Indeed. Who really gives a shit about cash these days? If anything, I would think the saleperson would be less likely to want to deal with you since they know they can’t stiff you on the payments. Now, a private seller, sure. That’s a different story. A dealer? Nah.
As far as timing belts go, not all cars have them. I have three vehicles, '08, '09, and '13 and they all have timing chains. Don’t let them tell you the belt’s been changed when the thing has a chain.
Also- CHECK THE ODOMETER. Make sure it’s on the total miles setting, not trip A or trip B. The stealership that sold me the '08 cheated me out of over a thousand miles on a new car that way.
My stepfather is a car dealer at a small used lot. $7000 is on the high end of what he sells. A few notes:
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He doesn’t make money financing, so if you come with cold hard cash in your hand that will be an advantage. He’s not big enough for the financing companies to offer kickbacks too; when he tries self-financing half the time the buyer defaults and disappears, or else has moved to Detroit or somewhere so are you going to go there to repo a $2000 car?
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If the dealer has something that doesn’t sell well, chances are he either got a really, really good deal at the auction or it’s been sitting on the lot a year and he wants to cut his losses. Things that don’t sell: green cars, two door cars, Chrysler products, Impalas, most Fords except for their trucks.
Things that sell really well that you’ll have a hard time getting a deal on: Hondas, Toyotas, black and silver cars, Chevys Cruze and Cobalts.
It seems the fad for timing belts is going away. Even many interference type engines have chains. I guess they figure if it snaps that means it’s the vehicles time.
Find the best deal in a 25+ mile radius on a similar car, or failing that a similar model. Print that out and bring it into the dealership, and ask what they can do to match that.
I did that when I bought a large luxury sedan. I couldn’t find a similar model that was cheaper so I found another large luxury sedan that was a different make and model, and printed that off. The dealer knocked 20% off the price of his car but said he couldn’t match it.
But still, 20% off is good.
THIS.
Remember this, you don’t have to buy it, but they do have to sell it. There are a million used cars out there in your price range. You are under no obligation to make them any money.
Well, after all my talk about walking away, we’re doing a pre-purchase inspection on a 2007 Hyundai Santa Fe tomorrow. My mom and Mr. H thought I didn’t like it so my acting was pretty good, but I LOVED it. Barring any major mechanical issues, we’ll get it. It has the cleanest Carfax of any vehicle I’ve seen online or in person. The timing CHAIN was replaced at 94,000 miles (I actually remembered to ask). It now has 97,000 miles with one owner. It just came into our price range a few days ago with a drop from $7,000 to $5,900. Because of this, we’re not going to haggle although I did get them to throw in some new mats and a tank of gas. Car Gurus says the retail value is $8,400 and the sunroof wasn’t included in the listing. I’ll look at Kelley later.
If this works out, we’ll have gotten a heck of a deal. From looking at it online I wasn’t thrilled with this thing although we had an appointment to see it tomorrow. But when the Volvo we were going to look at today was sold, we went and saw this instead. It was so fun to drive, comfortable, had cupholders in the back (my mom’s only request :D), and neither Mr. H or I felt or heard anything weird. We’ll see how tomorrow goes.
The ONLY disappointment is that I really wanted a satellite radio-capable vehicle! From what I’ve read, they started installing them in the second half of 2007. It doesn’t have the AUX feature so we can’t even add one from Sirius. I’ll have to be burning CDs again! Crap.
First, this means you’re paying for the car upfront & not financing; most people don’t/can’t do this.
Second, if the car is over $10,000, there’s mandatory additional paperirk that they must fill out.
Really? I’d love to get you into negotiations, especially in the used car world, where they don’t exactly have a reputation of “doing-unto-others”. Sorry, but I’d rather have $ in my pocket than extra karmic points.
But many people can approach with financing from a third party. That’s as good as cash to the dealer. When I purchased my last vehicle, I had my own financing (and I could have paid cash if I wanted to, but it made no sense to do so), and the dealer up until the last minute wanted me to go with their finance plan. Nobody gives a shit if you come with a suitcase full of hundreds these days. I work in small business. I don’t give a toss if you pay in cash. Whoopdedoo.
