02' Wait List - How and $$

jerboa makes a good point. "Some" dealers just might accept a deposit and fail to deliver the car as agreed by a "promised" delivery date later. If you wind up cancelling the order, they have to refund your deposit. But how soon, might not be to your liking. It is always a good idea to have everything in writing so you have at least some legal recourse to force them to honor their commitment and actually do what they said they would do.

I hate to make this topic into a "us against them" situation, but we all know, salesmen often can be of rather dubious integrity.

As for buying MSRP in "whacky" California, not from any dealer I have visited in the Northern part of the State in large metro areas like SF or Sacramento. Dealers here are all conspiring to mark up way over the sticker and "claiming" to be able to get their "asking" price without difficulty.

Frankly, I don't believe it, but there just might be enough fat cat buyers still running around to make them "think" they can get it in certain affluent areas. So for now they will not budge on price. ;-(

I shopped extensively out of state to find a better deal and eventually did. Call Craig Hanson at Bernard Chevy at 847-362-1400 and tell him I referred you on a 2002 Z06. You may be pleasantly surprised for what you get off MSRP, so what does it hurt to make one phone call to find out.

Expect to pre-pay a $1000 deposit to order a
car thru any dealer. Anymore than that and
something should seem suspicious.

Also, from what I've heard, we can expect the MSRP to go up over 2001. I believe the
price adjustment will be $1,500 more on the sticker price for a 2002 Z06.

Tom, being in new car sales is a tough job. The only other "sales" job I know of that is really a tough job, even harder than yours, is recruiting for the Armed Forces (been there, done that, but never again).

I can only say that my experience with Chevy dealers here in California has been really terrible. Again, as I've said before, the
"average" salesman adds absolutely no value to the sale, especially Corvettes. They don't know much about them, nor do they have any real authority to "make a deal" and in effect are doormats to the dealership. That may sound harsh, but I firmly believe this to be true for the majority of people in sales people in the car business.

You must realize that expecting a "working class" person to fork over $50,000 for a car, ANY CAR, is quite traumatic financially speaking. This may explain why people give you such a hard time. It's because they are already having a hard time all of their own.

Even though I can afford to buy a Z06, the average guy has to take an incredible amount of crap from their wifes who would in fact rather have expensive jewelry or house full of new furniture, or at the very least, a new car with a back seat, four doors, and probably made in Japan because it gets better gas mileage.

It's so bad for me, I won't even take my wife with me to the dealership. It's just too humbling to be around here and a new Corvette at the same time.

I've owned three new ones over the years and nearly wound up in divorce court over each one purchased.

Now how's that for whinning about buying a new Corvette? /phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif

I am quilty of many things you say. I do give salesman a pretty hard time and I pride myself on being a tough negotiator. But the one thing that bugs me the most ... dare I say it again ... the average car salesman does not really do anything to add value.

To wit, in EVERY case during my numerous trips to local Chevy dealers here in the SF Bay Area, not one had a clue what was coming in 2002. It is NOT my job to know about cars, but I found out everything about the Z06 in a few hours of researching on the Internet, (like this forum), so why can't a
"professional" selling Corvettes do the same? If they did their homework, then perhaps they can "add value".

I kept asking the sales people at those local dealerships, if I could order a 2002 Z06, and all they said was NO, we don't know when we'll be getting any to sell. Say what? Why don't they know. If "I" was in their position, "I" would make it may business to know that and everything else so I am prepared to do business with a potential customer.

In every case, the dealer's sales manager ultimately intervened on the sales person behalf and dodged the question I was asking by telling me I should buy a 2001 for $5,000 over sticker and be glad that I did. I'm sorry, but that is an insult to me. Not only do they want me to bend over and get
_ucked, but they won't even sell me what I specifically want to buy.

This smacks of slimmy car sales people just wanting to make a quick buck, but not just a few 100 dollars, not even a few 1000, but more like 10,000 or more for being arrogant assholes.

Tom, even at MSRP, as you well know, the dealership is making around $8000 on every Corvette they sell. Meanwhile Joe Shmoo Chevy truck buyer gets a "great deal" for $5000 off sticker or John Q. Public Chevy car buyer gets to finance a Cavalier family car for 0.9%.

Corvette buyers, since the C5 came out five
years ago, IMO have been paying very high markups to the vast majority of dealers who see the new Corvette market as an their big opportunity to be GREEDY, plain and simple.

I recently tried to buy a "used" Z06 with over 2,000 miles from a new car Chevy dealer. After hours of pointless haggling the "best deal" I could get the dealer to agree to was still $2000 over the original MSRP. Once again, I was being told to bend over and just get _ucked.

BTW, haven't you car salesman heard? The economy is still in the toilet, so just how long do you will still be selling at $5k over sticker? Even sticker deals will soon become a thing of the past if the economy doesn't rebound soon.

With Z06 production going up to 20% of the total number of Corvette produced, it should be rather obvious that there just ain't that many buyers out there that can afford to pay $50,000 for a car, even great cars like the Z06.

If you weren't in the business of selling cars, and had to pay full sticker for your '02, or higher, how would you feel?
I dare say you'd feel like us and not so fond of bending over every time you see a new Corvette for sale.

Obviously, I greatly resent your post, and I don't care if you're sick of Corvette buyers who give salesman a hard time, but I hope you can see this issue from the other side too. Without all the lying bastard new car buyers out there, you'd starve or simply have to find a different line of work.