All on-line articles teaching negotiation talk about “Rely on Your Knowledge”. Well, for a new car, it is relative strait forward. With used cars, the mileages and conditions vary so much. How do you know what is the fair market price?
Like to learn some real practice skills to negotiate for a used car. I think the like of truecar and KBB are all in dealers’ favor. Their fair market prices are way too high.
I do like the cargurus where they track the number of the days the car has been on the market and the price change. Any one know how many days it will take for a dealer to sell a car at a loss?
How do we find out how much the dealer paid in auction for the car?
Go to Carmax. Or Carite. No negotiating at those places. There is a price on the car…and the prices are competitive. We just purchased a used Camry at Carite. It was 2012, personal lease vehicle. It had a clean car fax report. Carite put new brakes, tires, full tune up (all fluids and filters), full,steam cleans inside, full buff and clean outside. New spare tire and jack set. And the forty point inspection.
Look for a place like this and you will never buy a used car any other way again.
I have had good experience with CarMax. You also can purchase extended warrantees and they have a service repair shop. They will also give you an offer if you want to sell your car.
Thank you T1. I don’t think we have a Carite here. The CarMax suggest is interesting. They offer a No-haggle price and seem to willing to transfer cars from other locations at no cost.
has anyone studies the No-haggle price and see if they are on the fair side?
Does anyone know how much a dealer typically mark up the price of a used car? 20% or 5%?
Another thing to consider is if you have AAA membership they have tools to help you purchase a car at the right price.
I am guessing this is no haggle prices for new cars. They too have their own repair shops and offer two years /24,000 mile warranty on any service.
Recently bought a used car…I learned a lot and think a did pretty well but of course I made some mistakes in negotiation. As my DH pointed out, the salesmen do this every day…you do it every 5-6 years or so. My advice:
Search cars at dealers for several weeks before planning to buy and take note of price changes of similar cars to the type you're searching for....you can get an idea of how long it's been on the lot from the car fax report.
Go in to buy at the end of the month. Go in alone and say the car is for your spouse and she/he is away but has to agree on car. Gives you an opportunity to step away and think about the offer they're making while you place call and more time to think while talking it over with spouse. Also gives you reason to walk away and if they are anxious to sell that car, they will start making reductions.
Have a "buy now" price in mind for what you want to spend but don't divulge this number....unless you tell them a lot less...depending on your research for what similar cars are going for. Earlier in the shopping process, have someone write down the various license and dealer fees .... and calculate what the sales tax will be. Tax, fees, and sale price will be your "out the door" cost. The sales price and some of the fees are negotiable.
Start your negotiating price lower than the fair price. Like $500 at least. You don't want to start with the fair or average price unless you are truly going to get up and walk out of the dealership if you don't get it.
Don't start negotiating on price until you're ready....have all car history info on the car, have checked on car repair websites for that make and model year, googled owner complaints on the make and model year, know what potential repairs that car is prone to based on how old it is.
Have alternative cars in mind at rival dealerships and don't be shy about saying you're aware of other cars and don't mind a long drive if necessary to check out those cars.
Don't get suckered into buying an extended warranty on a model/year with a great record for customer satisfaction and repairs. That's what you do the research to find out.
There will always be another similar car....unless you really need the car right away, be patient and keep looking for the car and price you want.
I never buy a used car for a reason. Can’t stand car salesman used or new, I research online and tell them to name me a price. If everything is reasonable I come and pick up the car. I dont need to spend hours negotiation. The last time I had a good deal at a wholesale dealer but I spent months researching online.
DadII…check that policy on getting cars from other Carmax sites. My SIL did it, but she would have had to pay the transfer costs if she didn’t buy the car. It’s only free if you buy it OR it was somehow misrepresented.
I didn’t like KBB either. I went to edmunds.com and car guru to make notes on price ranges for similar make/model/year.
You can check out Hertz and other rental companies that sell cars. They also claim to be no haggle, but I’ve noticed prices vary somewhat for similar cars so I don’t know how rigid they are about dealing on price.
My impression of Carmax was that the experience may be hassle free but the prices reflect that in the dealers favor…sometimes by thousands of dollars.
I think you are selling yourself short. You successfully renegotiated your s’s FA package. This is not much different. Paying the least possible amount is your strength.
My last two " new" cars were used.
