First, the good. Prior to arriving, I emailed the sales department to confirm bitcoin, and to their credit knew all about the fact that they accept bitcoin. Had no clue what bitcoin is, how it came about or what you do with it, but knew the term and were aware.
When I arrived Saturday, the customer service experience was lacking. I went there looking for a very specific vehicle from their used section, a 2008 Patriot. Met a sales rep who said he had just heard about the bitcoin payment method but wasn't sure how it would work. We took the Jeep for a test drive, mainly because I am a full size guy and wanted to make sure it could accommodate me. BTW, not a bad ride, never been in a Jeep before.
After hemming and hawing around, I decided to go ahead and bite the bullet and see what about getting it. We walk in and he gets a finance guy and we start talking. The car was $9995 on the lot, but I got it down to $9400, $10,515 after tags, taxes and other misc fees. Here is where the rubber hits the road...
Finance guy knew about bitcoin piece, but had no clue about the exchange rate, wallet address, etc. He disappears for probably a good 20 minutes and returns a quotes me a price of 112BTC. I knew when I left to go look at the car, it was around $130/BTC so quick math says they are asking for a little over 14K. I did double check the price, and it had gone down to 126.
There wasnt really any negotiation, and Ill admit I was on the fence, I didn't want to be buying a 10K vehicle and in a couple weeks see the same 112BTC be worth 22K (200/ea).
I bailed out... But, its nice to know, I could have. I will say, this to me is the seminal hurdle with BTC. If you believe in BTC, how could you part with them so cheaply (relatively)?
The only way to use bitcoins is if you make your living earning bitcoins.
Either by doing a bitcoin-based businesses, by mining, and/or by investments in bitcoin.
If your way of getting bitcoins is by exchanging fiat, it will NEVER be convenient to be spending bitcoins EVER.