Just picked up my 2005 SE in majestic blue & black leather with navigation package on Saturday. Had a good dealer experience in Butler, NJ although I had to drive 60 miles to find something I wanted. So far no problems but only have a few hundred miles on it. Drives like a dream! No mods expected for a while . These are excellent forums.

blaster454 (Larry)

 

auto or 6spd?

 

Welcome! sounds great, I know you love her! Make sure to post some pics.


(If all went well, make sure you rate the dealer all EXCELLENTS with a nice written response. They do read them and fail with any lower scores. Hopefully it will warant you excellent service down the road.)

 

Nice color choice, and great job on getting the Navigation package. How much did you pay? I ordered the same setup, everything loaded except the Elite package for invoice. Also, what dealer did you go to in NJ?

 

A few hundred miles and no mods??? What the hell?? At least get a new grill. All the cool kids are doing it.

Congrats on the new car. I'm sure you'll love it.

CM

 

Welcome Blaster454...............I'm new here too. I almost bought the Majestic Blue.
But went with the Red Opulence. Did you get the satellite radio? I'd have gotten it factory installed had I know the problem I would have getting a receiver to work with the head unit. For those who followed that thread grubbsperformance.com seems to be the only place to get the oem receiver. I e-mailed them Saturday figuring it would be read early am today. When I didn't get a response I called. Got a answering machine. I left a message but never got a call. Disappointing. Maybe the dealer in Florida will have one. 2 dealers here on LI didn't have them in stock. I'll be pulling out at 2am Wed. morning for Fla. Sunshine here I come!

 

can you guys tell me how much you guys bought your max's for? I wanna know how much to offer the dealer for a base 05 maxima.

 

Well best of luck but I realistically wouldn't expect to get much of a deal on an '05, mostly because the dealer isn't really pressed to get rid of them like they were with the '04s. This is why a ton of people got the '04s later on, because if the dealer is packed with them, then he has to give you a deal or be "stuck" with the car.

The downside of course being that you can't have a car built if you wait until late, so you're stuck with whatever color/equipment the dealers have in stock.

A base SE is around $27,700 MSRP, and the SL is $29,900 -- including destination. Invoice is around $3k less, and some dealers have a cushion that they can work with, so it all depends on your negotiating skills and how much the dealer wants your business. Your best bet if you don't want to get the shaft might be to put your cash in a jar and wait a few months -- if you can. Go back to the dealership in April/May and see if they play ball. If you head out there now then they really have no incentive to get you in the car... they figure if you don't jump in, somebody else will.

But it's a free country... and you might get lucky anyway.

 

Thanks for the welcome!

It's an auto...I'm getting too old to do the shifting through the stop & go crap on our "freeways" in NJ

The dealer was in Butler, NJ (Rt 23 Automall Ford/Nissan)...about 60 miles NW of where I live & about 20 miles N of where I work.

I didn't get much of a deal...I paid $32.5 (no elite or VDC but have DPP, Bose, leather, sensor pkg, mats, splach guards, sun roof, navi). This was the only 2005 I found within 100 miles of me with both navi & TC...regardless of color. And when I got there there was already someone looking at it but I was faster. I could have done better ordering (I was quoted "after New Year's Day") or continuing to search but, hey...I was driving a '97 minivan with 150K on it. I needed my SE ...besides, the 2% financing was a good deal.

There are still plenty of '04 Maximas here in NJ & eastern PA and the 2005 models are apparently selling pretty well but I'm sure you can still get some dealer negotiation going...especially if you put some dealer accessories in the deal...they have more markup to play with there.

Next step is to put Sirius sat in (I have the add-on from my old car but now want (need?) the built-in package) -- guess that'll count for a mod

Regards,
Blaster454 (aka Larry)

 

Here's what I did:

I went to the Nissan Website, nissanusa.com. You can find every dealer within a specified radius. I wrote up an email identifying exactly what I was looking for ie: color exterior/interior in order of preference, features, brand new, trans type, etc. With a good pitch, I left the work up to the dealers basically saying this is what I'm looking for, this is when I plan on buying the car and that I'm working with every Nissan dealer within a 200 mile radius so give me your best offer. I gave an email and fax # to reply to and within minutes I got replies (ironically the first was the best offer!)

As suggested the MSRP was about 29.9 and I got dealers down to about 25. I used my first offer (which I didn't end up going with) as leverage with every other dealer I visited. This also makes shopping for a car convenient because Nissan dealerships will assign a rep to your request and have you in their system by the time you arrive saving you a lot of time if you plan to visit several dealers in the same day. They have their offer ready and you can cut straight to the negotiations. I went with the 2% apr and got my 04 for 26 which was still 1000 below invoice. I wanted to hold out for the 05 but liked the financing terms.

 

wanna trade?

 

Welcome to the group.. post some pics.. sound like its a good looking color combo ....

 

Great idea, that is what I am going to do. I just hope the offers they make over the emails and phones is indeed authentic because they might just want to lure you into driving to their dealer and dont live up to it. If I can find an 04/05 base maxima with maybe a sunroof for 24 to 25 grand (without tax, title etc) then I will jump on it. I know with options it will go out of my budget . Thanks for the help guys.

 

So what's changed from the 04 to an 05?? cosmetics?