Need your help!

[dakcp2001]

I am in need of a car, and I need help! This is my first time buying a new car ever! I really did not enjoy the dealerships today. I went to a few looking to test specific cars that were listed on their website, most of the cars listed online are not actually at the lot. I felt the bait & switch lol. I go in asking to see the more basic model and they show you the Cadiallac version. Sorry not interested in bells and whistles!

How can I get a fair price? How can I find out what the invoice price is?

I think I am getting my own financing. How do I not get scammed on my trade in?

Please dont tell me to buy a used car, I have done that all my life. I am just looking for advice on how to get the BEST price on a new car. This is a car I am planning to keep forever, so I want to get a decent deal.

 

[malibuconlee]

We actually just went thru something similar, only with trucks. Our problem being we need something specific because we to a camper with it.

What my DH did was to go online and "build" the model as he wanted. I really thought we were going to have to order one, which normally wouldn't be a problem, but his truck died unexpectedly (thanks Dodge for no longer making the part needed on an 11 year old vehicle!)

Anyway, he built online what he wanted then went to drive something on the lot that had many more features. Basically he showed them the spec sheet for the one he did online and said this was what he was looking for. They said they could get him into something on the lot for in the same range. I think we paid just a bit more but ended up with MANY more features than the "work truck" he was wanting to get. In the end we were happy with the price and much happier with having a nicer vehicle.

You can still drive the "cadillac" version to see how it handles, as long as the engine and major things are the same, the trim won't change how the car handles.

Good luck!

 

[Order66]

I had similar issues when I looked at new cars 18 months ago. First off, I'm female....so the first dealership treated me like an idiot. I may not be able to fix my own car......but I knew what I wanted and what I could spend. This was also my first "brand new" car. I always owned "new used" too. I was taking advantage of the cash for clunkers program and I thoroughly read the rules. I wanted a 6 cylinder SUV and the first place insisted I couldn't trade my minivan in for any SUV over 4 cylinders. After the guy tried for a while to insist I test drive one of the 4's, I politely said it wasn't worth my time or his because I wasn't buying. I walked. They lost a sale.

I went home and called more dealers. I emailed them and tried to make some negotiations over the web, before I wasted my time driving around. Many dealers brushed me off. Some never replied at all. I don't know if that's their way now, or they didn't care at the time due to the CFC program making them busy. But my father got the same treatment 4 months later when he was looking to trade in a rather new truck with bad MPG for a car.

Finally found a car on the web I wanted. Right price. Made an appointment to see that dealer. They also tried to show me more expensive models. I told them they had one on their website for X dollars and if that was a mistake.....sorry I couldn't afford to go higher. They suddenly found "those models".

I went in with a plan. I knew the CFC rules. I knew the rebates they were offering, what cash I had to put down and what I wanted to pay per month. They were typical pushy car salesmen, but I stuck to what I was willing to spend and they stuck to not letting me leave without buying. In the end I got my first brand new car at a price I was comfortable paying.

So look online. Ask for some prices. Make some offers, without ever leaving your home. Then go look in person. Look up the average trade in of your vehicle on KBB or edmunds to get a general idea of what it's worth. Stick to it. Let them know what you want by offering to leave empty handed. Know what you want to spend and don't budge if they try to upsell. One dealer fails to sell you a car........the next one is waiting down the street.

Oh and eat a good lunch before you go. You might be there a lot longer than you expect. Good luck.

regards

 

[BSil]

I have found one way that works in this economy:

You walk in, tell them the price you are willing to pay. They agree or disagree. Tell your salesman that they have one shot to go to the boss then you are leaving. If they meet your price then you talk about your trade. Don't work the trade into the conversation until you have negotiated the price you want first. If they don't meet your terms, then walk away. There are 5zillion dealerships dying to make a sale, one of them will accept your offer.

Another thing that a friend of mine just did to avoid the day out at the dealerships, was find the model that he wanted, came up with a price he was willing to pay, and emailed multiple dealerships. They all responded. He took the lowest price and re-emailed (is that even a word?) all the other dealerships telling them to beat the best price. One did. He drove there, then told him he wanted a certain amount for his trade, and he would sign then drive away with the new car. It seemed to work out well, and he got a real good price.

Sadly, you have to be a bit of a jerk when it comes to buying a new car. Dealerships have so many dirty rotten tricks they use to hide prices, and make you think you are getting a great deal. Don't let them show you monthly payments, or take a deposit, or write in a mystery number for your trade or any of that nonsense. Just keep the price in your mind that you want, bottom line for the car you want. If they can't make it happen the next place might.

 

[dakcp2001]

I have found one way that works in this economy:

You walk in, tell them the price you are willing to pay. They agree or disagree. Tell your salesman that they have one shot to go to the boss then you are leaving. If they meet your price then you talk about your trade. Don't work the trade into the conversation until you have negotiated the price you want first. If they don't meet your terms, then walk away. There are 5zillion dealerships dying to make a sale, one of them will accept your offer.

