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DEAL MAKER FOR HIRE (from the Portland Press Herald)
By Edward D. Murphy,
Staff Writer for the Portland Press herald
Alan L. Ramsdell approaches buying a car with a slightly different mind set than most people.
"I try to make it fun. As long as we're going down the right road, we can make it pleasant," he said.
In his case, Ramsdell can mix his business with that "pleasure": He runs Auto Buying Consultants of 
Alan
Ramsdell, left, talks with Kathy and Terry Garnsey as they try to
decide between two cars at Quirk Chevrolet in Portland. Ramsdell owns
Auto Buying Consultants of Maine, a business that helps car buyers
research cars and negotiate prices with dealers.Maine, a car-buying service for consumers.
Ramsdell
charges $99 to help consumers find and seal the deal on a new or used
car, assuming the prospective buyers have a rough idea of what they
want to be driving. If the buyer is unsure of what's the best fit,
Ramsdell charges $199 to help find the right models to focus on, with
additional research on safety, reliability and other factors.
Ramsdell
has no illusions about what's involved in buying, or selling, a car.
He's owned two dealerships, managed another and was a consultant for
dealerships before starting his service.
"I know the quirks very well," he said. "I've seen both sides of the fence."
Ramsdell said demand for his service is growing, and he has partnered with six credit unions that recommend him to members.
There's
nothing magical about his approach, Ramsdell said, but it helps to know
how the business runs in order to determine whether a price is fair.
Ramsdell, second from right, looks over figures with the Garnseys and salesman Dave Miles at Quirk Chevrolet.
He
said he starts by talking about the kind of car a consumer wants. For
those who need the most help, he asks how the car will generally be
used or how many people will typically ride in the vehicle to determine
what type is best, then does the additional research to narrow down the
options to a few models.
Most
people, he said, will come in with a sense of the type of car they want
and often the specific makes and models they're interested in. From
there, Ramsdell calls around and gets dealers to provide him their best
price. Knowing that he will be shopping around encourages the dealers
to come up with a fair price, Ramsdell said. He usually negotiates a
trade-in separately so dealers don't offer a rock-bottom price on the
new car and make up for it on the trade.
Then
he and the customer will do test drives at the dealers with the best
offers, Ramsdell said, and he'll nail down the final price, oversee the
paperwork and help check out the car when it's picked up by the
customer.
"Most people like that I'm there from beginning to end," he said.
Ramsdell
said there are a few people who would rather negotiate their own deals,
but he said he almost always saves his clients more than the fee --
usually at least a few hundred and sometimes thousands of dollars.
For
many of the credit union customers, it's a no-risk deal. For instance,
at Port Credit Union, members who finance their new vehicles through
the credit union are reimbursed the $99 fee if they hire Ramsdell.
Gene Ardito, president of the credit union, said he went with his
sister to look at cars when she hired Ramsdell, so he knows firsthand
what Ramsdell does.
"She,
I'm sure, would go into a dealership and not get a good deal," Ardito
said of his sister. With Ramsdell, "she didn't have to deal with
anybody (at the dealerships), and we think she got a heck of a lot more
on a trade than she would have gotten."
Ardito
said his family was so convinced of the value that a cousin came up
from Rhode Island and bought a car in Maine with Ramsdell's help.
There
are a lot more resources available to car buyers than there were 10 or
20 years ago, including Web sites devoted to helping a buyer develop a
reasonable idea of what they should offer for a car, but Ardito said
his credit union reimburses the fee because a lot of that strategy can
go out the window when a customer is dealing with a savvy salesperson.
Besides,
people often don't have the time to spend hours doing research and
gathering offers, and few have experience in buying hundreds of cars.
"If
you have the time to do the research and go to different dealers and
have those meetings and you're comfortable with that, you can do this
yourself," Ardito said. "Most people today don't have the time and the
energy to go through that process."
There
are other options, however. For instance, AAA of Northern New England
provides its members a negotiated price with several dealers in the
region, free.
Andy
Jensen, the nonprofit's auto buying specialist, said AAA has prices
negotiated with dealers that meet its standards. Members can enter a
make and model at the AAA Web site and get a list of contacts at the
dealerships. Once they settle on a specific car, the dealership charges
its pre-arranged price related to the invoice -- perhaps $100 more or
less than the invoice price.
Jensen said the dealers agree to allow AAA to mediate if there's any problem, but the association has never had to do that.
Wally Camp, owner of Rowe dealerships, said he has no problem dealing with a customer's buying representative.
"It will probably educate the customer so they're realistic, and I think that's a positive," he said.
"You
can go on the Internet and get a tremendous amount of information about
what cars cost and what a trade-in might be worth," he said. "Is there
a need for a buying service? Some people seem more comfortable that
way."
Ramsdell said he's had few problems with dealers.
"Some
of the people used to work for me in the dealerships (he owned Mercedes
and Subaru dealerships in Falmouth), and they know that I'm there to
save my clients money," he said.
"I
don't have anything bad to say about them (the dealerships) -- I was
one of them," Ramsdell said, adding with a laugh, "No dealership is
going to leave me (anything) in their will."
Staff Writer Edward D. Murphy can be contacted at 791-6465 or at emurphy@pressherald.com
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