One other thing I learned: stay away from the guys with the fake tan. The guys who look like regular guys tend to (tend to!) be less scummy.
I actually got great financing through the dealer that I got my car from.
I’m well aware of any ‘screwing’ he did with the numbers, since he doesn’t use one of those fancy little ‘I punch in the monthly payment here and it does magic’ calculators.
He worked it out on a legal pad in front of me knowing full well that I’m an engineer and then I asked to take a look at it.
I got the car used with 15,000 miles at 2 years old for well under half the price a new car would have cost before tax and title. The yellow sheet of legal paper now belongs to me, and the numbers were never changed. He did also get the bank to lower the interest rate they wanted to charge me (they sent me a letter about a higher interest rate because I had only been at my present job for 7 months at that time) in order to keep everything at the exact payment he made the deal for.
There were a lot of sleezballs I had to deal with at other dealerships before going to his, and I never dealt with any of the salesmen at his dealership, only the owner. Car runs great, doesn’t cost me nearly as much as I had originally thought I’d be paying, although I’m not too crazy about that pinstriping the previous owner put on it. All in all though, I’m pretty happy with that. Least he didn’t act like I was a dumb chick who couldn’t understand engine sizes.
When I was looking to buy my car I ran into the biggest asshole in the car business (IMHO). The feminist side of me hates that I’m about to say this but: I’m so glad my then b/f was with me. They were so fast and kept rushing in and out of the room when they were getting what would be my monthy payments (I hadn’t even decided I wanted the damn car yet) and all the sudden had a paper with what my monthly payments “would be”. He kept saying “just initail right here, just initial right here” I asked him what for, he said “if you like the price.” At that point my b/f asked “so if she initials, that means she buys the car, right?” he said “yes.” I told him that I didn’t know if I wanted the car yet, and I had told him that. He got nasty then and kept asking “so what’s really the problem?” The hell? Talk about a tricky fucking sale. I still hiss whenever I pass that place…
I bought my Mitsubishi Mirage from the best car salesman ever Turns out he was just there to keep him busy after his retirement and didn’t even work on commission. He was so chill and let me come and go for over a week before I finally decided I wanted to buy the car. I try to get as many people as I can to go in there and see him.
I really wanted to drive my new car by the Toyota place and flaunt, tell the asshole “this is what happens when you’re not an ass to customers…” but decided that would be a little too immature…(still think about it though)
Two things I’ve always been told regarding trade-ins:
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Know what your old car is worth. Get the Kelly’s Blue Book price for your car. Refuse to accept less unless your car is just in really crappy shape.
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Never allow the dealer to consider what he/she will pay for your old car until you settle the price on your new car. That way, they can’t cheat you on the price of your old car. It also reduces the number of variables that can be considered when calculating the cost of the new car.
Not “tricks,” exactly; just using information to your advantage.
Good God, the experience I had. Problem is, I was desparate for a car, so I fell for the pitch.
In January '02, the lease was up on my 4x4 Ranger. My parents offered to buy it for me and have me pay them back the $15k that the buy out would be, or spend the same on a different car and give me the same deal. My Ranger only got about 13-15 mpg around town, and gas prices were steadily rising (we all thought $2/gal was just around the corner, grrr…) so I started looking at econo-boxes.
First I got pressured by my mom. She doesn’t like the idea of me driving around in a car without a warranty, since if it breaks down, I’m 200 miles away from a back-up car (one of theirs). There go the used Grand Prixs and Tauri.
I looked at the Focus ZX5 (Dad works for Ford, so he could have gotten the discount on it.) At the time, the cars were a new design and cost a little more than I wanted to spend (hey, I do have to pay it back, I’m not totally spoiled… well, maybe just a little…) Plus, I don’t like my girlfriend’s Focus. It gets recalled roughly bi-monthly.
So I went to the Kia dealership. I was immediatly approached by a salesman, but he was a nice guy, so I listened. I took a Spectra GS for a test drive. The car is nice, if a little bland on the inside. None of the cars on the lot have the options I want though. The salesputz gives me the pressure, and tells me how slow sales are (in retrospect, that’s probably because it’s a freaking Kia dealership.) I ask if I can have a car ordered with the options I want (remote lock doors and cruise control. I like to have cruise for road trips.) He tells me he can just have them installed on the car I test drove.
