WOW. After reading this thread I'm thankful my purchase went the way it did. I'm in Canada and so are the prices I'm posting. I've been looking for a truck for about 6-7 months. Mainly because I didn't know what I wanted and was waiting for some work agreements to be in place before I bought anything. I was originally looking for a PW and ended up meeting the dealership manager. I was pretty upfront and honest with him that I'm not into or have time for negotiating. I told him if I ask for a price I don't have the patients for counter offers so if I don't like it I will move on no questions asked. I also told him I respected their pricing and I will treat each offer as "as low as they can go" and not bicker with them. I told him I do understand that this is how they make a living and I would not insult them with ultra low ball prices. He thanked me for that and told me that the dealership expects to make $1000-$1500 per vehicle to cover costs, overhead etc.
Fast forward to May. We are in lockdown, I got my work stuff sorted out, realized a PW was too much truck for me not to mention out of my price range. I narrowed it down to a handful of new/used trucks. 2 Rebel black editions, sport, and 2 BH's. Now hats off to the dealer and sales guy. The manager sent me close to a dozen price quotes based on new/used/terms/promo's. Once I determined with 0% it didn't make sense to even consider used @ 5.99% the dealer offered to drop off 4 trucks (1 truck per day) at my house for test drives. The Rebel I bought is the 2nd truck they dropped off, It was also the long weekend so the other trucks weren't coming until the following week. I already new that I like the 2nd Rebel so I asked for a solid price on that one. Its MSRP was $73k and he quoted me $64k @ 0%. I told him it was too much and to send the other trucks the following week. He came back with $62.5k. I went against my word a bit and countered with $62.5 but they throw in step bars, mud flaps, tri fold tonneau cover and brake controller. He said NO which I expected but offered dealer pricing/installed for the list. I think I got roughly 15% off all the items installed.
All and all it was a good experience. There were a couple touch and go moments where the salesmen were being salesmen. I was told that there was still "wiggle" room in all the prices I was quoted but he wasn't willing to divulge that number until I chose which truck I really wanted. I cautioned them about doing that but in the end I was pretty set on the Rebel so I only got pricing on both Rebels in question.
I really don't enjoy the smoke and mirrors put on by commercial sales. I work in the industrial field and when I call suppliers X Y and Z and ask them for a price I get exactly that. My wife had a good analogy about car sales. Its like a carnival game of follow the ball under the red cup. "We can offer you this at this price, but if you want this then the price changes with the terms." Its nauseating. I also quickly priced out a 2019 Rebel. It was being listed @ $58k but with no 0% it was more money per month!
And lastly I thought I would play Big Dawg and asked them for a cash buy out price as I thought if it worked out cheaper I could buy it on my line of credit. They really couldn't care less. It was $58k on payments and $58k cash. I got the impression they prefer payments and were doing me a favor by holding the same price for a cash deal.
I think there may have been some more pennies to grind out but I feel that I got a better than fair deal through this particular dealership. I haven't bought a new vehicle or any vehicle since 2003 and I feel like with how the markets are and with having the internet to quickly compare prices they are advertised about as low as they can go and any lower they are just not interested.