Well, it looks like I'm cancelling my order. Less than 6 weeks after deciding to buy a Telluride, I picked one up today.
About the same time I located the Black Copper SXP in the Tampa area, I saw a second one to be delivered to Airport Kia in Naples (2-04-2020). I gave them a call, but the Internet person was a bit clueless. She said she had to look it up. She got back on the phone 5 minutes later to inform me that the vehicle had been sold and could she interest me in anything else? I hung up and marked them off my list, Heck they're 300 miles away, so I was not excited about them anyway. However, 10 days later, Saturday, I get a call back from APK, asking me if I'm still interested. Of course, I say yes, so a sales manager gets on the line and tells me that my order price is too low and just a gimmick to get me in the store. When I told him that the offer was in writing he changed his tune a little but insisted that he couldn't match the price. So, I told him to give me his absolute lowest price, and I would take it if I could. He called back 10 minutes later with a price that was about $800 below my order price. I told him I'd put down a deposit and would be there on Monday. He then asks me if I wanted the black copper with dune brown or Ebony with dune brown--they had two SXP in the package that I wanted! I told him I definitely wanted the black copper. It turns out that the black copper--perhaps, the ebony as well--were orders that got cancelled at the last minute.
So, I drove the 300 miles to Naples on Sunday. I stopped in Tampa to have dinner with my BIL, and my wife and I spent the night in Fort Myers before completing the purchase this morning.
Good folks at Airport Kia. Clearly one of my best car buying experiences, and perhaps the best. Did I pay over MSRP? Certainly, but not much over, and I don't have to wait until April, May, or longer to replace my boring Impala. I love the interior, and the adaptive cruise control is bringing joy back to highway driving. The exterior color, however, is super subtle. It really looks black except in really bright sunshine. I don't care, though. I am so happy to finally get away from an all-white car, and now I'm done with car shopping. Yay!!
Clearly having the
TellyStats data was critical. The fact that I expressed interest in the particular vehicle on their lot put me at the top of the queue for the vehicle. The sales manager told me that they sold the ebony SXP the very next day (Sunday) and someone tried to offer them $2k above our agreed price on the Black Copper SXP even though there was a "sold" sign in the car window. I'm extremely happy that Airport Kia had the integrity to stick to our agreement despite the temptation to make a quick extra buck.