I've checked out the carorder.com site it seems too good to be true. they are basically a car-ordering service(not a price-quote service) that will sell you a car of your choice(if in Cal) for invoice price, and this is for the A4 also. and that's not all. they itemize every item that will go into the total cost and for that price they will even deliver it to your home or office or where ever for that matter on a flat-bed truck. all for a mere $500 deposit which goes to the purchase of the car and is not an extra charge. somebody tell me this is too good to be true or tell me that you've actually used this and its legit.

 

Since this question keeps coming up let me spell out what is going on:

1) CarOrder.Com (COC from now on) is simply an autobroker that happens to work online. They are no different than the broker you work with when you deal with your bank or credit union. They do not sell you the car but merely negotiate a price on your behalf with the dealer.

2) Right now, COC is paying money out of pocket in order to develop relationships with dealers and get their name out in the public domain. Yes, they are taking a loss on the cars they broker right now. No, this can't go on forever or the business would fail. Simple economics. Lots of businesses lose money initially in order to develop future business on which they hope to make money.

3) What does COC hope to gain? The same type of business as regular brokers. Most people don't like to deal with the hassle of negotiating a deal with the dealer. Brokers step in and for a set fee ($300-500) will negotiate for you. The attraction is that they have more information and experience working with dealers so the customer is less likely to seriously overpay for a car. Can you get a better deal on your own? Of, course. By using a broker you are simply saying I'd rather pay a few hundred dollars extra to not have to deal with the hassle of negotiation. BTW, those brokers at credit unions that say they will only charge $50 to negotiate the price of a car are really charging more. They normally charge the dealer a several hundred dollar finder's fee that the dealer promptly passes on to the customer in the form of a higher "best" offer for the deal. COC hopes to become the Internet version of the traditional broker.

4) Does COC actually pay dealers? Yes, they have. No dealer is going to sell a car for at or below invoice. If COC promises an at invoice deal then someone has to make up the difference if not the customer. In these cases, COC is negotiating a price with the dealer. They then send a check to the dealer to make up the difference between the invoice price the customer is paying and the actual negotiated price. In my particular case COC sent the dealer a check for over $2000. Its true.

5) Why would the salesman get COC involved? Eventually, the dealer/salesman will work with COC because of the leads and business that such a collaboration might deliver. In my particular case, the salesman actually ended up with MORE profit than he would have gotten on my original deal with me directly. It turns out that COC actually agreed to pay more than what I had going with the dealer so I got the car for what was below invoice and the dealer made more profit. This explains why the dealer would suggest that customers check out the service. Some might call this selfish but I call this a win/win situation for both the dealer and the customer. Its not my job to tell COC that they are paying more for the car. As pointed out earlier, they know that and will not do so forever.

6) There was an earlier thread that suggested that it isn't appropriate to use a car buying service. Whatever. If I can save money I will. I already knew what car I wanted and had no need to travel from dealer to dealer looking at colors, options, etc. If that is how you get your jollies by all means, party on. Just don't suggest that others aren't buying their car "properly."

Hope this helps,

Sean
97 1.8Tqm RIP
99.5 1.8Tqm for $300+ BELOW invoice via CarOrder.Com<ul><li><a href="http://www.seansa4page.com">Sean's A4 Page</a></li></ul>

 

I ordered my A4 1.8T QMS today. They are now dealing with 47 states, or so I was told; I'm in Washington (State, not DC, thanks very much), and they told me that this had just changed. My experience with their webiste last week vs. this week confirms that.

A4s are still going for invoice. It was tempting to say "Well, I'm getting such a good deal, why not get a 2.8?" Then I heard the voice saying "Hey, what about a S4?" Fortunately, my sanity returned, and I ordered the 1.8T. ;-)

I've done as much checking as I can to ensure that the company is legit and they seem to be. I will be dropping by their offices in Austin in the near future to do a visual recon. I'll post my findings and updates as they happen.

