Writing about that Hyundai got me into dealership hell

When I was looking up a few things about that Hyundai Santa Fe, I came across a currently unadvertised lease deal on 2024 Ioniq5 SELs for $229/mo with $3500 down here. There's even better deals on Ioniq6s, but the 5 is absolutely the perfect replacement for my wife's CX-5, and even if she hates it at $229/mo for two years it's not a particularly huge committment if she wants to switch gears in 24 months.

So now I'm emailing local Hyundai dealers and am trapped in dealership hell and am basically posting for sympathy. At this point I can't even get anyone to admit the deal exists, let alone whether or not their dealership is participating. Plenty of invitations to "come in and sit down," though. I'm trying my best to express to them that the only time they will ever see me will be when I'm picking up my new car. Hopefully today is light on walk ins and they feel like dealing with a reasonable customer over the internet.

So we'll see what happens. If anyone has a decent Florida Hyundai dealer to recommend I'm all ears.

Costco ?

I have had a lot more luck when my wife and I have bought cars going to dealerships outside of the Daytona area. My Frontier came from a Porsche dealership in Melbourne and it was the easiest car buying experience I have ever had. My wife's CRV came from Orlando and other than the finance department nonsense it was a good experience. Every time I have tried to deal with a dealership here it has been frustrating. 

My favorite frustration of dealing with dealers is where it sounds like you might be headed:

"Hey, I'm interested in this thing, at this price, can you accommodate that, yes or no?"

"Hi, Spearfishin, I'm going to ignore your question, tell you about three cars you're not interested in and one car that's what you asked about, but won't commit to anything in terms of pricing and availability."

"No, I just want what I asked about."

"Thanks Spearfishin, why not come see the three things you didn't ask about? We're open Sundays!"

californiamilleghia said:

Costco ?

All Costco does is forward the lead to a few dealers, it will be the same result.

Well after all that complaining I got a call from a dealer in Orlando that said they're participating in the program and they can do the deal including tax, tags and fees for $272-280/mo and what color did I want. 

Story developing. Will report back.

In reply to JG Pasterjak :

This is exactly the new car purchase experience I had this last year. Do you have one available? What is the price? If you don't have one can I order one? All responses were either some crazy over MSRP or please come in and we can find a car that works for you. 

Dealers seem to be really good at not answering direct questions. "Lets make a deal on a car we won't even confirm we have."

They do much better over the phone since it "isn't in writing" in my opinion. It's like when you ask a HR person a question and they call you instead of writing something down for you because later they can state "that is not what I said, you misheard me." 

When I bought my Subaru I did one of the referral systems through my insurance. 3 dealers tried to rope me along. The 4th (who I wrote off for being too far away) gave me an OTD price over email with the add ons I wanted and offered to deliver the car for free. Oh and their price was lower than market.

Guess who got my business. 

JG Pasterjak said:

When I was looking up a few things about that Hyundai Santa Fe, I came across a currently unadvertised lease deal on 2024 Ioniq5 SELs for $229/mo with $3500 down here. There's even better deals on Ioniq6s, but the 5 is absolutely the perfect replacement for my wife's CX-5, and even if she hates it at $229/mo for two years it's not a particularly huge committment if she wants to switch gears in 24 months.

So now I'm emailing local Hyundai dealers and am trapped in dealership hell and am basically posting for sympathy. At this point I can't even get anyone to admit the deal exists, let alone whether or not their dealership is participating. Plenty of invitations to "come in and sit down," though. I'm trying my best to express to them that the only time they will ever see me will be when I'm picking up my new car. Hopefully today is light on walk ins and they feel like dealing with a reasonable customer over the internet.

So we'll see what happens. If anyone has a decent Florida Hyundai dealer to recommend I'm all ears.

The deal definitely exists on the Ioniq6. I'm in a few Ioniq6 groups online and folks have been able to get it. Check Reddit and FB. Both have Ioniq5 groups.

As for someone to call, try George Bonafede at Holler Hyundai in Winter Park. He sold us our Ioniq6 and is a very good autocrosser, very active in CFR and a legit car guy. As proof, here is a picture of him from Google sporting a familiar t-shirt.

I think that one of the really cool things about buying a car in this day and age is that you absolutely do not need to deal with the local dealership if you don't want to. If one place isn't willing to work with you, there are hundreds of other dealers all across the country to pick from.

That's one heck of a deal on the Ioniqs, so thanks for sharing, J.G.

And I found another!

^There's your guy.

In reply to dyintorace :

Since my family's next vehicle is likely going to be a Hyundai, I'll be sure to keep George in mind if we go that way with our purchase. 

Woody (Forum Supportum) said:

^There's your guy.

 

Yup.  Gotta go with George

So, oddly enough Holler was the dealer that called me back and has been super helpful, but I had ZERO idea that George worked there. I'll have to ping him and let him know one of his salespeople is reasonable to deal with thusfar.

