Kolek planning to go pro
I love the car buying game, maybe it's a career of being in sales, and being on the other side of the table, but I love it.My advice:-Do as much of your negotiating over the internet. Never just walk into a dealer blind. -Use your email quotes against other dealers, don't fight for every last dollar over email, but you'll know who to use/eliminate rather quickly.-Never negotiate for the monthly payment, but have in your head your plan of how much you have budgeted to pay per month. My two cents, never go above 60 months on financing-Eventually when you decide what dealer to walk into, let them know up front you talked to Billy/Susie in the internet dept, and you have a quote from him/her. This immediately gives you a little bit of leverage-Don't get emotional, don't be a jerk to the sales rep. He/She should be motivated to work with you, and your gut instinct will start to tell you soon into the process whether you're going to do a deal or not-Know your credit score and what the finance options are before you walk into the dealer. Interest rates keep going up, if you see a dealer advertising 2.9% on their website, see if you can go to a credit union and do better than that. Keep that better finance rate though in your back pocket. Dealers may give you a better purchase price knowing they're getting an incentive for you to finance at their rate through that car mfg's financial institution. Just re-fi after you make one payment-Know how much you want to put down, don't do a penny more. As others have said, if the dealer knows you want to pay $400 a month, they'll tell you to throw an extra $1000 (or whatever) down to get you there.-Never ever take the extended warranty. Ever. Do a Nancy Reagan, just say no. It's uncomfortable with the finance mgr, just get through it. They're going to ask you open ended questions like "what would you do if the XXXXX failed/died? It's $4000 to replace it". My simple response has always been "Well, I'd never buy another Honda/Toyota/Ford ever again, and would certainly never set foot in here again."-Be comfortable walking away. If you know the deal is going south, simply say no thanks, we're going to leave. The dealer wants you there as long as possible, your time is important, if it's not going well, there's plenty of other cars/dealers out there that you can make a deal with
Maybe you cats should move out of a transactional relationship to a service relationship with your dealer? Been with the same dealer since college. Free loaners, finds rebates, slips in warranty work, shared weddings, funerals, has donated to our causes and given car giveaways to friends in severe need. Even did a tow in Milwaukee back to Chicago for free. Pay and fair price, and have been paid back in full. Deals are literally a handshake.
No car dealer has ever made enough money off of me to offer me all this "free" stuff. I think we come out ahead in the long run.
It always tickled me that when trying to sell you the car, they go on and on about how reliable it is. Then the minute you agree to buy it, the first thing they do is to try to sell you an extended warranty.
I am admittedly not great with numbers - can you explain why it is a bad idea to negotiate based on the payment?
Because it's easy for the dealer to say: "oh, you want your payment to be $xxx, then just take 72 month financing, instead of 60 month""oh, you want your payment to be $xxx, then just put $2K down instead of nothing""oh, you want your payment to be $xxx, then just lease for 36 months, instead of buying..."yadda, yadda, yadda...
And this is why, when I used to lease, I was insistent on getting all the different numbers. There are just so many places they can screw you when you lease if all you're trying to do is bring the monthly payment down. Here are some common ones, but I'm sure there are others: higher down payment (look for "capital cost reduction"); higher buy out amount (look for "residual value"); longer term (e.g., 30 months instead of 24); fewer miles included (e.g., 10k/year instead of 18k); higher fees. That is why, as mentioned in my post above about the email exchange, I always insisted that they tell me each of those different numbers so I could see where they were "hiding" the amount. That dealer I was dealing with had initially quoted me a sale price that was several thousand dollars higher than the other dealer, but he was promising a cheaper monthly payment. It's not difficult to recognize that if the price is higher, but the payment is lower, they're "hiding" that extra money somewhere. Depending on how you plan to use the car or whether you plan to buy it at the end of the lease, you might not care about some of the issues, and if you realize that they're adding it in to the buyout price of a car you have no intention of buying at the end of the lease you might not care. But, if you're comparing multiple quotes, it is really helpful to have all of those different numbers.
I would never lease. It only makes financial sense if you trade in cars every few years (and then not always), which in and of itself isn't the most financially sensible thing to do.Buy a gently used car (with cash, if possible) and drive it until it dies.
As you can tell, I'm not a very nice guy.
That's what Sister Chick says. Seriously, to be in business, you have to say "no." That's not being nice or mean, it's reflecting the realities of what you can and cannot do.
Listen, if you want to be transactional and buy on price and product only, don't expect full service. It's like buying Allen Edmonds on Amazon and complaining their service and quality have fallen. Today, just about every purchase has a good-better-best option. Southwest has free check-in, for a bit more you can have the bit grab your seat, and for a bit more you can pay to be in the first 15 slots. But, don't select the general check-in and then complain there are only middle seats in the back.Same with cars. If you are an internet price shopper, you aren't buying the full service option. You are transactional. Don't expect the upgraded floor mats.
Spoken like a true beancounter!
I actually got the upgraded floor mats when I bought my Accord Hybrid (I didn't ask for them, they showed up in the car at walk through, sales rep just said "we threw these in"). But point taken, you're correct.
"Free" is one of the misused words in the English language.When chick jr. visited Marquette as a prospective student, we took a tour of Raynor library. The tour guide pointed to a PrintWise machine, and told everyone that ever student could print out a certain number of pages for free every semester."Excuse me," I said, "That printing is not free. It's included in the $35 grand we are paying for tuition." The other parents nodded in agreement.For the rest of the tour, every time the tour guide said something like, "And we have free tutoring-" The parent's would shout in unison, "Included!". We had her trained by the end of the tour.
I bought a 3 year old minivan this spring and .. gasp .. bought the extended warranty. 5 years, $500 a year. Our last minivan (same model) .. years 5-6-7-8 were rough. Expensive things broke. We easily spent $2500 on it in its last few years, and it needed more when I dumped it.One thing .. the minivan I was purchasing had zero warranty. If I drove it off the lot and found the sunroof was inoperable, I had zero recourse. The extended warranty had a 30 day full-refund cancellation policy .. so I figured it was a free way to get a 30 day warranty. I could cancel on Day 29 .. but I kept it.One other bonus to the EW .. free key-fob replacement for any reason. Those damn things are $600 to replace. BOTH of my previous fobs were non-functional when got rid of the old car. I am totally getting a few new ones out of this.