[Silock]

Originally Posted by Vanilla Thunder

Thanks. Some good tips in there too.

What should I do in negotiations? What's the best way to get them down? Any tricks anyone?

Here's the trick:

DON'T BUY FROM A STEALERSHIP. EVER.

You can get the same car from a private party sale for at LEAST 10% less (if not more). Plus, you can usually get some kind of maintenance records from a private party, which a dealership 999999/1000000 times won't have.

There are literally thousands of great used cars out there. Buy one of those and it will last you forever.

As for it costing you more to get a used car than a new one -- there's no way, unless you get a complete lemon. But then, that would mean you didn't really do your homework. I mean, no car payment + budget of $100/mo in repairs is still WAY less than a new car, and you won't have to even dip into that repair budget.

So, go to autotrader, find some cars you like in that price range. Contact the sellers for more pictures and see if they have maintenance records. If so, proceed. Get it to a mechanic, and they'll charge you about $100 to do a Pre-Purchase Inspection. That will save you a ton of money, potentially. I'm looking for a car for my wife, and so far, of the two we found, they both had significant problems that would cost about $5k to fix. No thanks. OTOH, my car came out with a clean PPI.

Don't hesitate to look out of state or far away. I bought my last car sight unseen from Alabama. You're going to take it to a mechanic, anyway. So, I had them drive it to a local Honda dealership, and I paid the dealership over the phone to do the PPI. Came out clean, and I bought the car. I'm very happy with it.

You don't necessarily have to stay within that 9k range, but something you can realistically and easily pay off within 2 years is probably good. Buying new cars and from dealerships is for suckers. Let someone else take the depreciation hit, and let someone else overpay a dealership for the same car.