Car buying advice

[Brock]

Better hurry, I heard the used car market has been "annihilated".

[Bane]

I ended up keeping my truck and selling it out right after the fact versus taking the huge fuggn he was tryn to give me.

[KC Jones]

I was shopping for new, but what I did was get the email address of floor managers at all the local dealers of my preferred type and send out an email saying what I wanted and that the lowest price would win. It worked out for me.

[Easy 6]

In most places, if you can get $2000 to $2500 off a used car, your getting a good deal.

[Joe Seahawk]

Thanks for all the tips.. I had never even heard of nada until this thread..

I get to go visit a bunch of used car salesmen this weekend, not my favorite thing to do, although I am excited to get some new wheels.

Hopefully i'll find something this weekend and be done with it.

Thanks again

[Saul Good]

Originally Posted by scott free

In most places, if you can get $2000 to $2500 off a used car, your getting a good deal.

If you negotiate from the sticker down, you've already lost. As KCNative said earlier, you need to figure out what they paid for the vehicle based on trade-in values and make the dealer negotiate up from there.

The other way that I have found to be effective is to send out a form letter to several dealerships letting them know that you will be accepting blind bids from all of them and will make a purchase from the lowest bidder on the next to the last day of the month.

[Easy 6]

Originally Posted by Saul Good

If you negotiate from the sticker down, you've already lost. As KCNative said earlier, you need to figure out what they paid for the vehicle based on trade-in values and make the dealer negotiate up from there.

The other way that I have found to be effective is to send out a form letter to several dealerships letting them know that you will be accepting blind bids from all of them and will make a purchase from the lowest bidder on the next to the last day of the month.

Finding out what a dealer bought a trade for is tricky at best, some people come in & roll over while others play hardball (& often dont get anywhere), there can be wide variances.

Having dealers bid for your business like that sounds pretty good though, but obviously you need to be comparing apples to apples at each dealership.

[Saul Good]

Originally Posted by scott free

Finding out what a dealer bought a trade for is tricky at best, some people come in & roll over while others play hardball (& often dont get anywhere), there can be wide variances.

Having dealers bid for your business like that sounds pretty good though, but obviously you need to be comparing apples to apples at each dealership.

It's not really that tricky. Hell, if you've got a trade in, see what the dealer offers you versus what the book value is. That will give you a pretty good idea of how to calculate what they actually have in the car.

The next step is to basically tell the dealer that you don't care what they paid for the car and that it doesn't matter to you if they paid $5,000 or $50,000. It's worth "X" amount to you regardless. If the dealer overpaid for it, that isn't your problem.

The truth is that you can estimate within about 2-3% of what the dealer paid. Offer them a couple hundred bucks more and don't move more than about another couple hundred.

[Easy 6]

Originally Posted by Saul Good

It's not really that tricky. Hell, if you've got a trade in, see what the dealer offers you versus what the book value is. That will give you a pretty good idea of how to calculate what they actually have in the car.

The next step is to basically tell the dealer that you don't care what they paid for the car and that it doesn't matter to you if they paid $5,000 or $50,000. It's worth "X" amount to you regardless. If the dealer overpaid for it, that isn't your problem.

The truth is that you can estimate within about 2-3% of what the dealer paid. Offer them a couple hundred bucks more and don't move more than about another couple hundred.

Your pretty good, please dont come see me for your next purchase...

[mikeyis4dcats.]

Just bought a used SUV.

We test drove a Hyundai Tuscon and within 3 hours had a call offering $2995 off sticker. That was $1100 under NADA.

We ended up buying a Hyundai Santa Fe and got it for $2595 under sticker, and 900 under NADA. It was in fantastic condition though.

[Bugeater]

Personally, I don't have the patience to dicker with salesmen. I usually do a lot of online research to see what the type of vehicle I want is selling for, and I'll wait until I find something I feel is reasonably priced and then I just go buy the damn thing. I'm not going to spend hours upon hours in a car dealership trying to beat them down by a few hundred bucks.

[Joe Seahawk]

Originally Posted by Bugeater

Personally, I don't have the patience to dicker with salesmen. I usually do a lot of online research to see what the type of vehicle I want is selling for, and I'll wait until I find something I feel is reasonably priced and then I just go buy the damn thing. I'm not going to spend hours upon hours in a car dealership trying to beat them down by a few hundred bucks.

Thats the thing though.. I can see what they're asking, but i have no idea what they are actually selling for.. I wish there was a site that showed purchase prices like you can do with houses.

[Bugeater]

Originally Posted by Joe Seahawk

Thats the thing though.. I can see what they're asking, but i have no idea what they are actually selling for.. I wish there was a site that showed purchase prices like you can do with houses.

Yeah, that would be nice. Obviously I meant that I checked around the asking prices. I should add that most of the vehicles I have bought have been under $10K, there's not quite as much room to dicker with them anyway. Spending $40K on something to drive is inconceivable to me.

[Fat Elvis]

Originally Posted by Bugeater

Yeah, that would be nice. Obviously I meant that I checked around the asking prices. I should add that most of the vehicles I have bought have been under $10K, there's not quite as much room to dicker with them anyway. Spending $40K on something to drive is inconceivable to me.

You and me both, brother. As far as I'm concerned, a car, truck, or whatever, is a box on wheels that gets me from point A to point B.

Oh, and it is also mindboggling to me to have more cars than drivers. My ass will only fit in one car at a time.

[UteChief]

I'd recommend edmunds.com also. I've been told nada and kbb are a few months behind where edmunds is more current. I'd also look at prices and autos on carmax.com.