New car buying strategies

[Anonymous]

Go to several dealerships and make an "out the door" offer on a the vehicle you are interested in purchashing.

Don't mess around with quotes and all that jazz. By the time you walk out of the finance office fees have been tagged on and the quote is meaning less

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Go to several dealerships and make an "out the door" offer on a the vehicle you are interested in purchashing.

Don't mess around with quotes and all that jazz. By the time you walk out of the finance office fees have been tagged on and the quote is meaning less

What does this mean?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Go to several dealerships and make an "out the door" offer on a the vehicle you are interested in purchashing.

Don't mess around with quotes and all that jazz. By the time you walk out of the finance office fees have been tagged on and the quote is meaning less

WUT? An "out the door quote" is exactly that - what you're paying to get that vehicle out the door. No need to even go to the finance office...last few cars I bought were all via email quotes and phone, walked in, handed a check to the sales person and left.

Now, there isn't going to be much variation between Honda dealers because (i) their cars are all commodity vehicles, and (ii) Honda USA doesn't really participate in the types of dealer tactics that other makers do.

American cars, you'll see huge variations between quotes. Toyota as well because that's how they roll. Any dealer that doesn't email an out the door quote is telling you they don't want your business, pure and simple.

[Anonymous]

OP here. We wound up using the lowest quote we got from TrueCar by taking it to the dealer where we had test driven the car. They matched it by email with no hassle at all. I talked to some dealers who weren’t offering anything off of MSRP so this seemed like a good price to us. No idea if we could’ve gotten a lower price but we are satisfied.

[Anonymous]

Checkbook has a service where you pay a couple hundred dollars and they shop for bids. We saved thousands this way on fairly popular cars (odyssey, civic, etc). The lowest bid is likely to be someplace way out of town, but often you can take that bid to your local dealership and they will agree to match it. Or just drive out to the hinterlands to save a few thousand.
We found it much better than the Costco program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. We wound up using the lowest quote we got from TrueCar by taking it to the dealer where we had test driven the car. They matched it by email with no hassle at all. I talked to some dealers who weren’t offering anything off of MSRP so this seemed like a good price to us. No idea if we could’ve gotten a lower price but we are satisfied.

Too bad, OP - you definitely could have gotten them below the TrueCar price.

[Anonymous]

Pay with cash and never carry a car loan. Never wash your money through credit card companies or auto loan companies. Houses are different because we need a place to live and their are tax advantages. Still pay off mortgages as soon as possible.

Live debt free if you can.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pay with cash and never carry a car loan. Never wash your money through credit card companies or auto loan companies. Houses are different because we need a place to live and their are tax advantages. Still pay off mortgages as soon as possible.

Live debt free if you can.

whats wrong with using credit cards and paying off every month? I've traveled for free many times doing this

[Anonymous]

Actually you are correct. I wash all of my purchases through my credit cards and like you pay off the entire debt each month. In doing so I pay no interest but reap significant rewards every year..

You are right