One was a dealer demo, that the owners wife drove for a year, not many miles.
It was all tricked out for a 1992. Electric seats that raised & lowered, moon roof, captains chairs.
We had it for ten years and then I bought a car that had been leased, and had even fewer miles on it. I got it at my credit union sale, and it was a very good deal. I had gone to the sale where they had the cars on site, I liked one, and went home to discuss it with H. When I went back a couple hours later, it was gone. I was very disappointed, and the sales person offered me the same price for a similar model ( with a few more features) but a different color.
I really wanted the other color ( a Swedish blue), so I said no thank you and went back to my car.
He followed me and knocked about 1/4 off the price, so I said OK.
Red isn’t a bad color for a Jeep, I guess.
We’ve had it for about 12 yrs.
Ek4, I tried the walk away trick but did not work. We also tried the we just got out another deal trick. One mistake I made was to really enjoy the test drive.
Since we are shopping for a certified preown, we have to work with a dealer.
The thing is, mine wasn’t a trick.
I was actually annoyed he followed me. It wasn’t a ploy.
You can’t get emotionally invested in the car before you buy it.
I used to sell cars, used and new, for about a year - sold more than a hundred in that time, but hated every minute. Won’t go into that here, but let me parse through some things on here…
If you have time for this kind of thing, sure.
Absolutely. Both salesmen and managers get paid based on the cars they sell each calendar month, so on the last day or two they are generally willing to take a lower profit if it means they make their bonuses.
You don’t need excuses - just be willing to walk out. Any excuse you give a salesman is a tool they will try to use to get the sale. People don’t like being proven liars, and the dealers know that, so if you give them a reason you can’t buy the car they will help you to fix it. When they do, it becomes that much harder for you to turn down the deal.
Most fees are not negotiable, and if they are then they aren’t fees, they are something you are being sold. Absolutely get all your info up front, and remember what matters to you. Dealers want to maximize the price you pay for the car, their finance departments want to maximize the amount you pay in interest (to them, of course!), the most common tactic in the world is to use the numbers they don’t care about (term, mostly) to lower the number YOU care about most (monthly payment, generally) without touching the numbers THEY care about.
Again, people don’t like to be proven liars. If you offer a price, expect to honor it, because there is a part of your brain that will want to make you. Likewise, be aware of the “If I, will you?” sales technique for the same reason - once you commit out loud, it is hard to back off. So if you have to give a number, give a low number but one you can live with it. If you go TOO low, of course, they will try to shift you to a cheaper car - they can make more profit there if you do, and make you feel like a cheapskate (and thereby more willing to spend) if you don’t. There’s a lot of psychology behind all this.
Yes. Negotiating sucks, and you don’t ever want to go into it unless you are willing to buy the car, and that means knowing what you are getting into.
Yes, absolutely, but the most common counter-tactic is to drag things out - if you spend 6 hours at dealer A, they know you will more likely take a bad deal there than risk spending another 6 hours at Dealer B, especially with no guarantee of a better deal.
Extended warranties are a tricky subject. Overall, they are a bad deal, but they are right for some people. Just remember that the costs and even content of the warranties are negotiable as well.
Absolutely. You get your worst deal when you are in your worst bind.
If it is a new car it can take more than a year. If it is used, they are more likely to send it to auction than take a loss on a customer sale. Most cars will be gone within 90 days of arrival.
They might have taken it on trade, but regardless those numbers are not available to you.
It isn’t a percentage. The dealer takes a car in and does some level of work on it (even if it is just moving it or gassing it up) and adds the cost of that work to the car. They then add a fixed amount to each car for overhead, typically $500-1000, and then add “pack” on top of that, $2000-4000 is what I am used to. So if they take in a $500 car and spend $100 cleaning it, they might advertise it for $3095, with anything above $1100 being profit that is split between the salesman, manager, and dealer.
I used to have guys come in all the time and do this. Some bought cars, but not always for a good deal. The ones who didn’t either felt that we should sell them cars for less than our cost, or (amusingly) failed to realize that the websites they were researching (yes, even the big ones) got things wrong. I had one guy shove a paper with his expectations in my face, and when I told him I couldn’t do it he stormed off before I could even say “because they don’t make them in this configuration!” I’m hoping he eventually figured that out, but he wasted a lot of effort in the process!
