When you visit a dealer for
buying a car, one thing that you are definitely going to get is bargaining. As
a general rule of thumb, you can’t bargain everywhere, let’s say, you are going
to buy yourself a drink from a bar and you don’t see many people drinking
there, and you tell the bar tender to give you 50% off as no one’s drinking it.
He’ll throw you out and rightly so. But that’s not in the case of buying a car,
the moment you step inside a car dealers place, you have earned yourself some
bargaining rights.
Most of us are not good at
bargaining and forcing the dealer rather politely to slash off the price for
you. But, there are some tips that can definitely save you if not thousands but
a few hundred bucks for sure. So, how to approach a dealer let me take you
through this.
There are many factors that
affect the price of a car, dealer deserves some profit from, at least that’s what
he’s sitting there for, right. To get a fair price we need to look at that
specific car that you have in mind, its condition, market value, demand, your
location, and how long the car has been out. There’s isn't a specific formula
that you would put values into and you will get a number but the factors that I've
mentioned if given proper attention to, and then chances are pretty bright on
you getting a fair price from the dealer.
Look for your own financing first
Approaching dealers directly wouldn't
be the smartest idea. What I would suggest you to do is to look into your own
financing first by visiting your bank/credit union and find out what they have
on offer for you. You can then approach the dealers for their quotes. This
would give you a fair idea of what to pay for the car you want to buy.
Stay strong during the negotiations
The second most important thing
to do is you should never be afraid of walking away when negotiating. The
dealers are experienced people and they know how to get that extra chunk of
money from your pocket. In turn if you have done your homework then you can do
one better by walking away and most of the times the dealers would stop you,
bring you back and that would be the time when you have the control of the
deal.
Do your homework
Use the power of Google to search
for the invoice price, the price that manufacturer is paid by the dealer for
your desired car. Now anything above that price would be dealer’s profit. Even
if he offers you to buy the car on invoice price, he is still earning profit in
the shape of holdback, quarterly pay backs by the manufacturer to the dealer.
So, don’t let him boss you on the invoice price.
Keeping an eagle eye on Foursquare
Keep a strict eye on the
foursquare map, the salesman can fool you around easily with figures by giving
up few bucks on down payment and then ripping you apart on monthly payments
while you are still in the lala-land of snatching a low down payment from the
cruel clutches of the salesman/dealer.
Staying away from monthly payments
Negotiating on the basis of
monthly payments should be strictly a no-go area for you. Many customers fail
to notice that stretched loan term and swelling interest rate. If you manage to
get a fair price and interest rate then your payments would stay low over the
loan period.
Unleash your trade in
Now that you have got the price
sorted, tell the salesman that you would like to discuss trading in. Again, do
your homework, find out the exact value of your old car in the market and then
take it from there.
By the end of this discussion you
are bound to have the best car deal in town, rest assured.
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