In this week’s Goss’ Car Buying Tips video, America’s Trusted Mechanic shares how to negotiate your best deal after you have decided on the new car you wish to purchase. Pat tells you what to expect from the dealer, how to establish to a fair price, and what parts of the deal can be negotiated.
Pat also share a few “don’ts” like don’t fall in love with a car and don’t be fooled by television commercials because a handshake is not a guarantee for any deal. To learn about all of Pat Goss’ great tips for negotiating the best deal on your new car, make sure to watch the video.
After you purchase your new vehicle, don’t forget to protect your car with an extended auto warranty from CARCHEX. Stay tuned for more videos in this series!
Alright now, you’ve selected the car, you’ve road tested the car, everything is fine, but still, remember one thing, you never fall in love with a car. Especially when you’re negotiating to buy it. See, cars are just mechanical devices and there are all kinds of them. You can go to the next dealer and find the same thing so, don’t fall in love.
Now, it’s time to make the actual deal. Now there are certain key things about making a deal on an automobile. You have to remember that the dealership is in business to make a profit, they’re entitled to make a profit, they have a big overhead. So trying to get them below where they would make a profit, that’s probably not going to happen because if they do that on a regular basis, well, they’re going to be out of business shortly.
So you want to negotiate a price based on your research that’s fair to both you and the dealer. Now, once you get to that point, remember, everything that is promised to you, has to be in writing and it has to be approved by management. See this ‘handshake deal’ well, between you and the sales person that has no meaning what so ever, believe me. In writing, signed off by the manager. And always make sure that all of the terms, everything that you’re going to be owed, everything that you owe and all of the numbers and everything, monthly payments, all of that, that it’s spelled out in the contract and there are no blanks in the contract. Because blank spaces are well, they can be deadly.
Normally the first offer that comes down to you is going to be higher then what the dealership would ultimately accept. And that means that you have to negotiate that you have to get your very best price. Now how do you go about doing that? Well one of the ways of course is just to ask for a lower price. But be realistic about it. If you’re looking at a $25,000 car and you offer them $12,000 they ‘re going to think you’re a jokester and they’re not going to give it any credence at all. But, if you’re very close to the numbers that you’ve seen in your research and let’s say your research suggested $23,500 is a respectable price and you hit them at $22,500, well that’s a reasonable offer and they may well match it or come back with something very close to it.
Remember as you go through the process that every part of it is negotiable. The financing for instance, you can usually negotiate a lower finance rate unless you’re dealing with some very very special promotional rate or something like that. And you can negotiate accessories, you can negotiate packages; the paint sealants and all of that if you’re into that sort of thing. Well, all of that stuff is negotiable and you never want to pay the list price for them. The other thing to remember that all of thee add-ons, the paint sealants and all of that, you may be told that you have to do it today or it’s gone. Best thing to do is to get up and walk out because nothing is that set in stone.
