Walser Toyota

I recently leased 2 new cars on 10/31/08, a Nissan Altima and a Toyota Matrix -both from Walser dealers here in the Minneapolis south metro. FYI-There are a LOT of Walser dealers of almost any car brand in this area. About me: I am an internet savvy, leasing-savvy, smart shopper. I have done many leases in the past-some good, some fair, but at this point I know exactly what I want and know what cars are 'leasing good' and pretty much the exact feature set I want, and it's invoice price, before I ever set foot in a dealership. At that stage, it's just about driving the vehicles to sort out what I like, and about finding a good salesperson/sales team to work with. Numbers. It really is a numbers game and everything comes down to price. Actually, that's the most important thing. I'm not trying to deny anyone a fair profit, just a big or un-earned one, but I can proudly say haven't bought or leased any car above invoice in at least 6 or 7 years. This was my first experience with the Walser no-negotiation way of doing business, and at first I figured it was just a marketing gimmick, and that their initial asking price would certainly have room to go lower. "I know I will get them down", I muttered to myself. Well, that was, until I took their quotes back home, realized their 'one price' was actually a few bucks under invoice. I then researched to see if there was any additional incentive cash in play and-for a lease-there was none. Then of course I investigated the money factors and residuals and found them very good and exactly at the rates of the national programs in play for October 08. Again, I found that the dealer had been entirely transparent right away. Also, they claim the salesmen do not work on commission. I believe that to be true, but I think they still are compensated based on performance (units sold) and also on their customer survey rating. So, it's not about the profit in a given deal, it's about moving 'units' and customer satisfaction. This really changes the tone of the salesman/customer relationship. I had found a salesman, Martin Schuman, that I liked working with quite a bit, and even asked if he could accompany me over to the Walser Toyota dealer to complete that deal. (I realized my request was a bit unorthodox but since it was all in the (Walser) family, I'd ask. I think he split that 'sale/unit/credit' with the nice gal, Bridget Quinn-Engstrom who helped us at the Walser Toyota location). So far, I kind of liked this way of doing business. Nevertheless, old car-buying habits die hard and I decided I still had one more angle to attempt negotiation. That was the fact that I was getting TWO cars, not one. Sure, they were from different dealerships, but all owned by the Walser Group. I figured I should get a concession for that. But when I got the quote on the Toyota Matrix, that turned out to be about $150 under invoice. That wasn't a special quote for me, that was the price on the windshield. With my research I know their holdback is 2% for both Nissan and Toyota. At 2% holdback these guys already had a super-skinny deal going on both of these cars. But I tried negotiation, and they politely declined, citing company policy first and their already low pricing. Here's the thing: I did my homework, and I believe them. They were at the bottom. The only way that car is going to get cheaper is through a factory incentive/subsidy program that currently does not exist. (The Toyota lease had a ridiculously low money factor (.00037)-so that's already subsidized in a way, and the Nissan one was competitive (.00191) as well). The details of these deals are posted in the respective Altima and Matrix lease questions forums. I took delivery of the Altima 2.5SL (Black with tan leather) on Friday morning 10/31/08 and then took delivery on the Toyota Matrix (Black with black cloth) in the afternoon. Then headed home-had to work the whole weekend. Sunday came, and while working and thinking