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New car shopping is infuriating.

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I got two CX-5 last July. First, mine I got MSRP, 2014 Touring.
2nd one for wife, they had only AWD, but we wanted FWD only. The dealer slashed the price of AWD option by half, so we got it.

It's been very useful to have AWD this winter.

CX-5's sell well not only in the US. You will not find any superb discounts of those for a while.
 
Well I test drove them and looked at colors, I'm usually not a fan of white but love their white mica. I'm going with a Touring model with 2.5L and auto transmission with black seats, mats, cargo tray and roof rack. I shot my salesman at Lexington KY a pretty low offer ($2,235 off MSRP) and told him I'm going to be price checking several major cities. Now let the games begin. I'll probably get lucky to get $1,000- $1,500 off MSRP. I figured I'd better got with an auto since this will probably be my 6 year old girl's first car in 10 years and she isn't going to want a stick shift.
 
I think you're making the right choice on the 2.5L with auto. I also agree with you; Mazda has the best looking white on the market in my opinion. The 6 is absolutely stunning in white.
 
zanemoseley said:
Well I test drove them and looked at colors, I'm usually not a fan of white but love their white mica. I'm going with a Touring model with 2.5L and auto transmission with black seats, mats, cargo tray and roof rack. I shot my salesman at Lexington KY a pretty low offer ($2,235 off MSRP) and told him I'm going to be price checking several major cities. Now let the games begin. I'll probably get lucky to get $1,000- $1,500 off MSRP. I figured I'd better got with an auto since this will probably be my 6 year old girl's first car in 10 years and she isn't going to want a stick shift.
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Grats!!

I am sure you will love it. Report back when you get some miles on it, and gives us a review.
 
That said, if I needed to shop for a new car, I would probably head to Mazda first. I really like their lineup: MZ3, MZ6, CX5, Miata...all great!
 
I ended up getting $1700 off msrp and they're delivering it from 3 hrs away. That's not counting the $595 doc fee though. Should be delivered Wednesday.
 
zanemoseley said:
I ended up getting $1700 off msrp and they're delivering it from 3 hrs away. That's not counting the $595 doc fee though. Should be delivered Wednesday.
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You got it for under sticker price which is a victory no matter how you slice it in my opinion. Congratulations, don't forget to post pics! Did you go with the S Grand Touring? I absolutely love my MZ3 s GT, so many fantastic gadgets on it. If you've never had a car with them, the HID's are life-changing. The backup camera is great too, but I'm still afraid to trust the cross traffic alert combo with it. Just took the 3 on a short road trip Sunday and averaged 35mpg, and couldn't have been happier with the experience in general. So much better than any other car we've ever owned (though in fairness, they've all been decade+ old beaters but still).
 
vi edit said:
I did some shopping with Costco's service. I live about 2.5 hours south of Chicago but a dealer there basically would give you any car, at $400 under invoice and then added on all available rebates. Zero haggling required.

I ended up buying one locally for a couple hundred more just to save on gas, time, hassle/ect. But it was a good negotiating tool to use at my local dealer.
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I had really good luck with the Costco service. USAA has one as well. Get quote through those, get your trade-in quoted at carmax and then go in. I can get in/out in a hour with all the stupid negotiation done already. I don't think I'd go in to haggle anymore too much of a hassle. If you're really good and buying a car the dealer wasn't off the lot you might do better, but good luck on popular cars.
 
For some reason costco had no dealers in my area for the models I wanted. USAA does, but haent gotten prices from them yet on the toyora given its an availability problem. And I've already gotten lower than price given for the chevy.
 
toronado97 said:
You got it for under sticker price which is a victory no matter how you slice it in my opinion. Congratulations, don't forget to post pics! Did you go with the S Grand Touring? I absolutely love my MZ3 s GT, so many fantastic gadgets on it. If you've never had a car with them, the HID's are life-changing. The backup camera is great too, but I'm still afraid to trust the cross traffic alert combo with it. Just took the 3 on a short road trip Sunday and averaged 35mpg, and couldn't have been happier with the experience in general. So much better than any other car we've ever owned (though in fairness, they've all been decade+ old beaters but still).
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I got the Touring which is the mid trim level with the 2.5L engine. I'm looking forward to getting it. I think they're supposed to get it down to me tomorrow. I'll post a pic of it when it arrives.
 
Man $25k for a Mazda 3 is steep. I can get a nicely equipped Accord for that kind of cash. Mazda's made of gold or something?
 
gus6464 said:
Man $25k for a Mazda 3 is steep. I can get a nicely equipped Accord for that kind of cash. Mazda's made of gold or something?
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A similarly equipped Accord 4cyl with leather and nav starts at $30K.

A "loaded" Mazda3 is closer to $23K with leatherette, nav, etc. The S-Grand Touring (with leather instead of leatherette and heated seats) is $26.5K.
 
MiataNC said:
A similarly equipped Accord 4cyl with leather and nav starts at $30K.

