STX--new car dealer/salesperson recommend?

ok, i had to look it up. i hope we get it on St. Croix! I wonder if there's any way to tell.

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/06/09/house-passes-cash-for-clunkers-legislation/

Caribbean Auto Mart may be your best bet. I have heard a lot of problems with Auto World.

Carib Auto Mart said they would be participating...I think most dealers will, if they sell a decent mileage vehicle.

great info! thanks!

With typical discounting I've seen on the island I'd highly recommend you pick your vehicle of choice and shop aggressively in the U.S. before you come here. It will cost you the better part of $1k to ship your vehicle out of Florida to hear but with rare exception you're going to find the discounts in the mainland more than makeup for it. By the time they add 'DOMA' and other items to stickers here you're doing good if you can get a price just $1k - $2k above MSRP.

We bought a used vehicle from Hendricks and had a very good experience. We dealt with Linda Hendricks, one of the owners.

We're going to look both ways, but the 4500 that the gov't will be giving us for an old truck that we could never sell (even in stx) for close to that amount could make the difference...If the car on stx is the right price, it will make sense...and the road tax etc is the same no matter what...I'll just be looking for a small but not tiny car, with a decent trunk, at a decent price...depending on the rebates etc from the mfg as well, it might work....but I want to know who to stay away from on stx to begin with...almost all of our neighbors used to only buy new from Nissan, but that is no longer applicable.

Would you be able to receive other discounts with this rebate? that would be great too.

yes. Rules etc are at www.cars.gov

closer to $2k to ship a vehicle, then $500 road tax.

I need to find the information I wrote down a couple of months ago but I believe the price I got from Managed Freight was closer to $1,200. Also don't you pay road tax whether you buy here or bring something into the territory?

We like Larry (Horace) can't think of his last name, at Caribbean auto mart. Nice guy.

Well, we looked and spoke to some new car dealers on stx, and decided pretty fast that we will never buy a new car on island. The prices were crazy. We ran into some of what you see sometimes in the states, with additional "fees" added on, but alot higher than we've ever seen and this was over and above an undiscounted sticker price on the car, and basically no dealer rebates...plus you pick up the ocean transportation, road tax, and customs etc as well....My husband looked at one new US-made car and the price that they wanted was 10,000 over the sticker....on a sticker price that was less than $20,000, so even if they were to discount from that, it would still be crazy. Another dealer was 5000 or so over sticker, and so it went.
Unfortunately the foks that have to deal with this are the ones who have to finance...and who can likely least afford the additional costs in the first place. And i know at least one of these dealer chains is an EDC company, a program I'm usually in favor of...

We have shipped 3 vehicles and used O'Neale's (Crowley) to ship and clear for us. Unless you have to finance, I think buying a new car here is throwing away lots of extra money.

I never will understand why they add $10,000 (at least) to the cost of a new car here when you can ship one for under $2,000. I guess enough people buy them.

That extra $10k or DOMA as they call it is one of those negotiable things. What was hinted to me its for people with bad or not credit and various other reasons. We bought our hybrid here because it was about 3k cheaper. We check price with FL dealerships and talked to dealers and the price here was better especially after all the shipping costs. They say the hybrids don't sell as well here so that's probably the reason for the better bargain.

Remember never tell them you have a trade in until AFTER you negotiate the price. If you let them know before they are always going to make that part of the price. We've always had better luck selling them ourselves and just negotiating the price down.

yes, when my DIL wanted a Prius they had to call all over NY, found just one at the time..a year ago...and it was sticker price. I would think at some point the new cars on stx have got to go on 'sale'...though they do seem to still have some new 2008's in stock!

I think most people who buy expensive cars are concerned only about the monthly payment, not the sticker price of the car. They finance for up to 72 months and never really pay the car off, just keep trading in and making the monthly payment---forever.