Car Guide: Getting the best deal
Make your offer. Once you're ready to sit down and start discussing the vehicle's transaction price, the salesperson will lead to you what's known as a "closing room." Bring a calculator, pad and pencil, and any pricing printouts, worksheets and/or new-vehicle price guides into the closing room for reference, necessary calculations and just to show you are serious. Never consider the price of a new car or truck based solely on a given monthly payment–focus only on the bottom-line transaction price to ensure you're getting the best available deal.
Start by making the first offer, which should be your target price, as discussed above. Tell the salesperson how you arrived at this figure, and that if he or she can meet it, then you'll close the deal on the spot. Pull out your checkbook and offer to write a deposit check for, say, $1000 if he or she will accept the offer, just for show.
Typically, the salesperson will typically come back with a counteroffer that will be slightly less than the vehicle's retail price. You should now raise your initial offer by incremental amounts, say, one or two hundred dollars at a time; the salesperson will likely lower his or her price in the same manner.
At some point the salesperson may leave to "present your offer to the sales manager" (though sometimes he may just be just grabbing a quick cup of coffee or a drink of water). He or she will probably return with a higher bid. If it's close to your last offer, try standing firm; if it's considerably higher, continue the negotiating process. If the salesperson won't budge at that point, just stand as though you are preparing to leave and say, "That's it, thanks for your time." The salesperson will then be facing the prospect of losing a sale, so it's likely he or she will make another (or a first) trip to see the sales manager. Either the salesperson or someone else, perhaps the manager him- or herself, will then come in with another offer and try to close the deal. By now you should be looking at the dealer's lowest price, and it will be up to you whether to accept it or seek a better offer elsewhere.
Now, it's time. Once you've reached an agreeable offer, bring up the subject of your trade-in and negotiate that price in a similar manner, based upon your research. If you've gotten a bid on your trade-in ahead of time from the dealer's used-car manager as recommended above, there should be little room for discussion.
Stay on guard when you sign. However, just once you've agreed upon a purchase price and trade-in value doesn't mean you'll be able to sit back and relax. You'll still need to protect yourself in the clinches because you'll now be handed off to the "F&I manager" (this stands for Finance and Insurance). This is where you will be asked to sign the necessary paperwork and otherwise participate in the often costly "back end" of the deal in which dealers can make up to twice as much (or even more) money than they can selling the car or truck itself. We'll show you how you can protect yourself during that phase of the car buying process in a separate article.
Copyright 2005 The Car Connection. All rights reserved.
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