USAA Car Buying Service
 

I've used this service on the last two cars that I've bought or leased, and in both cases, I saved a ton of money, over the invoice price of each vehicle. However, I might be in the market again, and as usual, logged on to the USAA site and navigated to the car buying service. After configuring the car I was interested in, at the end of the process, the program shows you how much you will potentially save. Here's where the surprise was. My last car retailed for just over $80K, but with the USAA discount, I paid $72K. However, with the new car I configured yesterday, I would only save $500. I ran the program twice and came up with the same answer each time. Has anyone else noticed this issue?

What kind of car are you trying to get? It seems that certain makes/models they can't get good deals on and some they can.

Depends on the model. You don't get as good of deals with some as you do with others. BMW seems to be one of the better ones, but then again, they also have a military sales program.

I didn't know you could lease cars using their service. I had always thought you had to use their financing to get those prices honored.

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The euro-delivery on my bimmer was better that USAA's.

The car I'm looking at is the Mercedes SL450. Cost just a little over $100K. They're only giving a $500 discount. On my Mercedes E550 Cabriolet, they gave me just about $8K in discount. What's going on?

USAA car buying service is worthless. If you're half way decent at Internet research and negotiating you can do better. Otherwise try true car.

I'll look into those services. Thanks. But in the past, I've gotten very good deals with the USAA service.

It used to be an awesome program years ago. When I bought my Mercedes E350, MSRP on it was just over $58K. I paid right at $39K without trade. I had to search different zip codes to get that discount and traveled about 3 hours to pick it up.
Change the zip where you'd like to search, it makes a difference.

Good Luck!

Blackhawk,

Thanks! I'll certainly try that. It just doesn't make sense that they would change the program so drastically.

USAA is a very good savings and loan credit union and automobile insurance company. Everything else, they're average or well below average.

You will get much better deals outside of USAA on vehicles. I tired using the car buying service once and I laughed at the lady on the phone when she quoted the price and politely told her "good day" and hung up the phone.

My anecdotal situation and opinion, your situation might vary.

I talked with the folks at USAA today, specifically about their car buying service. USAA negotiates with each individual manufacturer, the selling price of each model. As well, the price of each option offered by the manufacturer is also negotiated. Then there is a manufacturers discount, which may or may not be in effect at the time you're looking to buy.

What I didn't see on the "build sheet" I created on the USAA web site was the negotiated price of the vehicle I was interested in. It was there in the past, but not this time, or at least, not on the vehicle I had built. So, what I need to do is take my build sheet down to the dealer and present it to them and see what they come back with. I've always been pleased with the car buying service, and I'm hoping for a similar outcome. I'll report back.

JJ

USAA periodically has special deals with certain car manufacturers... Keep looking. I use it for every car purchase... Now they use True Car pricing with USAA incentives on top... But like he said might need to travel a bit for best deals.

I just bought a Jeep Renegade for the wife using the USAA service and paid about 3k less than I could negotiate on my own. (On a 30k car). I tried Navy Fed as well and they didn't come close.

I used USAA and got the phone call from the dealership. I mentioned about the USAA pricing and they told me that I was getting a great deal from them. I looked at the same vehicle on their website and it was the exact same price as what I had gotten from USAA. Just make sure you are doing your due diligence prior to accepting that USAA has the best deal on that vehicle.

If you can, look at car buying services through COSTCO or Sam's. I used COSTCO when I bought a car in 2001 (last time I bought a car for my use!). I saved about $3,000. I'll be in the market for a replacement for this car next spring but looking now.

Pentagon Federal CU advertises a car-buying service. It doesn't look real useful.