Another thing that a friend of mine just did to avoid the day out at the dealerships, was find the model that he wanted, came up with a price he was willing to pay, and emailed multiple dealerships. They all responded. He took the lowest price and re-emailed (is that even a word?) all the other dealerships telling them to beat the best price. One did. He drove there, then told him he wanted a certain amount for his trade, and he would sign then drive away with the new car. It seemed to work out well, and he got a real good price.

Sadly, you have to be a bit of a jerk when it comes to buying a new car. Dealerships have so many dirty rotten tricks they use to hide prices, and make you think you are getting a great deal. Don't let them show you monthly payments, or take a deposit, or write in a mystery number for your trade or any of that nonsense. Just keep the price in your mind that you want, bottom line for the car you want. If they can't make it happen the next place might.

How do I come to the price I want to offer? What are you basing that number on?

 

[rmattman]

I usually go to Edmunds.com to look at the particulars of the car I have decided upon. There you can see the invoice prices of the different models with and without options and "build" the car you want. I believe they will give you an estimated fair market value for the car you have chosen customized to the zip code of the dealerships you will be visiting. Don't forget about "dealer holdback" which is profit built into the invoice price designed to cover the cost of keeping the car on the lot prior to selling it to you. This usually amounts to approximately 3% of the invoice price so that would be $600 dollars of profit even if the dealer sold the car to you at "invoice price". I usually avoid financing through the dealership and prefer to use a credit union for lower rates and less fees. Remember that if you take one of those 0% interest dealer financing deals you will likely be required to pay MSRP for the car. Good Luck!

 

[jmunutt]

How do I come to the price I want to offer? What are you basing that number on?

Do some online research with kbb.com and edmunds.com, both will give you invoice prices. Do you belong to a credit union or USAA? USAA has a buying service that gave us good prices to negotiate with when we bought our new cars last month. We also built exactly what we wanted online so we could find more exact pricing.

Good luck and see what the dealers are willing to do for you. I will say, if you're looking at a Japanese built car, they will soon stop offering incentives because plants producing car parts have been shut down since the earthquake.

Make sure you check what incentives you're eligible for also, that saved us quite a bit of money too.

Debby

 

[clh2]

The last couple of cars we purchased - we did with "x" plan codes. Obtained through the internet - try doing a google search on:

ford x plan pin

This takes a lot of negotiating out of the hands of the dealer. EXCEPT if the dealer does something stupid like having Sid paint a "SID STRIPE" on the car for $350. (And - even still - the dealer will negotiate on that, i.e. eliminate the extra cost.)

Don't let them intimidate you. When they take your vehicle for a test drive to determine the value - give them the "spare" key. Keep your regular keys with you. If you are getting disgusted with the negotiations - then you can leave (make sure you keep track of your license too when you are test driving the new vehicle.)

Your best defense on being a female (or male) car buyer is to be well researched. KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO PAY and DON'T GO OVER THAT. Do your research on KBB and Emdunds. Don't get sucked in to extras (i.e. extended warranties). There is nothing wrong with grabbing your purse /coat and walking away. You can always go back to the dealership. Or not.

Good Luck.

Every car buying experience we've had has been different based things going on at that time. 1-time we left the dealership, recalculated what we wanted to pay, and walked back in about 15 minutes later and closed the deal - at $50 higher than what we originally wanted to pay. The next car - we were specific - I had to leave at 2pm to pick up my DD. At 1:55, we weren't even close on $$. I put my coat on, (big winter coat) which said to the saleperson 0 geez - we are 80% done, and this crazy lady is leaving. It totally amazed me how fast that deal happened. (They also didn't know that DH and I came in separate cars)

 

[princessnoelly]

What is it that you want to buy? Car, truck, SUV?

I work at a dealership and the most common thing we see is people being unreasonable. Don't expect a $300/ month payment on a $25,000 car with NO money down and no trade and then call us a bunch of theives/cheats. Sorry, bad day at the office!

The best thing to do is reseach on line what the price is of your trade and subtract a few hundred dollars. If the car is over 100K it really isn't worth much to a dealership and we will wholesale it.

If you want to do your own financing make sure you know what your credit score is. Many of the manufactures have special rates, but rates are LOW right now. Check with your credit union or bank so you know what the rates are there. If you tell your sales person you want your loan run through your specific bank the finance person will try to do it.

You can google an invoice on a car and find out what the price is. If it isn't a super popular model you'll be able to get it close to invoice price.

Another thing, cars that are produced in Japan aren't going to have the wiggle room other cars do. We are a Subaru dealer and won't get any Impreza or Forester models until June maybe- the plants are closed. We aren't going to cheap sell the ones we have right now- since we don't know when the plant will come back on line.

Feel free to PM me with questions and I'll do my best to answer them.

 

[brunette8706]

Go to truecar.com

This site will tell you what a fair price to pay for any vehicle.

