Went to purchase Nismo today...buyers beware
 

Hey Guys,

Some of you may or may not recognize me, but I've been lurking on the forum for quite some time now. I've been looking for a 15+ manual silver nismo for about 2 years. I've never needed it as I have a tacoma as a DD which is probably why I've been taking my time and haven't been in a rush. I figured it would be nice to have a sports car as a weekend/garage car, but again it was a want, not a need.

I've always loved the nismos, and Zs in general. There's nothing else like it. You guys/gals are all members, so you know where I'm coming from. This next part is more of a public announcement and a story for whoever wants one.

I've been eyeing this specific nismo for a little over a month:
https://www.prioritynissanchantilly....AZ4EH5HM955383

I went to go check it out today and examined it thoroughly. Interior and exterior is very clean and the recaros have no damage to them. There are a few rock chips here and there, especially on the red lip area (even though the salesman was telling me there wasn't a single rock chip on the car). There are several scratches under the front bumper and the plastic thing under the bumper (I forgot what it's called) is significantly scraped. These things are to be expected from a used car and overall I thought it was in good condition.

What worried me was the carfax. It's a corporate fleet vehicle. Everyone has opinions on this. I believe I made another thread on this matter. Anyways, I decided to take it for a test drive. The car ran well and drove fine. I didn't push it or anything; just a little bit of spirited driving. My brother had an older model nismo, so I already know what it's like. When I parked the car back at the dealership I noticed a burning smell. Possibly the brakes or clutch. I believe it was the clutch, but of course, the salesman was assuring it was just the brakes. I never braked hard though. The car has been sitting in the showroom for a while - perhaps something with that. For those who are thinking I burned the clutch - well maybe, but my DD is manual and I've been driving manual for a while and I'm a smooth criminal, I mean, shifter* (RIP MJ). The salesman himself said I was really good at driving stick. Anyways, I just thought it was weird. The smell eventually went away, but I felt suspicious.

Before any of this began, I want you all to know I had no intention of playing games. When I walked in and linked up with a salesman I was polite and upfront about the specific nismo. Of course he was trying very hard to sell it. I brought up the carfax and my concern that it was a corporate fleet vehicle. He face looked like I insulted him and he started talking about how it was a demo car and that it was never registered to anyone (of course, it has to be registered to someone) and that it has been taken care of meticulously. He even went as far as to say it's better than new since "it goes through a rigorous multi-point inspection." You see....my whole point of being upfront from the beginning was to avoid this crap lol and to make sure they knew I knew what I was interested in. Somehow they still took me for being uneducated. Anyways, he just really wanted to sell the car and continuously kept iterating how the condition of the car was perfect. This is when I test drove the vehicle and I came back to talk #s.

So my plan was to trade the truck in. My wife has a 4Runner (which I absolutely love) and it'll do everything I need in terms of outdoor use. The tacoma has the highest resale value in the country. I have a 16' manual, full-cab, 4x4, TRD Sport with the tow package and some other goodies. It's in great condition and has about 40k miles. I figured I couldn't do an even trade, but at max would have to pay another 4-5k on top of my truck. You guys want to laugh? First off, they wouldn't budge on the price of the nismo. Secondly, they low-balled me on my truck's offer. They wanted my truck plus another 14k. Needless to say the conversation didn't go much longer after that, however, it did get a little nasty. I simply said it's way too far off from where I was expecting. The salesman said, "I knew you weren't a serious buyer." I didn't even want to get into it with him, but his whole attitude changed, but I proceeded to shake his hands and walk out. Some other things were said, but I've already written too much. I went to the manager since I had to get my keys back, and he was telling me how my logic was crazy. I just said have a good day and left.

I don't know...I just feel like Nissan is on a downhill spiral. Apart from their Z pricing being ludicrous and not budging at all (I'm basing this on other experiences as well), their customer service sucks. I know I'm not alone as there are many other members who can speak to this. I almost don't want a Z anymore and may just continue to wait for another Japanese manufacturer to come out with a more modern and fun car. I don't know what Nissan is smoking these days, but there's no way they're doing well in today's market.

