Negotiating with terrorists I mean car salespeople

[FourPaws]

@Hockey Monkey

Nope, that’s it. No easier way to do it. Then you have to have the title notarized and go to DMV, and Oy, it’s a big hassle.

1. It depends on where your lender is located. If they are a local credit union or bank, they ma have the title right on site so you can pay it off and handle to title directly over to the purchaser.

2. If they are not local, than you can tell the lender to send the title to the purchaser – just as dealers and credit unions do when they pay off a vehicle.

3. Hockey Monkey, not all states require a title or bill of sale to be notarized. Here in the Northeast, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Mass, all do not require the title or bill of sale to be notarized. So, it depends on where you’re located.

[FourPaws]

@Bites When Provoked

I have no idea what ‘prime’ means, but your concept intrigues me.

So you could, theoretically, take out a car loan to pay off your mortgage, and repay the ‘car loan’ at lower interest?

Prime = Prime Rate = The rate at which banks borrow (simply defined)

You could take out a car loan to pay off your mortgage, but you would have to have enough equity in your vehicle to do so, and you would lose any possible financial incentives (write-offs) on your taxes by no longer being able to deduct your mortgage interest

[Shodan]

@Furious_Marmot

I tried the ‘email every dealer in the region’ approach with Kia, Subaru, Mazda, Toyota, VW, and Mini over the course of a few months. Told them exactly what I wanted- options, color, the whole thing, I even used their stupid names for the option packages. The responses were less than satisfactory. The majority were form letters, sometimes identically worded, which assured me they had lots of car xyz in stock and that I should call right away to arrange a test drive. A few actually referenced the wrong model entirely. Some of the form letters invited me to tell them exactly what car I wanted, when I repeated myself, I then got form letter number one. All told, out of aout 2 dozen dealers, 2 gave me prices on cars that were not remotely the one I had described and one dealer told me what I wanted to know. I’m sure the email strategy works with some dealers, the better ones I suppose, but don’t be surprised if you get the run-around.

This can happen - car salespeople don’t want to deal over the Internet. They want you to come in the door. It’s easy to just delete an e-mail; it is harder to drive to a place, negotiate, and then just pick up and leave if you don’t like the offer.

My rule of thumb is that you should leave once anyway.

Regards,
Shodan

[Misnomer]

This is a timely thread for me, because I plan to start test drives and car-buying discussions with a local dealership soon (in the next week or two).

I don’t have the right personality to be as tough/guarded as most folks recommend. I won’t let myself get talked into options that I don’t want, or anything like that, but for example I will only walk out of a dealership if I’m truly not ready to buy yet – not as a negotiating tactic. I tend to be friendly and open, unless the salesperson talks down to me or makes assumptions based on my gender and/or apparent age (like that I must want an automatic transmission :rolleyes: ). With this knowledge about myself I feel pretty certain that I won’t get the rock-bottom price that someone else could have gotten, but I also don’t think I’ll get shafted … and I’m ok with that.

@Hockey Monkey

Get your financing arranged from an outside source, but tell the dealer and let them beat it for you.

Yay, because my plan has been to walk in and say “can you beat this APR?” My credit score averages 756 (I just checked it last week), so I shouldn’t have to worry about not qualifying for a good rate.

[Hampshire]

@Hockey Monkey

Get your financing arranged from an outside source, but tell the dealer and let them beat it for you. Seriously.

From my experience of buying 4 new cars over the past 10 years I can get behind this advice 100%.
I always call for the current rates at my area bank and CUs. At the dealer I always tell them I have secured my own financing so we can skip that part during negotiations. Once a final price has been settled on I offer them the opportunity to beat the lowest financing rate I found on my own.
Dealers have a 100% track record so far of beating them.

[JohnnieEnigma]

@MannyL

I want a 2009 Pontiac Vibe with Sunroof , Cargo cover and 5 Speed Automatic Transmission. I see them at the dealers for around 22,000 but can’t get them to budge off the price.

They claim the demand is high for them. Any suggestions to get a better deal?

Yes. Wait until the last day of the month… make sure you have your financing lined up. Go in there and make an offer… when they say no, give them your phone number and walk out… go home. And wait for them to call you back with a better offer…

They need the numbers on the last day of the month, so they’ll make the deal.