Car Buying Advice?

[flyer85]

Do your research. Edmunds.com is not a bad place to start. Get prices from multiple dealers. Most dealerships have an internet sales department and you can get quotes via e-mail. If you want to avoid the haggling over price game you can negotiate a deal entirely electronically. If you belong to a club like Sams or Costco they often will have prearranged pricing with dealers in your area.

Then go to lot, test drive some cars and find what you want.

[Yachtzee]

One interesting tactic I was able to put to good use...

The Pontiac website lets you locate vehicles at local dealers. It will actually let you view what each dealer has on hand, including VINs for each car, and will let you generate a sticker for that car. You can then open up a tab or another browser window to edmunds.com or kbb.com and use that to find invoice for each car. So if the dealer tells you they'll offer you invoice on any car, without telling you what invoice is, you will already what it is when you step on the lot.

I also liked how edmunds.com will show you the average price being paid by others for a particular car in your area. That is a nice feature.

[macro]

Yachtzee, be sure to read this site before you go shopping!

http://www.carbuyingtips.com/

[gonelong]

I can get a FORD discount through my Father in Law (X Plan) ... does anyone know if you can generally do much better than that if you haggle, or if you can work down the price from there?

Thanks,

GL

[Heath]

I'm very very very fortunate to live in a smaller town where a local car repair guy sells low mileage, clean, late model used cars. I literally once went in and he had what I was looking for...at about 40-60% less than our local dealer for the same car. (brand, model, paint color, interior, same radio, A/C, etc)

I never buy new I guess. That's always my motto. Why spend for new when 10 minutes after I drive it, it drops 30% or more?

[westofyou]

I'm holding out

[smith288]

Pre finance. You hold all the cards when they dont have a clue what you can afford.

I did so and after getting in my car when the dealer didnt want to deal... The dealer chased my car down and said "he talked it over with his boss and ok'd it". I got me a nice 2002 Explorer for cheap. They just arent used to a person not feeling obliged to their whims rather than you being the one who they should be bending over backwards for.

Also, know that when you buy used, they dont make the money off the profit of the car. That isnt their primary goal (it is a goal however). They get bonuses from their parent (ford, gm) if they sell a certain number of used models per month. Tell them they need that car off the lot alot more than you need it in your driveway. When they hear that, they know you aren't a fool and know how they play their game. THey usually alter their stance in terms of prices and stuff.

I like to say "I have no problems leaving here with the car I brought and finding another dealership who will work for me and not the other way around."

[Yachtzee]

One thing I've noticed. In this day of internet buying, car dealers are offering all kinds of perks to get you to come down and try out their car. I found a car online that had the options my wife wanted and I called the dealer. Not only did they offer a nice deal, comparable to what the others are offering, but since my wife can't come down to take a test drive today, they let me come down and pick it up to use overnight, just to try it out, no pressure to buy.

[GAC]

I listened to an ex-car salesman on WLW about 10 years ago who had a tape series out on the "tricks of the trade" of buying a car, and how to do it right.

It upset alot of his fellow car salesmen.

Know the make and model you're interested in and shop and compare the sticker price (knowing the blue book value first). That tells you what you have to work with.

Knowing when their sales quarter ends, and going in on the last day or so, can also help you out.

Right now, and due to their dire financial situation, the Big 3 are practically giving them away. Which is good for the consumer right now.

We're going out this summer and get us a new vehicle.... but I work at Honda, so we already know what we're looking at - the Honda Pilot.

[jmcclain19]

4) Get your financing somewhere other than the dealership.

Can't emphasize this point enough.

I did mine online, I had a few offers I mulled over from eloan.com and capitalone.com that I solicited online, took the best offer and went shopping. You have no obligation to tell them how much you can afford. Don't do it. If you tell them "I am pre-approved for $25k" you can bet your tail they will do everything in their power to run you up to $24,999.99

Also make sure to check the net for prices at the particular dealership that you are planning on looking at. I just bought a Nissan Maxima. When I went to the dealer, I test drove the Maxima I wanted, then while we were in negotiations, I stepped out for a momement, called my wife who got on the net, and she saw the exact car I was driving for $5k less that the point we were at currently as an "internet" special than what the advertised price on the car was. This was something they did not mention to me at any point during the talks, so I walked back in and insisted on that price, which I got.

