I recently stopped by a few dealers to check out if it was a potential possibility to purchase a new pick up, My Town and Country has over 100,000 on it now and the very first thing that is being presented to me is now they are pushing "Packages" based on the what ever the marketing name is of the body style they are offering.
Nothing about a base price plus a list of options but a base price of the existing package whether you want what is on the package or not. And by in large I don't.
And I guess some one in marketing felt that what I wanted was a 4 door pick up truck. Which I don't. They no longer make an extended cab with a jump seat in it which is what I do want.
And the base price of the package? Greater than the price of a Cadillac I looked at a couple of weeks ago with a good half of the package being I really don't care for parts that I also do not want to pay for just to get the rest of the stuff.
Trying to buy a new car these days is an exercise in frustration. I think I will go down to one of the auction houses here in Phoenix and try to purchase a restore middle 60's GMC and get what I would like to have instead. It would be cheaper and the end product more to my liking.
Dang.

 

Yeah, buying a new car nowadays is a total crapshoot... I went to a local dealer a while ago looking for my wife a car, but I was driving my old ranger, the guy tried selling me a four door 2014 silverado... It took three times of insisting that I know what I want for him to suggest any car... You know why they try pulling crap like that, right? Profit margins are higher... And most people are weak willed enough to be talked right into something they didn't want to begin with...

They don't make what I really want anymore, or at least they don't stock them... I want a compact truck, regular cab, 6 foot bed( or maybe an extended cab with the 6 footer), 2 wheel drive, four cylinder, manual trans... You know what they suggest when I tell them that? The closest v8 powered, 4x4, full size truck they can point to...

 

Vehicles to day are pushed not on the price that they are being sold for but either as the monthly cost of a lease (an arrangement where you rent the thing and give it back so you can rent another) or how much a month you want to pay.
Which in my case, is nothing.

 

That is entirely true... That is exactly how the salesman presented the new silverado to me, for a cost of as low as $479 a month, not the $42,600 sticker price I had to pry out of him...

I wonder what they have for your desired monthly payment, lol

 

The last time a salesman responded with a monthly payement (carefully bypassing any information on interest rates by the way) I told him "Great! I'll take it, I'll write you out a check and get the title ready.) And it took him a bit to realize he had no idea what I was talking about, until I told him he had just told me what it was going to cost to buy the thing and I was going to jump on it while I could. There was some serious pack pedaling going on from that point on.