Anyone bought a car lately?
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Anonymous
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Interested in getting a big SUV or pickup truck. It's been many years since I bought a car. Any tips on how to get the best deal nowadays? I have done some googling.
Thanks! |
Anonymous
| We bought a Yukon Xl recently. We bought it used with only 18K miles on it (early lease turn in due to international move). We love the truck and the discount from buying used but almost new! |
Anonymous
Where did you get it? |
Anonymous
| For used vehicles I like carmax. |
Anonymous
| I bought a used 2015 Rav4 recently (with 20k miles). I found the ad for it on carguru -- and it was at a local dealership. I think I got a good deal and like above poster -- feel really good about the money saved by going for a 2 year old vehicle. |
Anonymous
Have a good credit score, tell them up front what you want and how much you intend to spend. Do your homework. We just bought a new car. We just said if you can't beat so and so's price, we're walking. Paid cash so no haggling. Done. Our Sam's cub premium membership got us $5000 off the price. |
Anonymous
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New or used?
New, start looking at dealers with lots of stock of last year's model of whatever you want. Between now and October, those prices will start to fall -- so basically you're looking at 2017 models. Also, if you're looking for specific trims, you often can get higher trims for the same price as lower models at this time of the year. Depends on the car and the inventory. For example, I bought a new CRV EX-L with Nav last October. It was a 2016 model. I basically negotiated online with about four dealerships and they kept pushing the offers lower. Finally I told the one dealer I actually wanted to work with that if they could be X price on this particular model, I'd buy it that day. I went in with financing in place and negotiated the price of the car first. Then I negotiated the price of my trade-in (they tried to low-ball me; I stuck to my guns and got the price I wanted). Then I negotiated the extended warranty (I did buy one, only because of the electronics/computer in the car. I have never bought one before, but I knew having to replace the nav or whatever would cost around $4,000). Then I negotiated the financing -- I had financing in place and they beat the terms. I drove out happy. Them maybe not so much, although they had one last car on the lot. Note if you buy new you'll pay for freight and higher tax, which won't cost you anything. Don't buy the undercoating and refuse to pay for things like stripes. I did buy the rubber mats. |
Anonymous
Got you $5000 off MSRP, but it doesn't actually mean you saved money. |
Anonymous
I prefer to pay less. They don't negotiate. |
Anonymous
I posted above about finding my car on carguru at a dealership. Honestly I compared carmax prices for the same vehicle/same miles and carmax was more. Not by tons but still... |
Anonymous
You can pay less from a private seller or a dealer perhaps, but I find that carmax is a very good baseline since all of their prices are exactly what they say they are online with no negotiating at all. If you go to a used car dealer they might have the car listed for $24,995, online, but you never know if that is the real price (it mostly isn't) or if they will expect you to negotiate to get down to the real price. |
Anonymous
| Truecar. I've used it twice. Did all my haggling from home. Could shop around and get a better price. |
Anonymous
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Use truecar and Costco get email a few leads. Use a burner email account and skype phone number because they will call email NONSTOP.
Work them off each other saying can you beat so and so. |
Anonymous
| I bought a used Lexus RX350 in April. Checked out the Lexus dealer in Bethesda but they were super lazy so ended up buying from Pohanka Lexus. |