Why you probably shouldn't buy a car with Costco

Submitted by Quizmaster on January 26, 2025
I just went through the hassle of buying a car. It was painful.

I was hoping that Costco would make the process easy since they have a "pre-negotiated" price. That turns out to not be exactly true.

1) They won't tell you what the price is until you go to the dealer

2) The "pre-negotiated" price isn't great. We got a lower price elsewhere.

3) The dealer tries to stuff a million other things into the bill. So you have to negotiate to remove or reduce those things.

4) You also have to negotiate the trade in. They will LOW BALLyou, probably since they think you are a low-information buyer.

In the end, we took our trade-in to Carvana which gave us a good price and it was very easy. Then we shopped around at different dealerships for the new vehicle.

In the end we saved about $6,000 from what we would have paid had we just accepted the offer from the Costco dealer. What a ripoff!

3 Comments
+1
Level 68
Jan 26, 2025
I didn't know Costco sold cars! Although it doesn't surprise me.

Are the Costcos over there also hopelessly disorganized? The one I went to was sort of roughly spilt into food court, fresh produce, bakery, meats, electronics, garden, and other stuff.

But the other stuff part was crazy. I have picture of a motorcycle sitting beside a pallet of Barbie dolls, a bin of socks, some toilet bowls, and boxes of Coca-Cola

+3
Level ∞
Jan 26, 2025
They kinda want you to walk through the whole store grabbing impulse items.
+1
Level 78
Jan 26, 2025
Just like others said, I had no idea Costco sold cars. I’m quite surprised.

I finally went to one for the first time 3 days ago and it felt exactly the same as Sam’s club. I give it only one boom