This is the biggest problem. I thought this sounded good. I asked him if they would be factory parts installed. He said yes. I called my dad, he tranferred the funds, the dealer faxed him the paperwork to sign, he signed and faxed it back. The car is officially bought at this point.
Three days later, the car was ready. My girlfriend drove me to the dealership. I get in, and notice that the cruise control isn’t installed. “Yes it is,” says putz, “it’s right here.” He points to this asinine little control stick under the headlight controls. This is clearly not a factory part. I asked about it, and was told, “I was cheaper to do this way.” I was frustrated, but happy that I at least had a car. Fifteen months later, I regret the purchase every day. The car has gone back in three times for heating problems. There is a very valid reason that Kia has the 10 year/100,000 mile warranty: The car needs it.
I’m more frustrated with myself than anything. I bought the pitch. What was I thinking? Gaahhh…
Now a question: Could I have refused the car when it was delivered without factory parts? I’ve been wondering that for, well, about fifteen months.
Sorry for the long hijack, but I needed to vent that.
I’m 46 years old and have bought probably 15 cars in my life, both new and used. In that time I’ve picked up a bunch of tricks to keep from getting screwed, many already mentioned here (Rule #1: NEVER negotiate on monthly payments, ALWAYS negotiate on final price).
But, crap, I hate car shopping. It’s like shopping in a medieval Dungeons and Dragons bazaar. I hate always having to be on the look-out for subtle, confusing, dishonest sales tactics. It’s exhausting. Can you imagine going through this every time you wanted to buy a refrigerator or couch? Yeah, there still might be some negotiating, but not like car buying.
I think my next car’s going to be a Saturn.
I bought a lease-return '97 Saturn SL2 about three years ago. The only headache was dealing with the financing, which was NOT through the dealer. The guy who sold me the car went out of his way to see that I got what I wanted. And the car is at 75,000 miles and has given me no major mechanical problems at all. crossing fingers
And if something happens and I need to get another car, if need be I can get my mom’s husband to negotiate for me. Yes, that may be weenie of me, but otherwise I KNOW I will get screwed. I am no good at those sort of games. He, on the other hand, greatly enjoys it. (???HOW???)
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Consumer Reports is a great source. But also check their “Satisfaction with the deal” chart. Toyota always ranks dead last- they have the scummiest dealers by far. (But nice cars- just don’t buy them from a Toyota dealer). Saturn ranks #1 in this- although their cars are not quite as nice as a Toyota.
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negotiate by price, not by monthly payment, like PoorYorick sez.
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Quietmans advice is dated now- IF you have “very good credit” and thus qualify for one of those special nationally advertised MANUFACTURORS great rates. If you do- now is a good time to buy a car. 0% is very very good. BUT- if you do not qualify for one of those special rates- nationally advertised thru the Manufacturer- not the Dealer- then do not accept dealer financing. Get the financing from your CU. Don’t belong to one? Join one. Banks are almost as good.
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Take someone with you. No- really.
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Check everything, yes everything. Even the math. Make sure everything you wanted is there on the contract- and nothing you didn’t want.
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Do not pay for sealants, undercoating or other crap. Overpriced by 500% or more.
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Shop around before you are ready to buy. Tell them you are not ready to buy- and stick to it.
You can skip items 2, 4 & 5 if you buy a Saturn. I recommend them for a inexperienced buyer- they will not rip you off.
IF you are very very good at this sorta thing, and you hit them at the right time, you can get a better deal through bargaining, true. But it will take hours, and be very annoying. My dad sold cars, and I know the tricks… and I bought a Saturn. Think about it.
This is not an advertisement, I am not affiliated, blah, blah, blah, but I just had an incredibly positive car buying experience (bought a Honda Odyssey Tuesday) and wanted to share the source of my pleasure.
Check it out, you may appreciate it. It allowed me to set the terms of the deal myself, play dealers off against one another, and get an absolutely incredible deal. Best $30 I have ever spent.
My dad and I have had one positive and one negative experience at Honda dealers.
