The Story of the Four Hours:
(Dang, it's going to take four hours to read, too... Not sure it's that interesting...)
I'm a member of IMBA, and just found out a few weeks ago that one of their perks is an agreement with Subaru providing a pretty sweet deal on their cars. I'd been talking to one sales guy (the easiest to deal with and nicest we'd come across in this absurdly-protracted researching and buying phase), and he was familiar with the general way those work (Costco and others have sort of prearranged-pricing setups as well). In speaking to him, it seemed there was no reason that the WRX should present any problems (though I wasn't counting my chickens, as the paperworks clearly left the dealer some wiggle room).
When we went to the dealer yesterday, we expected to talk to the same sales guy (I'd called him earlier), and we also expected to either just be starting the process of trying to get a car to our specs transferred from another dealer, or even ordering one from Subaru, since when we'd been two weeks earlier and test-driven a WRX, the only hatch had been silver, and we were dead set on a darker color.
When we arrived, our guy was busy with someone else. I have no idea whether it was just the nature of a sale needing to finish or whether knowing that we were showing up with the IMBA papers he carefully arranged to be busy; this dealership nominally isn't commissioned, but clearly bases bonuses on sales. I have no idea whether a sale of reduced profitability due to discount dings the individual salesperson. In any case, we were handed off to another guy (after the first 'other guy' also had an appointment about to arrive), and then things got even weirder.
We reiterated what I'd previously told the first guy about what were after (hatchback, preferably dark grey, Premium with Base being OK, don't care one way or the other about Nav). To our surprise, they did have a dark grey Base hatch, no nav, on hand. We had a slight preference for a Premium model, so asked about getting one transferred. He said he'd get the keys and we could take this one for a drive.
At which point we became quite confused by his resistance to our protestations that we had already driven the WRX, liked it, and wanted to buy one, and that meandering the roads around the dealership wasn't a particularly useful way to spend time.
While I was re-filling the credit app I'd done two weeks earlier (subsequently shredded) in order to do the initial test drive, the Internet folks looked for a Premium car in the area. They found one about 400 miles away. This is about whether the mid-tier manager came in.
And this is where they exercised the vagaries of the IMBA discount. The specified deal is 2% under dealer invoice in general, but apparently this varies with the model. Again, we were not entirely surprised. But it did require some pondering. We'd walked in braced to leave with an agreement to buy a Premium for about what we were being offered a Base model for. By the time we got to this point, we'd already been there for at least an hour or so, probably an hour and a half.
From that point forward, the negotiations were a combination of counteroffers, and quite honestly some amount of my girlfriend and I just asking for a moment and pondering whether we should just leave... We'd walked in basically expecting to either be sold a WRX for the "general" IMBA discount, or if they exercised the option to apply lesser terms for the WRX, to buy a regular Impreza.
In the end, I feel like we got a pretty good deal. We are not skilled negotiators, but I think the paperwork, if nothing else, gave us some leverage in terms of what we expected walking in the door. I'd also readily believe that the sales folks were high-fiving when we left. Who can say for sure? Think I'll go look out the back window at the car again...
As an aside, I'm expecting a survey from Subaru shortly. Paranoid concerns of having been worked over aside, I have no real gripes about how we were treated. But I've heard a few stories about the manufacturers handle these surveys from folks here on the forums; basically, it sounds like if you give anything other than perfect marks, they withhold money (in the forms of incentives, bonuses, I dunno). Not that I'm utterly blown away by the experience, but I think that sounds insane, so I'm inclined to just give perfect marks if for no other reason than the stupidity of that process...
