks which is why we switched cards years ago. We also found out that dealer who offered $15,200 has been taking in a lot of CARS program cars before program details were finalized and may have to eat costs. Not a great idea but it kept sales going in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IDBillzFan Posted August 2, 2009 Share Posted August 2, 2009 Glad to hear you got your car. Next time you want a car, you may want to pass on Chevy and pick up NOTE: If you're a car person, do NOT watch this video. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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