When I got my new Accord, I went on edmunds.com and asked for info from local dealers. I got an e-mail from the nearby dealer, offering me $400 over invoice for the LX, some $1500 off of the floor sales price. I called the person up (the internet/fleet sales manager), made an appointment and came by. She let me test drive both an Accord and a Civic, and gave me a very fair deal - I leased it, and was able to get the promotion Honda was giving at that time, for even less than the payment the promotion was for. She never pushed extras.
My dad got a new Odyssey in Florida, though, and was very upset at the way he was treated. They kept trying to make him get extra stuff he didn’t want (pinstriping, etc) and even after asking for it to be removed, the dealer kept putting it back in.
So a tip: When you call the dealer, ask for the internet or fleet manager. You’ll most likely get a better deal.
I will never understand why dealers treat women, especially young women, like they are morons. One sure lost my sale that way. I was about to leave for grad school and was looking for something a small notch above a complete beater (ugly, but small and reasonably reliable), and was browsing on the trade-in lot at the local Toyota dealer. I saw something I thought might fit the bill, went home, loooked up the Blue Book price (about $2 k), and went back the next day. The car wasn’t a beauty, but I thought it would at least get me through 2 years of grad school.
Salesman comes up to me, and I ask him what they’re asking for the car. He tells me $4500, and I respond with the Blue Book price and the observations that it had 90k miles on it, rust spots, and a muffler that was about to fall off. Does he change tactics upon observing that I’d done my homeowrk? No, he says “Well, what did you expect in that price range?” with a big condescending sneer. I told him I expected a car that would run and a fair deal, told him he was a pompous ass, and left.
Flash forward a few years: the car I ended up buying finally gave up the ghost, and I was on crutches, I had neither the time to waste nor the energy to convince people to haul me aroun dlooking at cars. I can more or less afford a new one and get a great rate from my CU, and go off to a Nissan dealership to look at Sentras, armed with the newspaper ads about rebates and a mind-blowingly great sale price. First dealer offers me the sale price, but almost nothing for my trade-in. I tell the second dealer they’ll get the sale if they offer me the same sale price, but beat the deal on the trade-in. They do, by $300 (the trade-in was really quite kaput), so I buy there. But the sleazeballs try to take out the floor mats before handing over the car! I call them on it, and they sheepishly hand them over and I’m on my way.
God, I love that car. But it would have been really interesting to see how differently they would have treated me if my then-boyfriend hadn’t been there. (I would have gone by myself, but was unable to drive my stick-shift car because of my leg, plus the car had pretty much died. That, plus I’d never bought a car by myself before, much less a new car, or bought any car with financing rather than in cash.)
Not only is that redundant, but you have yet to make a point.
I wholeheartedly agree with the recommendations against rustproofing and undercoating. Most manufacturers include a 6-to-10-year/100,000-mile warranty standard. They can do this because they use a lot of zinc chromate-primer and/or galvanized
steel in critical areas.
“Rustproofing” indiscriminately sprayed all over your inner body
can block drain holes, trap salty water, and actually promote rust.
This crap can also raise hell with window risers and tracks, door locks,and their associated motors and switches.
If you see a used car with the tell-tale plugs over the holes drilled to get this crap into the body–offer LESS, not more for the car. I had window and rust problems in a used car I bought that had been Ziebarted and the local Ziebart shop wouldn’t cover it because I didn’t register with the company within a month of buying the car. Basically, I think he was avoiding responsibility for a job originally done in St. Louis.
Maybe these coatings would have some effectiveness beyond the factory warranty if the applicators removed all interior panels and carefully applied the coating materials with a small brush or roller. Such a job would be prohibitively expensive.
The last experience I had with a new-car salesperson was very positive. As I turned down each “extra”, she let that one drop and calmly went to the next, no pressure to get me to change my mind. That was 5 years ago; the poor girl has probably long since been fired. If I could afford a new vehicle, I’d seek her out nonetheless.
Wow, I’ve never seen a rant turn into a thread containing such excellent advice. I knew that doing research was the best way to go because I definitely got screwed on my last car, though I kind of deserved it I think.
When I wanted a new SUV (SUV-haters note, I needed it to lug computers around all day) I decided to get an Isuzu Trooper, mainly because the vehicle I had prior to that was an Isuzu pickup truck that I drove like mad, put 100,000+ miles on, and never once had a problem with.