A "loaded" Mazda3 is closer to $23K with leatherette, nav, etc. The S-Grand Touring (with leather instead of leatherette and heated seats) is $26.5K.
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Ok but I never said an Accord with leather and nav, I just said a nicely equipped Accord. What I was trying to convey was that $25k buys you a nicer car than a Mazda 3. And yes the 3 does not compare to an Accord in resale, reliability, and just overall value.
 
zanemoseley said:
I'm thinking of getting a new small suv/crossover. I narrowed it down to a Mazda cx-5 or Toyota Rav4 and have been trying to price shop a bit. It seemed apparent off the bat the Mazda dealers are extremely proud of their cars, one even sticking to msrp, others offering just a couple hundred off. Then I found one on autotrader 140 miles away for almost $3k off msrp, labeled a internet special. The dealer has a great rating on Google so I was hopefully they'd be straight forward. I called and soon found out they include every available discount under the sun including military discount, loyalty discount, competitive discount, none of which I qualified for of course. Then came the $595 doc fee. When the smoke cleared they were about $450 less than the other dealers. Not all bad since they were lower in the end but the process left me pretty pissed and I let them know about it. They did offer to drive the car 3 hours down to me which was nice. I now know why people hate car dealerships so much.
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Use truecar.com to get a starting price to negotiate from.
 
I used USAA's car buying service when I bought my car. Had 3 quotes from 3 local dealers within 30 minutes. The one I bought from was over $4k under sticker. No haggling, no hassle, I went to the dealership on a Thursday night right after work and walked out of there an hour and a half later with my new car.
 
gus6464 said:
Ok but I never said an Accord with leather and nav, I just said a nicely equipped Accord. What I was trying to convey was that $25k buys you a nicer car than a Mazda 3. And yes the 3 does not compare to an Accord in resale, reliability, and just overall value.
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If you are not comparing them with the same options, then you are not being fair or intellectually honest. A "nicely equipped" Mazda3 without leather and nav is only $18K, not the $25K you claimed in your first comparison post.

Hate on the Mazda all you want, but don't inflate the price of the 3, and deflate the price of the Accord to make your point.
 
If the Accord was as lively as the 3, had a real automatic instead of a CVT, drove even remotely as well as the 3, got 28/37 fuel economy wise, and had the options my 3 has at the price I paid for it (24,000) I would have considered it. As it had none of those things, it wasn't even on my list. I'm sure it's a great vehicle for a lot of people, but it wasn't something I was interested in. At equivalent pricepoints the 3 craps all over the Civic as well, and the Mazda is just starting to receive some great press for the car.
 
desy said:
Why are we comparing large cars to compacts?
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Because that's the hassle of new car shopping, you have infinite options to select :biggrin:

I think a lot of people are in the same boat, too - I just needed a car for work. And if your budget is decent, say $25k or less, there's a million options. I looked at everything from a Camaro to a Kia Soul to an Altima to diesel cars like the Jetta TDI. Ended up choosing a $15.5k Soul simply because I liked it the most. It can be hard to nail down exactly what you want when you don't have a single class preference and a flexible budget - options overload!
 
Just curious, why not a Rogue or CRV? For me, the RAV4 has too much unpainted plastic on the front and back now.

I worked in service at a Mazda dealer in the late 90's and they were pretty junky cars then, mainly due to Ford parts (but even the Mazda parts weren't great). Good thing Ford doesn't have any ownership now (since 2010).

MadScientist said:
I warned you in your other thread http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2371477 about the bs TN dealer doc fee. The minimum they are charging for new and used cars is $595. KY's doc fees are almost just as high. These fees are very non-negotiable. The best I could do was get some dealers to knock a few bucks off the price to help with the doc fee, but they still would not take it off the final invoice, and it's also taxable. OH has a $250. doc fee cap, might want to also look there.
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I bought a truck from a Nissan dealer in Lexington KY and got them to knock off the doc fee (after already getting a good deal on the truck price).
 
toronado97 said:
If the Accord was as lively as the 3, had a real automatic instead of a CVT, drove even remotely as well as the 3, got 28/37 fuel economy wise, and had the options my 3 has at the price I paid for it (24,000) I would have considered it. As it had none of those things, it wasn't even on my list. I'm sure it's a great vehicle for a lot of people, but it wasn't something I was interested in. At equivalent pricepoints the 3 craps all over the Civic as well, and the Mazda is just starting to receive some great press for the car.
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The Accord CVT is great. Why don't you like it?

Also the Civic looks a lot better IMO, is likely more reliable, and has higher resale value.
 
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MiataNC said:
A similarly equipped Accord 4cyl with leather and nav starts at $30K.

A "loaded" Mazda3 is closer to $23K with leatherette, nav, etc. The S-Grand Touring (with leather instead of leatherette and heated seats) is $26.5K.
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That's a lot closer than I thought. $26.5 for a Mazda 3, vs $30 for an Accord that's all around nicer, larger, safer, rides better, has higher resale value, and is more reliable.
 
Slickone said:
That's a lot closer than I thought. $26.5 for a Mazda 3, vs $30 for an Accord that's all around nicer, larger, safer, rides better, has higher resale value, and is more reliable.
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Also MPG is not that far off in the Accord from the 3. My wife gets on average ~31MPG on her 2012 Accord automatic. Now this is a woman who averages 40MPG on my Prius when I can get 47-48MPG easy so she's not the most efficient driver.

All I'm saying is that Mazda 3 prices are pretty damn inflated right now. Also on Truecar a Honda Accord EX-L w/ Nav is showing avg price $27.5k. The similarly equipped Mazda 3 Grand Touring is popping up at $26.5k. I know people like their Mazda's but that just seems like a no-brainer for a nicer, larger, more reliable car with a better resale value.
 
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