The most important bargaining tool is what was said upthread: the willingness to leave the deal. Don’t get emotionally invested in the purchase. Come up with a price, and just stick with it if you have time to spare. If this dealer won’t sell it to you at that price, another dealer down the line may. I don’t care about cars. I like 'em, but I know what I want to spend, go in with that, and that’s it. I don’t care if the salesperson makes money off me. If they’re selling it to me and they accept my offer, they’re making money. Nothing to feel bad or worry about.
If it was a new car, you did go back and have it corrected, right? Warranties for sold-as-new cars start with the actual odometer, not from zero. The dealer would have been happy to correct the paperwork. Only asking if “new” is “new-new” or “new-to-you.”
You’ve made the most common mistake already, indicated by the word I’ve underlined. You’ve fixated on one particular car. Do not do that! Car dealers pick up on that quickly; they’re trained on it. And then they don’t deal as hard.
Try to start with a whole range of vehicles, and always keep 2-3 under consideration. Like: “looking for a 4-5 year old Honda Civic with 60,000 or less miles”. That’s harder on a used car than a new one, but remember that thousands of new ones were sold in your area back then, and so there should me many coming onto the used car market. If you’re not in need of immediate transportation, you can afford to wait for what you want.
P.S. Sounds like you did manage to find one – that sounds like a good deal.
Shouldn’t the OP be looking for private party deals?
The dealership can’t make money selling you a car for 7k unless they managed to buy the car for about 3-4k. So either it’s going to be a car that’s actually worth 3-4k, dressed up to look like it’s worth 7k, or they cheated someone.
Either way, the dealership is going to be a very hard bargainer.
It seems like it would be far more time efficient to do private party. Pick an inherently reliable model. http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a23877/car-maintenance-costs-mileage/ From this chart, it better be a Toyota or a Honda or a Subaru. Find some that are in your price range, private party. Go look at them. Offer 500 under what they are listing it for. Have a mechanic look at it before completing the sale.
Private parties are the choice of last resort because… people. They tend to have crazy ideas about what their car is worth, or have problems that are “cheap, easy fixes” that they suspiciously couldn’t be bothered to do for months/years. I’ve found used car dealers to be more sensible, myself. A used Suzuki motorcycle I like has been languishing on Craigslist for years because the seller’s decided it’s worth about double its actual value and won’t budge. His widow will sell it for junk in a decade, I’m betting.
With a dealer, I feel like the experience is more consistent, I know what to expect and the possible pitfalls. With a private seller, I have no idea. While not necessarily ideal, I’d rather stick with the known quantity.
What I do know is that car shopping sucks. I’m sure there are people that love it, but I just want to get a reliable vehicle I kind of like and be done with it. know that’s not the best attitude so I hope my mechanic has an appointment available today. They open in a few minutes.
Lets not forget that not all private sales are actually “private”. There is a big problem with dealers posing as private sellers to avoid various state and Federal laws.
When the salesman gets out a sheet of paper and divides it in four, watch it! How the four square ripoff works.
“Significant” front-end damage that wasn’t repaired well!! PASS!! Dammit, I really liked this one, but no thanks! I think that’s the best hundred dollars I’ve spent.
Even Carfax doesn’t tell the whole story. So glad we had a pre-purchase inspection.
I think you should be the one responding to a thread like this, not starting one 
That was just one common sense, good instinct move after another, leaving you protected from misfortune. Very well done.
Thanks so much,** driver8**. I’m trying to be intelligent and not be ruled by my emotions. The practical Mr. H helps a lot there. One thing I wish I’d done is talked to the garage sooner. What an obvious source of great information, duh. We’re willing to go some distance for the right car, but this last one was in our city so we were able to use our own mechanic for the PPI. I’ve done a lot of reading and thought Hyundais were pretty reliable, but he said they weren’t, and that the parts prices are very high. I asked for some recommendations and he said an extremely reliable car that’s not expensive to fix is surprisingly, Ford Taurus. I’ve looked at them and I just can’t do it. They’re UGLY. I’m trying not to be picky, but I draw the line there. Maybe I’ll change my mind but for now, no. He laughed and said to call or come by anytime with any questions. I will!
Crud, this will take so much longer than I’d hoped! I’m pretty busy this week so unless something very interesting pops up on one of my searches, we probably won’t be looking until next week.
Look at that table I linked in a post above. It ranks cars by average repair costs, which is something an individual mechanic won’t know. (the reason he won’t know is that both his memory is biased, the cars he fixes are a percentage of the pool out there, and japanese cars can sometimes need expensive parts, but on average the increased reliability puts you ahead)