Car Dealer Tips?

[emilymad]

Well after much hassle we ordered a car a month ago. We went with the lowest price dealer. It took a call to the general manager to actually get it ordered though. The sales guy wasn't in any rush. Our estimated delivery date is mid May. Of course it falls the week we are driving to Hilton Head. My trade in will end up with 2k extra miles on it so hopefully that won't be an issue.

 

[danielle79]

I just bought a car last week. I found the best way to get a good deal is to buy a car; a week later the salespeople I talked to previously are all calling me with better deals . I could shoot them or cry .

In my case I had three different offers for trade-in value on my 2011 Caravan. First Honda dealer offered me $1000. Dodge dealer offered me $2,000. 2nd Honda dealer offered me $2300 . This was after she had already given me her bottom line sale price on a Pilot and I then mentioned my hopeful trade. According to Edmunds my trade should have been worth at least $2000 so I was not going to take only $1000 for it (we would have sold it privately if it came down to it).

Good luck, I hope that you get a good deal and the car you really want!

I hope you meant a 2001 Caravan because $2300 is not very good for a 2011! Ha ha! But if you have a 2011 that you will sell for $2300 i will buy it!

 

[HM]

We bought a car in October on the last day of the month and got an excellent deal because they were trying to make a their monthly incentives from the manufacturer. With us, they were one car away from getting a large bonus, so could afford to let us have the car for less (this was told to us after the sale). DH did a lot of work over the phone and online trying to find the car we wanted. We weren't doing a trade, so didn't have to worry about that part. What he did was find two cars that fit our specs at dealers who had cars listed online and worked with each dealer to find the best price for us. We ended up driving over two hours away to get the car we ended up with. Sometimes, if you have a particular car in mind, you'll have to trek further than you would normally want to get it. Good luck OP.

 

[kt_mom]

When we have done trade ins with the dealer, they didn't do any kind of inspection on the vehicle to check for minor issues, they just went by the book value. So I wouldn't bother.

That's not always the case. DH or one of his sales managers checks out every car they trade for. Sometimes just visual but often they will drive it before they will quote an amount.

 

[britfish]

1) Your insurance probably covers winshield 100% - a must do.
2) Don't worry about the other.

awesome, thanks for the input!