And make sure to negotiate the price of your trade in as a seperate entity. Know how much it is worth (kbb.com) and stick only to the talk of trading in your car, don't let the trade in and new car discussions bleed together, because things will get lost in the mix.

Dealers will try to recoup what they aren't making on one portion of the sale somewhere else.

I bought a Nissan, where the sales guy was telling me that a lightning bolt wouldn't ever let that engine break down, and yet just 2 hours later I'm in a finance office where the woman finalizing the details is giving me horror stories about how my bumper was going to fall off the moment the warranty ended and I just had to get that extended warranty and LoJack. Quite a humorous 180.

Go prepared - have fun and report back.

[jmcclain19]

Does anyone have one of these out there? I kind of interested to hear what you think of the automatic /"tap shift" manual transmission. After the discussions of manual v. automatic, I thought maybe the answer might be both.

My last Acura RSX had that in it. It's amusing, and I was excited because I loved driving a stick so I thought it was a cooler alternative that my wife could drive, but honestly after the first few weeks I never used it - more a novelty than anything else. It's quite jumpy at first, not shifting means your timing is off going from one gear to the other, and it's always "UP" to go down a gear and "Down" to go up a gear, which takes some getting used to. You'll shift down then up and hear the roar of a high winding engine many times until you get the hang of it. If you have a real sports car (Porsche etc) it might be worth it, but for the conventional autos that most of us buy, it's just an extra you may not use often.

[GAC]

Negotiate the price of the car you're interested in, and your trade in value AS SEPARATE DEALS.

Once your know what the true value of the car you're buying is - negotiate them down to their bottomline. Then when that is done, move on to what they will give you as a trade in on your car.

You will make out better.

Allowing the two to be inter-mixed is a bad idea, and you usually end up getting the short end of the deal.

Yeah, sure, they may give your more on your car on trade in. But if they are getting more for the car you're looking at, and not coming down much (when they can), then you're losing out. It's a mirage.

[RedsBaron]

I can get a FORD discount through my Father in Law (X Plan) ... does anyone know if you can generally do much better than that if you haggle, or if you can work down the price from there?

Thanks,

GL

If you are fortunate enough to have a vendor's discount through one manufacturer, such as Ford's X Plan or GM's similar plan, or maybe just have a GM card credit, yet you are interested in a vehicle from another manufacturer, it might be worth a shot to, say, tell your local Chevy dealer that you like the Chevrolet Impala but you can buy a Ford 500 through Ford's X Plan. Several years ago I was having a casual conversation with the owner of a local Ford dealership about one of his cars. I mentioned that I would probably end up buying a GM vehicle because my law firm does some work for GM and I therefore can get the GM vendor discount. Without missing a beat the owner said he could sell me a car through Ford's X Plan for its vendors, even though neither my firm nor I did any work at all for Ford ( I had even twice previously sued that local Ford dealership!).

[creek14]

I can get a FORD discount through my Father in Law (X Plan) ... does anyone know if you can generally do much better than that if you haggle, or if you can work down the price from there?

Thanks,

GL

We have the GM plan in our family. Both of the creekmobiles and my sister's car were much cheaper using the plan than they would have been otherwise.

I don't know if it's the same with Ford, but with GM the discount differs according to model. So you really need to do some research to know which option is best for you.

[Yachtzee]

Get financing from other sources?

- Check! We already have a quote we received through USAA. However, GM is offering a financing incentive, so if we qualify for that (I don't see why we shouldn't) we might go with that. We'd have to give up a rebate, but the rebate is only $750 or so. The only reason why we might go with the rebate is that we already have child #2 on the way. If child #3 comes along in a year or two, we may need to trade in before we've realized the savings from a better interest rate.


Negotiate the trade-in separately?

- Check. We already have a price quote. It includes neither Trade-in, GM points from my wife's GM card, nor down payment. I already know the trade in value from kbb.com and edmunds.com. A 98 Cavalier with 142,000 miles that has been hit by a deer isn't going to get much, but we'll see.

Once again, thanks for all the advice. It's been a real help.