Interestingly, although A4s are going darn cheep right now, other cars are getting significant money over invoice. New Beetles are about $1000 over invoice. BMW 3-series are about $1500. I heard (didn't check myself) that TTs are way over *sticker*.

Final word of note: They only have pricing for 99.5 A4s on the site. The very helpful person I talked to on the phone said that they will charge me the 99.5 price, even if they have to order me a '00. Free in-dash CD player anyone?

My opinion: If these folks even charged $500 over invoice, they'd make a killing. Availability here in the PNW is very poor for everything but loaded 1.8Ts. Ordering from them took about as much time as driving to the closest dealer.

Doug
1.8T QMS Silver / Ecru On Order

(and yes, I read all the discussion about Onyx vs Ecru with Silver exterior. I chose Ecru. Nanyh!)

 

and they dleivered it via flatbed truck to my door. However, the driver they contracted out to deliver did not know how to load an A4 properly and attached two tow hooks each side underneath at what looks like some kind of stablizer beams (they're metallic - almost aluminum looking- and closest structure toward the ground). Anyway, the hooks got stuck onto them from the force of wenching the car onto the truck. The driver could not get them off, so he had to take the car to a service station to lift it and then proceeded to knock of the tow hooks using a sledgehammer. Don't think ther's any damage to affect driveability (just a few gouges in the metal) but not possitive.

COC paid the dealer 3200.00 for my car. Could not be more pleased with that. But as far as communicating when, where, how, and who type of stuff was sort of a head ache. I'd do it again for the savings and be sure to get a better towing company or driver though. Good luck. By the way - lovin my new car.

 

I've been trying to get to their site for over a week now. Each time I logon I eventually get a Cannot Find Server message. Sometimes it's right away, others it's after I've viewed a couple of screens. I surf a lot, and have never seen this before so it makes me think it's on their end. Anyone else see this?

 

Don't get me wrong. CarOrder.com sounds terrific to me. But it also sounds too good to be true. You said COC paid the dealer $2,000 more than the price you negotiated with the dealer? They'd be out of business in a week if they had to do things like that.

Companies are in business to make a profit. Any company that pays out extra (and doesn't even charge you for it!) would constantly be in the red.

I'm not saying that I don't believe you got such a good deal. In fact, I plan to buy a new A4 within the next 6 mos. to a year and I plan to use COC. But the whole thing sounds pretty incredible.

However, thanks for enlightening us all to this car broker. Let's hope they are as good as you say they are.

StevenN '96 2.8 qm Emerald Green

 

nt nt nt

 

I could be wrong but I believe CarOrder.com is a venture-backed company that is employing a strategy to get their name out to the various dealers of the world and prospective car buyers. Yes, they are...or were...losing money on EVERY deal they made. How long can they keep doing this...not much longer. This is really a publicity promotion to get their name out there in front of cars.com, carsdirect.com, and the other on-line car ordering websites. IMHO, they are succeeding.

I just checked out their website last night for my folks..they are looking to buy a Sebring Convertible (pls...no comments on that car). It looks legimately like they could get the car for invoice...yes invoice. The dealer would get the holdback, plus some addition fee from CarOrder.com

BTW, Sean is a friend of mine...and he did get the deal he mentioned. It is true...

Steve S.
97 2.8QM

 

It had java script errors last night for me.

 

Carorder.com was started by the guy who started Trilogy Development corp. He is rumored to be worth over $1B. The guy likes to start up ecommerce sites and take them public. So far, he's started Trilogy, pcOrder.com, ApplianceOrder, and CarOrder.com.

Another Austin company is carsdirect.com owned partially by Michael Dell.

But, if you figure he's willing to lose $1K per car on the first 1000 cars he sells, thats only $1M....pocket change for a net startup and well worth it to build up a dealer network. Take advantage of it now, it won't last. I'll bet they start charging a fee over invoice soon -- once they've gotten enough dealers in the loop. Still, if they can work out the issues, I think traditional dealers should be worried. The % of car sales bought through the Internet is only going to increase (and fast).

Just my $.02.....