Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Consider this: Why buy a brand new car? As soon as you drive off the lot, you take a giant hit in depreciation. You're in such a great buying position here. I bought my car in cash by combing through Craigslist ads, found an old person who bought their car at a dealer, had it maintained at the dealer (records available), and was ready to sell it. Mine was 3 years old with 20K miles on it. The dealer always gives a shit price on a trade-in, so they attempt to sell it on Craigslist, Auto-trader, etc.. first. They love cash. All you have to do is take it to your local mechanic for a once-over (costs $100) - everyone does this, and sellers know to expect it. If your mechanic gives it the green light, you pay cash (preferably meet them at the bank and do a money order or cashier's check, because banks don't want you to show up and ask for 25K in cash), have the seller bring the title to the bank and sign it over to you, have a letter of sale notarized (at the bank while you're there), take it right to DMV and register it. Done.

If you buy a pre-certified car at the dealer you'll pay an additional doc fee and over pay for the car anyway. When you take it to your own mechanic for $100, it's a better once-over than a pre-certification anyway. Buy a good brand name car with a history of reliability. You'll save thousands of dollars.

Sometimes you want a brand new car.

Stop wanting a brand new car.

Why? I don't like travel or eating out or better house.

Okay.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Consider this: Why buy a brand new car? As soon as you drive off the lot, you take a giant hit in depreciation. You're in such a great buying position here. I bought my car in cash by combing through Craigslist ads, found an old person who bought their car at a dealer, had it maintained at the dealer (records available), and was ready to sell it. Mine was 3 years old with 20K miles on it. The dealer always gives a shit price on a trade-in, so they attempt to sell it on Craigslist, Auto-trader, etc.. first. They love cash. All you have to do is take it to your local mechanic for a once-over (costs $100) - everyone does this, and sellers know to expect it. If your mechanic gives it the green light, you pay cash (preferably meet them at the bank and do a money order or cashier's check, because banks don't want you to show up and ask for 25K in cash), have the seller bring the title to the bank and sign it over to you, have a letter of sale notarized (at the bank while you're there), take it right to DMV and register it. Done.

If you buy a pre-certified car at the dealer you'll pay an additional doc fee and over pay for the car anyway. When you take it to your own mechanic for $100, it's a better once-over than a pre-certification anyway. Buy a good brand name car with a history of reliability. You'll save thousands of dollars.

Sometimes you want a brand new car.

Stop wanting a brand new car.

Why? I don't like travel or eating out or better house.

My negotiations took no time and went from the bottom up, I don't why (special order car, I waited for a while for it). Dealership gave me all the incentives (I didn't think I qualified for all of them) and proposed their mark up. The mark up was 20% below what I was ready to pay, so we agreed right away.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Consider this: Why buy a brand new car? As soon as you drive off the lot, you take a giant hit in depreciation. You're in such a great buying position here. I bought my car in cash by combing through Craigslist ads, found an old person who bought their car at a dealer, had it maintained at the dealer (records available), and was ready to sell it. Mine was 3 years old with 20K miles on it. The dealer always gives a shit price on a trade-in, so they attempt to sell it on Craigslist, Auto-trader, etc.. first. They love cash. All you have to do is take it to your local mechanic for a once-over (costs $100) - everyone does this, and sellers know to expect it. If your mechanic gives it the green light, you pay cash (preferably meet them at the bank and do a money order or cashier's check, because banks don't want you to show up and ask for 25K in cash), have the seller bring the title to the bank and sign it over to you, have a letter of sale notarized (at the bank while you're there), take it right to DMV and register it. Done.

If you buy a pre-certified car at the dealer you'll pay an additional doc fee and over pay for the car anyway. When you take it to your own mechanic for $100, it's a better once-over than a pre-certification anyway. Buy a good brand name car with a history of reliability. You'll save thousands of dollars.

Sometimes you want a brand new car.

Stop wanting a brand new car.

Anonymous wrote:Consider this: Why buy a brand new car? As soon as you drive off the lot, you take a giant hit in depreciation. You're in such a great buying position here. I bought my car in cash by combing through Craigslist ads, found an old person who bought their car at a dealer, had it maintained at the dealer (records available), and was ready to sell it. Mine was 3 years old with 20K miles on it. The dealer always gives a shit price on a trade-in, so they attempt to sell it on Craigslist, Auto-trader, etc.. first. They love cash. All you have to do is take it to your local mechanic for a once-over (costs $100) - everyone does this, and sellers know to expect it. If your mechanic gives it the green light, you pay cash (preferably meet them at the bank and do a money order or cashier's check, because banks don't want you to show up and ask for 25K in cash), have the seller bring the title to the bank and sign it over to you, have a letter of sale notarized (at the bank while you're there), take it right to DMV and register it. Done.

If you buy a pre-certified car at the dealer you'll pay an additional doc fee and over pay for the car anyway. When you take it to your own mechanic for $100, it's a better once-over than a pre-certification anyway. Buy a good brand name car with a history of reliability. You'll save thousands of dollars.

Sometimes you want a brand new car.

I was able to OP and they took off roughly $5K

Anonymous wrote:Consider buying a car coming off a three year lease with fewer than 25,000 miles. Make sure its certified pre-owned. You will get it for about 60% of the original price. Over the past year I bought two cars this way and they were as good as new.

