Personal Finance Advice

Don’t be intimidated over the prospect of negotiating the cost of a car.  If you do it right, you won’t wind up haggling back and forth.  Instead, you’ll merely wait patiently for the seller to agree to your asking price. 

Preparation is key when you’re ready to buy a vehicle.  Don’t just wander onto a car lot and arbitrarily throw out bids on a car without knowing what the car is actually worth.  You can’t expect a car salesperson to fall at your feet and accept a ridiculously low offer on a car, even in a tough economy.  Even if dealerships are hurting for sales, there are some offers they simply can’t accept because it wouldn’t be cost effective.

While it’s true that most dealerships place quota expectations on their salespeople - and this can work to your advantage if you just so happen to be the customer who strolls in at the end of the month when a salesperson needs just one more car sale in order to meet a quota - there are no magical days of the month when you are absolutely guaranteed a car purchase at rock-bottom prices.  For all you know, the salesperson helping you may have already met the monthly quota and may be ready to make the deal only if a huge profit for the dealership is involved.

For this reason, you need to prepare before heading to the dealership.  Find out the market value of the car you want to buy, then find out what sort of discounts other people are getting on the same model.  If your bank or credit union offers a car-buying service then find out what price the same car costs when using the service. Find the lowest advertised cost for the type of car you want - even if the best price is on the other side of the country - and print it up and take it with you to the dealership.

Walk into the dealership, present the advertisement for the lowest priced vehicle, then tell the salesperson you want the same price.  Make it clear that you’re not looking to negotiate.  You don’t want to haggle and you don’t want anything extra.  This is the price you want to pay, and if the seller can’t accommodate you then you’ll go to another dealership.  Don’t be snooty about it, but don’t be a pushover either.

The salesperson will balk at the price and then might bring out an invoice showing you that you’re trying to buy a car for less than the dealership purchased the vehicle for.  This is when you need to keep repeating that it’s fine if they can’t meet the price and you don’t need to buy a car from them today.  You should actually mean it when you say it; go into the situation telling yourself that you don’t need to buy a car today.

You’ll probably be asked to add at least a couple hundred dollars to your offer.  You’ll also probably get whispered warnings from the salesperson that the finance people will never accept such a low offer.  When it comes right down to it, though, as long as the offer isn’t absurd and you stick to the number then you have a good chance of getting what you want.  Plus, if they don’t accept the offer, you can always thank them for their time and head toward the exit; there’s a chance you’ll get stopped on the way out and they’ll concede.

Once your offer is accepted, read all the documents put in front of you.  You’ll need to make sure that nobody “accidentally” added extras onto the purchase agreement.  If the documents are wrong then refuse to sign them, even if this means you’ll have to wait another hour for corrected paperwork.

The key is to be prepared and to not be in a rush to buy a car.  If time is on your side then a dealership refusing your offer won’t be a big deal because you can just go somewhere else at your leisure.