Buying a new car - negotioation tips

[Anonymous]

I am looking to buy a new car - or a barely used on, 15-20k miles max - and am looking for negotiation tips! I have a car which could be sold for about 8-9k privately, I would prefer to trade-in though. Any advice on what to say, how to behave, etc. so that I can get the best deal possible? Thank you!!!

[Anonymous]

Make up a fake email account and try various tactics with alot of dealerships. I did exactly this and the best negiotation was to politely say tou had a better offer and thank them. Usually they will try to beat your offer...which you totally make up.

[Anonymous]

20K miles is barely used?

[Anonymous]

For a used car I would just use cars.com and fill in your year and mileage parameters and sort by pricing low to high. Pricing varies wildly among dealerships and occasionally you will find a dealership that has had a car on their lot for some time and they drop the price to get rid of it.

[Anonymous]

There are some car buying services, like Costco, Checkbook and True Car that might be able to help you get better prices.

[Anonymous]

Never go into the dealership
Create a new email if you dont like spam
Use edmunds, usnr, etc to get as many online quotes from dealers as you can
do not give them your phone number
look online for any manufacturer finance specials
take the lowest bid and send it to all other dealers and ask if the can beat it
repeat until no one bites
then go into the dealership

[Anonymous]

For trading in your car, go to CarMax and get a quote. The dealer will tell you why your current car is not worth what you think it is. If you have the CarMax quote, they will match it.

[Anonymous]

If you can wait till December you will get the best break in the way of manufactures incentives. Bought I high demand SUV nothing back to consumer all year. December 15, hits $1000.00 cash back to customer saved total $2500 from the best deal I had all year.
Spoke to someone in the business he stated it has been this way for last several years big sales push in December

[Anonymous]

I would negotiate the trade-in, car price, and loan separately. The dealer wants to confuse you by throwing all the numbers around because they know most people really want a final, bottom line (monthly payment). You want to have a price you want for the trade-in, a loan rate you like, and a car price that you can live with.

Personally, I would sell my car separately, get pre-approved for a loan, and then go get the car.

Somethings to keep in mind - (1) that slightly-used car may end up costing you much more than a new car. The markup on new cars is really low. Basically, the dealer sells new cars at or below cost because it is so easy for you to compare different dealers (you assume new cars are pretty equal) and can shop solely on price. Pretty much, if you are walking into a new car dealer these days, you will get their best price because it is so easy to price shop. When you are talking about a used car, there is much less inventory, and the dealer is looking to make a lot more money on that sale. Also, you likely cannot get as good of a loan rate on that car.

(2) know the car you want before you go so you don't get upsold. It is common of the dealer to show you the more premium version (Navigation, smart cruise control, etc) that costs thousands more and offer very minimal improvement in your day-to-day (and give very little return value when you trade the car later).

(3) at the same time, be flexible in your wants, especially in color. The dealer wants to create pressure on you (be saying things like "this is the only red model with navi in Virginia"). Always be prepared to walk away.

[Anonymous]

Email is the best strategy. You can google for exact scripts, but I did it over the summer and it worked phenomenally. Here's where I posted about my experience:

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/573459.page#9296256

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:20K miles is barely used?

when cars last 200k to 300k, yes, 20k is barely used.

[Anonymous]

I"m going through something similar. What are some of the best sites to sell your car privately

[Anonymous]

Last time I bought a car, I emailed every deal with the spec's and car I wanted after test driving it and went with whom ever gave me the best price. Do create a separate email like there said as they will harass you for years.