CPOs are marked over blue book, plus a $550 doc fee. They usually come with a short warranty, but you'll never use it. Better off saving the $550 doc fee, mark-up, choosing a car wisely using social media, craigslist, auto trader, take it to a mechanic (even a dealer will look it over for $150) and buy without the warranty. If the car has a solid service history and the inspection checks out, you're saving thousands. If you don't have time to do your own search and work, then CPO is the way to go, but I would STILL take it to my own mechanic for the $100 once-over. I wouldn't trust a dealer's 120 point inspection for shit. You need an independent evaluation (dealers will allow you to take the car to get it inspected). Make sure that CPO has a solid service history (ask the dealer to email you the service history on it before you even walk in the door to see the car -- minimizing wasting your time with dealers (who're crooked AF) by getting all documentation up front. On their website they'll have the Carfax report, and sometimes the service history, so look carefully).

I still vote DIY. It's not that much work and worth savings thousands of dollars. I saved 6K by finding my car on craigslist, negotiating under blue book because the oldsters were retiring and moving out of the country and wanted to sell quickly, I had cash, knew the steps to quickly get the sale finalized, and offered to drive them to the airport the following week instead of them taking an Uber. People want to work with nice, straight-forward people. Tons of transient people in DC area selling their cars.

Consider buying a car coming off a three year lease with fewer than 25,000 miles. Make sure its certified pre-owned. You will get it for about 60% of the original price. Over the past year I bought two cars this way and they were as good as new.

Get a quote from Costco. No haggling, and the prices are usually the best around. If it's not, you can ask the dealers to beat the Costco price.

My family has bought cars through Costco three times, and it's been a very easy experience each time. Once a local dealer offered to match the price (but not go lower); the other two times, local dealers couldn't match the price.

Consider this: Why buy a brand new car? As soon as you drive off the lot, you take a giant hit in depreciation. You're in such a great buying position here. I bought my car in cash by combing through Craigslist ads, found an old person who bought their car at a dealer, had it maintained at the dealer (records available), and was ready to sell it. Mine was 3 years old with 20K miles on it. The dealer always gives a shit price on a trade-in, so they attempt to sell it on Craigslist, Auto-trader, etc.. first. They love cash. All you have to do is take it to your local mechanic for a once-over (costs $100) - everyone does this, and sellers know to expect it. If your mechanic gives it the green light, you pay cash (preferably meet them at the bank and do a money order or cashier's check, because banks don't want you to show up and ask for 25K in cash), have the seller bring the title to the bank and sign it over to you, have a letter of sale notarized (at the bank while you're there), take it right to DMV and register it. Done.

If you buy a pre-certified car at the dealer you'll pay an additional doc fee and over pay for the car anyway. When you take it to your own mechanic for $100, it's a better once-over than a pre-certification anyway. Buy a good brand name car with a history of reliability. You'll save thousands of dollars.

Anonymous wrote:Given all of the car buying services and the internet comparison shopping, how much negotiating is still done for purchasing a new car? Example: car MSRP is $25K. Dealer Internet price is $21K. Is there room to negotiate down or should I expect to pay that price. I won't be financing the car or taking the warranties. I'm not trading in a car. I'm really just making a purchase. If you've negotiated down an internet price, can you share the dollar or percentage that you negotiated down. Thank you.

Four buckets of negotiation:

1) Price (ask for "out the door" price).
2) Trade-in (if they give on price, they'll lowball on trade-in)
3) Financing (don't let them try to sell you a car based on monthly payments. Know the APR/terms).
4) Extras (warranties, etc). Generally pass on warranties unless you have a lot of computerized stuff like Nav. And you can negotiate extended warranties. Don't do the undercoating, etc. And don't pay for dealer extras like stripes on a car.

Plenty.

I bought my 2016 CRV EX-L with Nav in October 2016 (i.e. I was buying a new car, but it was technically the previous year's model).

I was negotiating with four dealers who kept sending me different prices, sometimes for the wrong trim (i.e. without NAV or just an EX model). Finally I got a quote for a price I liked from a dealer in Maryland and sent it to my Honda dealer in Arlington and asked them to beat it. They came in $700 below (I think $24,500 was the price). They tried to get it back on my trade-in, but I decided to sell the trade-in myself (and pocketed $1,000 over their offer). They also beat my credit union financing. They tried to upsell with warranties, etc. But I said no. I'm pretty sure I "won" that negotiation.

Bought in December. MSRP $32k, Dealer internet price $28k, nationwide incentive $1500. We asked for the lowest out-the-door price and were quoted $26k, we went home. They called the next day to see if they could still win our business and we asked for another $3k off, got $2k (the manager tried to make the case they'd already given us $2k off, but I was able to point out that I knew $1500 of that was from the nationwide incentive, not the dealership). Paid $24k in the end.

That was a 2017 at the end of the year, but our car buying advice (lookup the nationwide Toyota incentives in effect before you go, don't buy when you're there, ask for more off the lowest offer) all came from a cousin who is a manager at a car dealership. They'll negotiate on any car.

It depends on the kind of car you are looking at. I bought a jeep last year and there was no negotiating at the dealer, but I was able to get different prices from different dealers.

Given all of the car buying services and the internet comparison shopping, how much negotiating is still done for purchasing a new car? Example: car MSRP is $25K. Dealer Internet price is $21K. Is there room to negotiate down or should I expect to pay that price. I won't be financing the car or taking the warranties. I'm not trading in a car. I'm really just making a purchase. If you've negotiated down an internet price, can you share the dollar or percentage that you negotiated down. Thank you.