Looking for car buying advice

LOL my husband just did this exactly last week.  Be prepared to walk away... you might want to wait till end of month also when they need to make sale quotas and are more flexible in negioatating (sp) to YOUR price... always ask for 0% financing - you might not get it but can't hurt to ask for it...

First off, were do you live?  In my experience, different parts of the country handle haggling differently.

The walk-out move is almost a must.  There are really 2 tricks to negotiating a good car purchase:

(1) Know you price beforehand; and

(2) Don't be emotionally attached to the purchase.

If you are worried about your "online" quote, simply require them to tell you ALL the costs associated with the vehicle.  Tell them to send you these numbers prior to your visist.

Also, you may be able to handle the financing before showing up if the special finance rate is through the carmakers finance bank.

These days, you can do everything over the phone / internet.  When we bought my wife's car, we visited the dealership to test drive the vehicle.  Beyond that, they had a runner show up with my wife's new car, the paperwork tabbed for me to sign and the runner left with my wife's old car that was a trade-in.

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A good friend of mine worked at a Lexus dealership for many years and then moved to Atlanta and opened up his own dealership.  He tells me that there is rarely a negotiation tactic a customer uses that they haven't seen - so don't go into it thinking you're going to out trick them.  The upper hand you have is that they are selling a product that everyone else is selling - a vehicle.  Don't act like THEY have the upper hand, e.g. they have your car and you NEED it from them - but rather keep the 2 rules in mind.

If you have a number you are comfortable paying, then it is a win situation for you.  And absent that number, you shouldn't be attached to the purchase and can move on to something else, e.g. the next dealership.

Also, I have no idea if it still available, but there was a fee-based service you could use.  For something like $100, this company will call the 3 closest dealership, find and negotate the best price for a car meeting your specs.  I remember hearing about it, but do not remember the name.

Be careful with the numbers Edmunds gives you these days. Five years ago they seemed to have no affiliation or sponsorship with the automakers. Now they do and can link you directly to a local dealer. Like the previous poster said, when they start the "let me ask the manager" routine, be ready.During my last car purchase I told the guy to bring the manager in to sit down with us. He said it was not possible, so I followed him and walked in and sat in front of the manager. He let me walk the first visit and finally agreed to my price on the next visit. I went to all the other dealers in town and none of them were willing to match the price I had negotiated. I probably still got hosed, but at least I walked away feeling like I hadn't!!

Negotitate the price of the vehicle before discussing trade in or financing. When they ask you these questions blow them off. Don't do a trade in if you can avoid it and have your financing before you show up on the lot.  

Just to clarify, when I test drove the vehicle, we negotiated the price right there and then finalized everything via phone after I "walked out."

Here's a little trick - bring your child with you and make sure they are cranky as heck.  When we bought my wife's car, we had one wild 3 year old jumping all over the most expensive cars in the showroom.  Nothing like a 3 year old jumping on the leather seats in a $120K convertible in the showroom to motivate the salesman to spend a little less time "visiting the manager."

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And even though you mentioned the prospect of their financing special, I would recommend that you have financing available before you enter the dealership.  This way, you are not beholden to their "price" to get their "financing."  Instead, simply tell them that you have financing in place and want to finalize a number first.

Once you have the number you are happy with, casually ask them in a aww shucks, by the way, what is the financing thing you guys have?

If you try that with a trade-in, they lowball your trade-in offer, but with financing where the terms are already defined - they'll be hard pressed to "recoup" of off that.

I split the destination charge with the dealer when we got our car.  Have relatives who own a dealership out west and found out it's about $800-$1,200 and not the (normal) $400 per vehicle that is posted on the sticker.  Mentioned that to the sales person and said I'd split it.  They suck up half to get it to their lot and I'd pay the other half in taking off their lot.  They went for it. 

Try it.  It's not a lot of money yet it is YOUR money.

Good info. Tanks, pup! 

Always make the dealers compete.  You can do the same inventory search they do online and figure out how many makem/model/color cars there are within a reasonable distance.

I prefer the hardline negotiation.  Demand they give you a written quote, including all taxes and fees, that they will honor for a specified period of time.  Tell them you aren't coming back if they say "that's as low as we can possibly go" and then another dealer quotes you better.

Get the lowest quote and convince that dealer you want to buy from him.  "I really appreciate the way you've treated me, and I'd like to buy from you but in the end I have to make the most financially responsible decision" kind of thing.

Call the other dealers (higher prices) and tell them they need to beat your low quote (the first time you tell them a number).  They will beat it or say they can't... either way your eliminating canidates.  Go back to the original low bidder and tell them you're starting to feel jerked around because another dealer just came in X-amount lower than his supposed lowest possible price... and you know they paid the same invoice.

Eventually you'll have a similar low quote from everyone.  Now it's time to start negotiating fees.  You should not pay a processing fee.  That's BS.  You're buying a car from them and on top of that they want $250 bucks to fill out some paperwork.  No way!

Walk away if you think someone's jerking you around... you've got several quotes that are close at this point and a few other dealers that will gladly drop a fee or two to steal your business back.

Dealers won't want to give you quotes that are good for longer than "right now."  Tough luck.  Tell em you're buying a car in the next week from somebody, and they've got to play by your rules.

I generally don't think I've gone far enough until someone gets visibly angry at me.  There are a lot of built in profit margins... factory kickbacks and the like so that even a car sold well under invoice still makes a dealer some money.  Go for the throat and never believe the "I'm already losing money on this deal" crap.  They wouldn't be selling it to you if that was 100% true!