Good luck
Brunette

 

[MomToOne]

I've bought a few cars now as a single female and work in an industry related to car sales, so I know a bit about what is happening behind the scenes.

This last time, I emailed the dealerships with very detailed specifics of the car I was looking for, told them I wasn't interested in a lot of back and forth and wanted to know their best offer. I immediately blew off anyone who emailed me back saying "come on in and we'll discuss color and what kind of deal I can get you" (Yes, there were some of those) I also blew off the dealerships that said "let us know what the best offer you get from other dealerships is, and we'll beat it". Umm - no, that's not what I asked for, and I don't want to deal with anyone who can't listen. But I did end up with a couple of dealerships that took me seriously and sent me offers. And one of those clearly went straight to their best offer. It was actually a really good one (I had researched invoice values and incentives ahead of time through the various websites like Kelly Blue book, so I knew what a good price was when I saw it.) I went down there, found their internet sales person, said show me the car and that was that. We negotiated a bit over trade in, but I was in and out in less than an hour.

Note: I had financing ready to go through my credit union, which I let them know, but I also gave them the opportunity to top it. I ended up getting a 0% loan through the dealership, on top of my amazing deal.

The key things to remember are (1) research, research, research the cost of your car ahead of time. Be aware that the "invoice" cost is not what the car costs the dealership - there are all sorts of dealer incentives and hold backs from the manufacturers that they will get on a sale. If you aren't looking at a high demand car, you should be able to get invoice cost OR BETTER in some cases and (2) walk away from anyone who won't take you seriously. If you ask to see a bare bones model and they claim not to have any and try to show you the loaded model, tell them thanks but no thanks and walk away - don't even let them get you to look at the loaded ones. Leave a phone number if you want, they might surprise you by suddenly "finding" a bare bones model for you to come look at.

There are also car brokers you can go through, if you have no luck with the dealerships. I bought one car that way, and had a good experience. They go pretty quickly to their best offer, and don't seem to play as many games. You might want to try something like carsdirect.com, just to see what sort of results you get.

Finally, if you can wait a bit, try to hit the dealerships towards the end of a month when the salespeople are sweating hitting their numbers so they are more willing to make a deal. Better yet, wait until the end of a quarter. Unfortunately, the first quarter ended on Thursday, and we are heading into peak buying season, so this weekend was probably one of the worst weekends to be looking - they just aren't as desperate.

 

[dakcp2001]

I've bought a few cars now as a single female and work in an industry related to car sales, so I know a bit about what is happening behind the scenes.

This last time, I emailed the dealerships with very detailed specifics of the car I was looking for, told them I wasn't interested in a lot of back and forth and wanted to know their best offer. I immediately blew off anyone who emailed me back saying "come on in and we'll discuss color and what kind of deal I can get you" (Yes, there were some of those) I also blew off the dealerships that said "let us know what the best offer you get from other dealerships is, and we'll beat it". Umm - no, that's not what I asked for, and I don't want to deal with anyone who can't listen. But I did end up with a couple of dealerships that took me seriously and sent me offers. And one of those clearly went straight to their best offer. It was actually a really good one (I had researched invoice values and incentives ahead of time through the various websites like Kelly Blue book, so I knew what a good price was when I saw it.) I went down there, found their internet sales person, said show me the car and that was that. We negotiated a bit over trade in, but I was in and out in less than an hour.

Note: I had financing ready to go through my credit union, which I let them know, but I also gave them the opportunity to top it. I ended up getting a 0% loan through the dealership, on top of my amazing deal.

The key things to remember are (1) research, research, research the cost of your car ahead of time. Be aware that the "invoice" cost is not what the car costs the dealership - there are all sorts of dealer incentives and hold backs from the manufacturers that they will get on a sale. If you aren't looking at a high demand car, you should be able to get invoice cost OR BETTER in some cases and (2) walk away from anyone who won't take you seriously. If you ask to see a bare bones model and they claim not to have any and try to show you the loaded model, tell them thanks but no thanks and walk away - don't even let them get you to look at the loaded ones. Leave a phone number if you want, they might surprise you by suddenly "finding" a bare bones model for you to come look at.

There are also car brokers you can go through, if you have no luck with the dealerships. I bought one car that way, and had a good experience. They go pretty quickly to their best offer, and don't seem to play as many games. You might want to try something like carsdirect.com, just to see what sort of results you get.

Finally, if you can wait a bit, try to hit the dealerships towards the end of a month when the salespeople are sweating hitting their numbers so they are more willing to make a deal. Better yet, wait until the end of a quarter. Unfortunately, the first quarter ended on Thursday, and we are heading into peak buying season, so this weekend was probably one of the worst weekends to be looking - they just aren't as desperate.

I tried the email route, I got very few responses and the ones I did get were all "come in and we will talk about it". I did not get one single price. Now I am getting so much spam from them.