Buying used cars thru Edmunds (luxury, vehicle, best, price)

[azriverfan.]

Has anyone done the Edmunds used car search and then bought through that dealership? Some of those deals seem too good to be true and am wondering if they post those to lure buyers only to tell them "Sorry that vehicle is no longer available but I do have these" aka bait and switch.

Also, what is the protocol when buying used cars? Do you ask for 10% off of what is listed? I'm looking at some 2008 E-Class Mercedes that seem to be priced fairly high at the price they are asking but wouldn't be bad if they were 3K to 5K less. I'm only looking at the certified pre-owned and dealership only (as opposed to private dealers)

[smokingGun]

i've only used Edmunds for dealer quotes on new cars but I've found that it was quicker to just directly contact the internet sales manager of particular dealerships, rather than waiting for an email reply. A couple dealerships never responded & another msged me 2 weeks later! I'm not sure how it works with CPO's though.

The best deals I've found with luxury brands are the "corporate" cars that are the previous years models used for publicity & marketing events and have 2~5k miles on them but are legally considered "new" cars, so they can actually be leased at a 1yr used car price. The only drawback is that these corporate demos often are fully loaded with premium packages so a heavy discount may still be more than what you intend to spend if you weren't going to get navi, winter package, sports suspension, 19" rims.

Go to several sites like cars.com, carsdirect, kbb and average the estimated values up & deduct a thousand to get a basic starting point for negotiation. Unfortunately with CPO's it's been my experience that you only get the best price if you stop on in & play the whole game of haggle, him, haw & walkout, callback etc. It's a huge waste of time but you can save $2 to $4k if you're persistent & you've got other dealers in the area applying competitive pressure. Good luck!