JG Pasterjak said:

When I was looking up a few things about that Hyundai Santa Fe, I came across a currently unadvertised lease deal on 2024 Ioniq5 SELs for $229/mo with $3500 down here. There's even better deals on Ioniq6s, but the 5 is absolutely the perfect replacement for my wife's CX-5, and even if she hates it at $229/mo for two years it's not a particularly huge committment if she wants to switch gears in 24 months.

So now I'm emailing local Hyundai dealers and am trapped in dealership hell and am basically posting for sympathy. At this point I can't even get anyone to admit the deal exists, let alone whether or not their dealership is participating. Plenty of invitations to "come in and sit down," though. I'm trying my best to express to them that the only time they will ever see me will be when I'm picking up my new car. Hopefully today is light on walk ins and they feel like dealing with a reasonable customer over the internet.

So we'll see what happens. If anyone has a decent Florida Hyundai dealer to recommend I'm all ears.

I'm admittedly not an expert on leasing, but is spending $9,000 to borrow the car for two years really that great of a deal? MSRP is only $35k after the tax credit. 

Absolutely maxing out your lease mileage (24,000) means the lease would cost you $.375 per mile (more if you drive less). Buying it outright for 35k and driving it until its worth nothing (200k?) would cost .175 per mile. Buying it for 35k and driving it for 100k miles and then selling it for $10k would cost .250 per mile. I'm not seeing the value in this lease deal. What am I missing? 

Leases are never (rarely?) a better deal than buying a car and driving it into the ground, but I'd agree with JG that this is a great deal for a lease. If you always want to drive a new car, leases can make sense. Or, I guess you could frame this as a bet that the car will be worth less than its residual, right?

Yeah in general I'm not a fan of leasing. But at these numbers, all you're really doing is prepaying for the depreciation. If it depreciates less than expected, you have the chance to buy the car for a great deal in two years. if it depreciates more than expected, you walk away knowing you aren't upside down in car payments.

This is also a car for my wife, not really me. She has a 40 mile round trip commute every day, and she wants something safe, new, efficient and feature rich and I don't begrudge her that. We've done the math and she's put an average of 10,300 miles/yr on her CX-5 in the time she's had it, so she's well within the mileage window. And she'll have ZERO maintenance costs to deal with aside from maybe tires in the two years she's leasing. 

So, yeah, I'm no lease fan, either, but man it seems to make sense here. Particularly when an $800/mo car payment does not seem real enticing right now.

In reply to dyintorace :

I've got nothing to add to this thread but seeing a guy from a dealership in a GRM shirt is absolutely cool and instantly signals a positive vibe to me.
When the time comes for me to change vehicles, I could see contacting him, even though I live on the opposite side of the Gulf.  (I'd road-trip the hell out of an Elantra N from Florida to Texas, by way of the hills of Georgia/N. Carolina/East Tennessee, and Alabama.)

JG Pasterjak said:

So, oddly enough Holler was the dealer that called me back and has been super helpful, but I had ZERO idea that George worked there. I'll have to ping him and let him know one of his salespeople is reasonable to deal with thusfar.

I'm assuming he still does. We bought our car last summer and he was great. At the time, he was driving a new GR Corolla, but I think he's since sold that.

Coniglio Rampante said:

In reply to dyintorace :

I've got nothing to add to this thread but seeing a guy from a dealership in a GRM shirt is absolutely cool and instantly signals a positive vibe to me.
When the time comes for me to change vehicles, I could see contacting him, even though I live on the opposite side of the Gulf.  (I'd road-trip the hell out of an Elantra N from Florida to Texas, by way of the hills of Georgia/N. Carolina/East Tennessee, and Alabama.)

I'm not sure we got a particularly smoking deal, but it was really nice dealing with a dealership salesperson that knows more about cars that I do!

One recommendation is keep the $3500 in the bank and pay the $375 it will be without it. You can even go as far as put the $3500 in an account and pay the first 9 months from that account.

The amount out of pocket over the 24 months is the same, and if the car gets totaled (hopefully not of course) your $3500 is not just gone as it would be if you put it down.

right now a lease can be a better deal on an EV than buying if it does not qualify for the $7500 back because of battery sourcing or assembly requirements or income limits.  

The manufacturers can take a different credit for leased cars and pass that on to the consumer that that does not include the restrictions on battery sourcing or income limits.   You can even find some people "leasing" a car and then buying it out right away just for the discount.

Here is the Congressional Research Service information on it.

So, George is selling Hyundais for Holler Hyundai!  Good to know!   They have some impressive products.

I haven't purchased a car through George, but I can speak up for him.
As a six year member of Martin Sports Car Club, every personal interaction I've had with George and his reputation with the club members that have known him for far longer have always been positive.