Cool-Blue-Dad

I personally hate the whole demo concept so you'll see a strong bias against it in my writing.

If you're serious about negotiating for it be sure to throw in their face the fact that "THIS IS A USED CAR!"

Seriously, pretend you're buying it from me. I used it as a part-time car, tell you I took good care of it and here it is one year old and 3,000 miles on it. Now what's it worth to you? Run the Edmunds numbers on the quote for such a used car.

Don't let the dealership tell you what a great discount this is on a brand new car. It's not. It's a used car and it ought to be priced like one.

I was highly insulted by a dealership that offered me a "great deal" because they "really wanted to move this car" and still didn't drop down to Invoice price. I didn't buy that car - I didn't even talk to that dealership again and I don't take the RX-8 I did buy there for service.

You want a number? How about 30% off MSRP or better. If the Edmunds reports for a used car with that mileage come out really low I'd say take those into the dealership and use those to back up your position.

...and, as always, don't be afraid to walk away.

Cool-Blue-Dad

Right on one count - it's never been titled, so technically it is new. However, someone has been using it so I would use that to enhance the bargaining position of the buyer.

Wrong on one count (nothing personal) - being a demo doesn't just mean a salesman drove it. Someone drove it - I'd try to find out who.

In my case, the demo I drove and passed on was driven by, ready for this, the dealership GM's *son*. Yeah, and 'sonny-boy' forgot to clean up the latte that sloshed in the cup-holder. I'm sure the boy was taking *great* care of that car.

We had another user on this board who claimed to be 17 years old or so, claimed his dad owned/managed a dealership and claimed he'd been driving his dad's demo cars since he was 14. Nice, that's exactly what I want to buy (*not*).

Now, that's not to say all demo cars are trashed. My point is just that a buyer should command a steep discount when doing a dealership the favor of taking one of their demo cars off their books due to the uncertainty.

Cool-Blue-Dad

One more data point on "non-new" RX-8s. Our local giant new & used car retailer, Simmons-Rockwell, has two 2004s on their lot for $17,999 each. One yellow, one red. They seem to have a pretty steady stream of them at that price (I've seen more yellows, blues and blacks come and go from that lot).

I dunno if you're hung up on a Shinka or really want low-mileage, but the much cheaper, higher mileage RX-8s are a possible alternative. At the very least you could print the listings off Simmons-Rockwell.com and try to use them as bargaining power. A dealer would never match the price of high mileage 2004s with a lower mileage Shinka, but he may go a little lower if he actually believes you'll consider picking up one of those cheaper cars if you can't get the price you like on his Shinka.

Cool-Blue-Dad

Rochester? That's less than 100 miles from the Sim-Rock dealerships down here. Look at their website. Let me know if you see a car on their Horseheads lot which interests you and want me to give it a look-over. I'd be happy to scout it and make a report on its condition before you drive down.

I worked with a salesman named Paul at the Horseheads lot last fall and this summer to buy cars for my wife and I. In both cases he was really helpful, but I couldn't buy from him because he didn't have the right cars for us in inventory.

I'd say keep searching farther and wider. I went all the way to Maryland to get mine. John Holtz, Vincent and Ontario Mazda just didn't have what I wanted.