I went to Hoffman and negotiated with Brian. In a nutshell this is how it went: I offered $1000 over invoice. He countered with the fact that he had a stack of orders for MSRP. I said I knew someone who got $1200 over (Mark P). He said he'd go talk with his manager. He came back and said that the best they could do was $2000 over. I countered with $1500. He said $2000. I said I needed to take a walk to talk it over with my fiance. We decided that if he wasn't going to budge on that price, we'd go somewhere else. We went back in and as I was telling him that I couldn't do that price he told me to sit down and asked what he could do. He then offered to take off the $225 dealer conveyance fee. I thought about it and decided to take it.
Basically, they are selling very few avants this year because they didn't sell that well last year, so I couldn't get as good a price on an avant as I could on a sedan. It ended up being $1775 over invoice, which works out to 6.65%. I feel that under the circumstances (my wanting a 2000 avant with specific options) I got the best deal I could have.
Now I have to find a good car loan! I have looked a little bit and it seems that the best rate out there is about 7.4%. Anyone have any ideas? Of course, I have a couple of months to shop around before my car arrives.
I''m just excited that my car is actually on the books and in sight!
Thanks for everyone's help!
-Anne

Also, if you have a credit union at your work you will typically find that they will have the best loan rates as well as they are the easiest to deal with. Mine has 6.9% regardless of length of loan, for 1-7 years.

Mark P

There's always someone who paid less, but the difference is a small fraction of the overall deal.
Avants do seem uncommon in the Boston area. I see a handful of A4 sedans every day, and an occasional A6 Avant, but I've seen exactly two A4 Avants on the road in the six months that I've been paying attention...

.

I'm using Seattle Telco, and here's their membership criteria:

To become a member of Seattle Telco

You must work for any one of our 600 employer groups. To see if your company qualifies, click the first letter of your company name.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M
N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Or you must be related to a member of Seattle Telco by blood, marriage, or adoption.

Or you must live, work or worship in one of these neighborhoods:

Bellevue Mercer Island Issaquah
Redmond Downtown Seattle


Pretty broad group of people who qualify, huh? Check around your area and see if you don't have one that will let you join...

- Phil

Anne, Like prices with dealers, interest rates are usually not set in stone. I received a rate of 6.25% in July from my local credit union when their advertised rate was actually higher. They let on that I was just alittle to late for the 6.25 and that it was actually for another part of the country only. I told them to please check and that I would only be interested in that rate. I had other options but funny how they were able to come to terms with alittle less interest.

Sounds like you got a good deal- I just took delivery on a 99.5 that I had to have the dealer trade a 00 allocation for. Sport package, convenience package, 5 spd., silver w/ black int. Only thing that I could not get was the sport seats, which would have been nice. Got it for $1600 over inv., which may be a bit high or maybe right on. Only 3 cars including mine that fit the bill in a 1500 mi. radius, so I felt that I got a good deal. Getting my car chipped, coil-overs, 17s, exhaust and corner balanced. Tint went on yesterday and it looks great.

TM

A 2nd mortgage is tax deductable so a 7.5% rate is about 5% effective if you are in 28% bracket.

Arch57 99.5 2.8QMS from Hoffman

Would you be interested in selling the sport springs, shocks, and wheels/tires?