Agreed. When we bought a new car in 2013, in addition to having done all the homework on the new vehicle, we’d already had CarMax appraise our trade-in. Granted, CarMax pays out low, too, but we certainly weren’t going to get even less than that from the dealership. And surely enough, the dealership offered quite a bit less than CarMax had. We simply showed them the appraisal form (and they knew us well enough at that point to know we’d walk if we were unhappy), and they matched CarMax’s price for the trade-in.
If you are buying a new car, educate yourself about the concept of prepack or holdback. You can even find info about percent holdback for specific car companies on line.
Essentially, with a new car, the dealer pays less than invoice for the car. So, even at invoice, the dealer makes a profit selling the car. You should never, never pay anything close to MSRP.
Last time I sold a vehicle (2006), it was a 1995 Ford Ranger with 230,000 miles, a screwed-up manual transmission (wouldn’t go into 2nd), new-ish tires, a beat-up interior, jacked up brakes, and an aftermarket paint job that was just sort of dissolving over time.
I figured I’d get $600 for it (that wa; I ended up getting $1400. I almost blurted out “Your guy did check the correct truck, right?” but I managed to hold my tongue.
So sometimes they don’t always low-ball that trade-in value.
I was a big fan of TrueCar when we bought my wife’s Jetta SportWagen TDI. I didn’t sign up or use any “certified dealers,” I just used the free portion of the site to figure out what people were paying. I took that price (somewhere around average, I wasn’t trying to get the best deal of all time and make a huge fuss just to save a few hundred bucks more, I just didn’t want to get taken for a ride) and told the dealer that was top dollar.
They said they couldn’t do it, I told them that was the offer and that they had my phone number, and the next day they called and agreed.
It basically gives you some knowledge going into the negotiation in an easy way. You can dive way into all the numbers and probably save a little bit more if you really wanted to fight the dealer, but in terms of time spent vs. money saved, it was a huge help.
Yeah, Edmunds is good and you can use them to get price quotes from dealers via email. Do not bother with phone quotes, they are worthless. OTOH, the worst dealers will spam you forever afterwards.
Never buy from a Toyota dealer.
Read some articles:
http://www.edmunds.com/car-buying/top-shopping-tips-from-a-former-car-salesman.html
They will do the Four Square and if you think you got a good deal on your trade in then they are screwing you on the price, the % or the add ons*.
My brother just made use of a cool perk at work. His employer offers a concierge service for buying a car. You give them all your specifics and they work out the best deal they can, which you then can approve. He bought a car without leaving his desk; his old car was gone and the new one in his parking space at the end of the day.
Nice!
CarMax will buy your car outright even if you’re not buying a new one from them. I assume that’s what bump was talking about. I think in general they pay near the lower end of the trade-in book value, but it’s definitely worth checking out as a baseline price if there’s one near you.