Thumper, why a Camry and not a newer Corolla? I ask because I was helping an older friend with accord vs civic, and civic only loses 6" in back seat. As she never has passengers in rear, she could buy the new Civic at price of used Accord.
We drove the Camry, Corolla, Civic and Accords. The Camry was (in our opinion) far and away the most comfortable ride. It was also much quieter. The price difference wasn’t that much between the cars. A newer Corolla would have cost more than the Camrys we bought. Ditto the Civic. Both were not as smooth a ride as the Camry.
We found NO new Corollas or Civics $15,500 out the door…all were more expensive.
@thumper1 In last few days I have test driven Accords, Civics, and Camry’s. Camry’s had the best ride. In the Accord I felt the bumps in the road and honestly preferred the Civic over it. I also felt the Accord was noisy. Now trying to decide between a Civic and a Camry. Able to get a Civic lx with 20,000 miles for just under $15,500. (out the door)
@raclut we felt the same way. The Camry was number one. The civic was number two. We thought thr accord and Corolla were noisy and not comfortable rides.
Good luck!
Can a Certified Preowned car price from the dealer be negotiated or is that a haggle free price?
Yes, it can be negotiated. I usually try to negotiate out-the-door price that includes taxes, registration and every other possible charge.
We haggled to get a car certified CPO’ed. It was on the lot at the dealership as a regular used car, and it was exactly what we wanted.
Getting it to certified CPO status required more reconditioning of the car and extending the warranty (they probably had to put about 1k into the car to get it to that CPO level), but they did.
CPO cars can be a great deal especially if the warranty is extended to 100k miles, giving you the extra peace of mind.
My certified Car also had a 60,000 mile bumper to bumper warranty which was terrific.
One thing I think you have to watch out for with buying used cars is processing fees. I looked at a Honda cpo and the processing fee is $595 vs Carmax $299vs Enterprise car sales $199. If you can get a good cpo deal even with the higher processing fee then it maybe worth it. You really have to look at the breakdown of the numbers.
Update for anyone following along, I bought a car yesterday. Wound up going with a 2016 Kia Forte 5, (so a new car, the 2017’s come out sometime this fall I guess).
I got about 25% off MSRP between two big manufacturer rebate/incentives and the dealer took the price down a big chunk. I used the financing I had pre-qualified for, and didn’t buy any extras.
It was a long month or so of research and shopping and negotiating and I won’t lie being in the dealership finishing up was a tad stressful, but I’m very happy with my purchase, and looking forward to driving to my kid’s college parent weekend later this month.
Thanks for the tips and support, everyone!