UPDATE: A few weeks after posting this I changed my mind and made a deal at a different (closer to home) dealer with a cleaner car, better attitude and (much!) lower price.
Friday, June 08, 2007
Monday, June 04, 2007
I test drove one of these today.
Care to guess in the comments what kind of car it is?
UPDATE: The first comment is correct. To be exact, the pictured detail is of a 2005 Chrysler Crossfire SRT-6 in Aero Blue. There's a great picture of one, not taken by me, here.
I lost count of how many times I stopped at my local Chrysler dealer after hours to check out one of these cars over the past couple of years. It looks like rolling automotive art. The price tag, however, was not just way more that I wanted to spend, it was so high that the convertible of this car was the most expensive car Chrysler ever tried to sell.
And it couldn't. Sell them, that is.
At one point a year ago there was an over 300 day supply of these cars available, and Chrysler had to pay the German assembler a contract charge to lower production below planned levels.
So the cars sat on dealer lots, and they sat on Chrysler owned lots as well.
In November 2006 Chrysler tried an innovative marketing tactic out by trying sell the cars using an incentive certificates offered on Overstock.com. I don't think they sold too many using that tactic.
Then, a few months back, Chrysler started selling 2005 leftover Crossfires to dealers in closed Five Star auctions, typically reserved for program cars and lease returns, reporting them sold already as new cars, and putting them in service to start the warranty clock running so they can close out the books on the warranty accruals.
Dealers then certified the cars as "pre-owned", and are selling these never-titled cars as used cars, despite the super-low mileage and the fact that they've never had a retail owner.
On the SRT-6 I drove this works out to a possibility for me to pick up a car with under 100 miles for almost $20,000 off of the original $49,000+ sticker price. The bumper to bumper warranty will have started anywhere from February to April of 2007, but most cars seem to be set up to sell with the Chrysler Certified Pre-Owned 8/80 power train warranty in place.
I'm mulling it over, sleeping on it for a few more days.
Sadly, the dealer closest to me has no leftover Crossfires and didn't buy any at auction. There is a dealer who has a few, but he seems to want several thousand over the going ebay rate for these cars.
Still, the chance to buy an AMG powered Mercedes Benz based car from new, with a long warranty in effect, is very tempting.
(Of course, my '03 VW GTI Tiptronic is still running very well, but this is such a deal I may sell the GTI before its time to make room for the Crossfire deal. Makes me think it would be easier to do the deal on a new Crossfire if I hadn't taken such good care of the GTI.)
Care to guess in the comments what kind of car it is?
UPDATE: The first comment is correct. To be exact, the pictured detail is of a 2005 Chrysler Crossfire SRT-6 in Aero Blue. There's a great picture of one, not taken by me, here.
I lost count of how many times I stopped at my local Chrysler dealer after hours to check out one of these cars over the past couple of years. It looks like rolling automotive art. The price tag, however, was not just way more that I wanted to spend, it was so high that the convertible of this car was the most expensive car Chrysler ever tried to sell.
And it couldn't. Sell them, that is.
At one point a year ago there was an over 300 day supply of these cars available, and Chrysler had to pay the German assembler a contract charge to lower production below planned levels.
So the cars sat on dealer lots, and they sat on Chrysler owned lots as well.
In November 2006 Chrysler tried an innovative marketing tactic out by trying sell the cars using an incentive certificates offered on Overstock.com. I don't think they sold too many using that tactic.
Then, a few months back, Chrysler started selling 2005 leftover Crossfires to dealers in closed Five Star auctions, typically reserved for program cars and lease returns, reporting them sold already as new cars, and putting them in service to start the warranty clock running so they can close out the books on the warranty accruals.
Dealers then certified the cars as "pre-owned", and are selling these never-titled cars as used cars, despite the super-low mileage and the fact that they've never had a retail owner.
On the SRT-6 I drove this works out to a possibility for me to pick up a car with under 100 miles for almost $20,000 off of the original $49,000+ sticker price. The bumper to bumper warranty will have started anywhere from February to April of 2007, but most cars seem to be set up to sell with the Chrysler Certified Pre-Owned 8/80 power train warranty in place.
I'm mulling it over, sleeping on it for a few more days.
Sadly, the dealer closest to me has no leftover Crossfires and didn't buy any at auction. There is a dealer who has a few, but he seems to want several thousand over the going ebay rate for these cars.
Still, the chance to buy an AMG powered Mercedes Benz based car from new, with a long warranty in effect, is very tempting.
(Of course, my '03 VW GTI Tiptronic is still running very well, but this is such a deal I may sell the GTI before its time to make room for the Crossfire deal. Makes me think it would be easier to do the deal on a new Crossfire if I hadn't taken such good care of the GTI.)
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