So I went to dealer #1, got his price on the Isuzu I test drove. Dealer #2 gave me a much higher price. $5,000 higher in fact. I told him Dealer #1 would give it to me, same truck, same package, etc. He hemmed and hawed and finally went down to the price. I called Dealer #1 just to double check my options and discoverd that the price he’d quoted me was for the base model, the model I finally bought for the same price was the maxed out model with all the options. So I figured I got a good deal.
Too bad the piece of shit had so many problems that after 3 months of driving it I threatened to invoke my lemon law rights and the dealership gave me a new machine, this one a Rodeo, for a lower price. I’m semi-happy with the Rodeo, but it’s much more cramped than the Trooper, and I don’t need and SUV anymore, because I no longer fill my car with computers every day.
I’ll also add that I’ve become addicted to evaluating cars ont he internet. Who knew there were so many sites? I’ve got a spreadsheet put together with make, model, and a bunch of other information, plus a picture of the car. I’m putting one together for Welbywife right now.
The sad part is that she isn’t even looking for a car. I just wanted to do it because it’s fun.
Heh heh heh, welby I know how you feel. It is just so easy to research now, that I knew alot more about the cars I was looking at then the sales drones. I got a good deal on my car, but now have to wait a few more years (unless we sell the Pathfinder) before I can play again.
Here’s an interesting read. An Edmunds.com reporter got himself hired at two different dealerships just to write the article. It’s called “confessions of a car salesman”:
http://www.edmunds.com/advice/buying/articles/42962/article.html?tid=edmunds.n.mainindex.advice.buying.4.*
Welby, that’s what you get for buying an Isuzu. The ones from the 80s weren’t so bad, but they’ve gotten worse and worse since then.
Yes, there is some good advice here.
Note, that although I’ll admit that a compact car would be unsuitable for your particular needs- a Minivan would have done the job just as well. You really didn’t “need” a SUV.
Please do not start this endless debate again.
DrDeth , I’m not sure I know what you mean by ‘dated’, but I’d like to find out: please post what’s incorrect and I’ll explain to your satifaction or I’ll retract it and say 'I’m wrong".
In my state, the Meat Market Dealerships still regularly burn people with playing with the amount of the payment. Every 2-3 years there’s another car dealership Banned from doing business in my state for deceptive practices. Sadly, I know most of the tricks. My first job after college was auditing car dealerships for a floorplanning bank and I learned all these tricks by seeing what the results were. I was so sickened by it that I left that business after 6 months.
Look, people, you can Dealer Finance if you want. Its just that you’ll have to watch out for all this:
I recommend that every person going to a dealer get business calculator to work back what the true price they’re selling it for (or for $10 dowload the program on a Palm Pilot). Hell, older versions of EXCEL have a file called ‘Sample.xls’ where its free.
Anyway, if you can’t work back the payment at the interest rate he’s quoting you by the loan terms (# of months) back to what he claims he’s selling for, Don’t Sign. Either he’s adding a cost that he’s not telling you about or he’s kicking you to a higher APR for a bonus paid by the Floor Planning Bank into his pocket.
Beware the “let me make this easier for you to sign those papers” con, where documents are stacked on a slant so you can sign them quickly. This keeps you from seeing, let alone reading, what you are signing (yes, they slip those insurance policies and extra warranties in there too).
Make sure that any money that you pay as a Down Payment Shows Up On The Contract. If its not there, then its in the salesman’s pocket and you have Zero proof otherwise.
Never take delivery at Night. Insist on this. Any dealer who pushes this knows that the car caught a dent on his lot and he doesn’t want to fix it on his dime. If you pick it up at night, you’ll miss scratches, dents, cracks, etc. …and once you drive away, they are Not His Problem. They’re Yours.
Don’t put money down or sign till you take delivery (and then by check only) and then only take delivery if it meets your satisfaction. One dent, one scratch, then you put the check in your pocket and WALK. They’ll either fix it and call you when its done, or they can eat the car.
PS- that’s the short ‘financing’ version. I have a 20 minute lecture I give friends about why only corporations and not individuals should lease cars in NJ…but I think I’ve covered enough material for one day.
PPS- If this helps just One of you out there, I’ll be happy. But if this Pisses Off just One Slime Ball Car Dealership, I’ll be Ecstatic…