They will always come down. They just won't say that on the phone or through email. The goal of any phone or email contact is to bring you into the dealership. The problem is the salesman has to balance the competing ideas of not giving up any profit he could potentially have gotten out of the customer while at the same time enticing them into coming into the dealership. Depending on the car you're looking at (i.e. how likely the car is to sell at a high margin) they will do more of one or the other.

Rather than trying to gauge whether or not a particular salesman at a particular dealer will come down for you and then make the trip based on that, go to a dealer and work the deal. It may not be pretty, it may not be smooth, but that's car buying. In the last few years new car dealerships have started to provide easier options on buying new cars, but you're not looking at new cars. With used cars it's still the old fashioned way.