Looks like your truck is $27k-$28k trade in unless it is salvage or damaged.

Have you considered buying from a private seller or used car dealer like CarMax?

Very rarely do they budge on the price of a Nismo. Keep looking. It is not Nissans fault you couldn't get the deal you wanted. 2 year old truck with 40k miles is way over mileage. You get 12k a year for a total of 24k for 2 years. Like I said, keep looking.

I walked away from 3 deals at dealerships that wouldn't budge / meet my price before finding one that met me 100%. That was on a sport tech, but still...

Just keep looking, you'll find what you're looking for.

It’s all about timing. It took me about a year to find my ‘09 Z touring/sport/nav/auto. Then after about 3 years, I missed rowing through the gears of a manual, it took me about a week to find my ‘13 Z touring/sport/nav/manual. Keep looking and you will eventually find.

:iagree:

each dealer/salesman is different especially on pricing. it is much easier to deal without trade-in. Just sell the truck yourself and keep looking.

Honestly, can't say that car dealerships are that different brand to brand. Variation is probably more closely tied to the owners of the dealership than the overall brand. You definitely see more "service" in luxury brands, but I found two dealerships to be quite pleasant and two other dealerships to be the opposite.

When I was searching, I was looking for an unmodified car, and one dealership assured me that their car was stock. I test drove the car and it definitely had an aftermarket exhaust. I tell the guy this and he adamantly says it's stock. He gives me a receipt for the parts they replaced, and I asked why they replaced the MAF and he said that the old car ran without them.... Right. I told him that I'd have to go even lower on the price because it was modified and had some damage on carfax and he was like, yeah no way. I told him I had another offer that was good enough for me to buy, just wanted to see if they had something better, he told me to go buy it. I did, lol. He calls back a month later and asks if I'm still interested...

The point is, I don't think you can really fault Nissan for a crappy dealer. Ford has crappy dealers (I had to push a car back because it ran out of gas....). An audi dealer we went to didn't know the difference between an A4, an S4, or an RS4...

As for prices, I think it's just that dealership again. The place I bought my car from had the car for 3 months because nobody wanted it at that high of a price (they had it initially listed for 29k or something w/ 20k on the clock). Really clean car, but nobody wants an overpriced used car. So you just gotta wait them out and/or find dealers that are getting desperate with the cars that just sit there on the lot as it just loses them money.

:wtf2:
Used car salesman was impolite.
Trade-in value was unfair.
Manager wouldn't budge.

You should call Nissan consumer relations to complain. It sounds like Nissan's fault. :shakes head:

Have you thought about selling your car privately? That way you dont have to fight the car price and trade in price.

31K is like the max Private Party value of that truck. I don't know why you expected that much from a trade in to a Nissan dealer. Like others have said if you want the extra money you have to deal with the hassle of selling it yourself. Unless a dealership is very lucky a used car will have to be sold at least twice before it goes to an end user again and that's why trade in values are lower then Private Party.

I find salesman these days are very different than the shady used ones of the past. Yes there's always bad apples but with so much information readily available at the swipe of my phone, there isn't much room for them to "fool" an unsophisticated shopper.

Sounds like you just had a bad salesman or you two just didn't jive. Not trying to defend him, sounds like he really offended you, but Nissan isn't going "downhill" because of that. There's three sides to every story.

I’m sure the dealer gave you a Mannheim number on your trade. From my experience, that’s lower than Black Book trade in. Keep looking.

I definitely noticed while shopping that like 80% of used Zs were fleet vehicles, wonder what's up with that. It was hard to find one that wasn't.

Low sales on an aging platform. They were always available as an upgrade at national rental when I was traveling for work

the salesmen there were pricks when i went there in 2011

test drove 3 Z's there.

bought my Z the next week in Louisiana.