New Car Prices

I've used the same tactic multiple times. One time a dealer in KC offered me $1,500 below the best I could get out of Betts without even seeing my trade. Made a weekend trip out of it and everything went smooth. I've done the same thing with Woodhouse Mazda in Omaha. Other times Des Moines dealers have been cheaper. The only dealer I'm willing to pay a little more at is Hummels because they've always treated me right. The last 10 cars have been imports so I don't know about the local domestic brands.

I totally got screwed on this last purchase but I know going in that you never buy buy a car that has high demand and low inventory. If I would have waited 6 months I probably would have saved $1,000 but I somehow justified it by the fact that it needed new tires.

I know going in that they are going to make money on me but I also know that I'm always in the drivers seat. I can walk away at any time. With that said I'm not going to spend 5 days haggling over the last $200. I know what my trade in is worth, I know what the invoice on the new car is, and with those numbers I come up with where I want to be. I never tell them this number but it's always in my head.


Agree. The best bet is to do your research, realize the dealer needs to make money too, and figure out the bottom dollar you are willing to spend. When all is said and done, you have to be willing to walk if you are really stuck on price.
 
When I bought my last vehicle I got them to bottom dollar cash and the number was what I needed it to be and then, and only then, did I tell them what I had to trade. When asked what I needed for the trade in, I said, well so and so is giving me X, which was all true, however I wasn't buying my vehicle from the other place and they had a final bottom dollar that was higher.

If you are trading, don't get caught up in the itemization of the money. They will try and do it. They will give you a grand too much for your car but make you pay more than that for the new vehicle. Focus on one dollar amount you are willing to pay.

Yeah, I have people do that all the time. How we combat that tactic is to offer less for the trade than we would have previously so you don't really gain anything. SO glad not to be dealing with new cars anymore. People would be shocked if they knew how little was made on new cars. Today the name of the game is to roll all the iron you can at little to no profit and make the money in parts & service, the cars people trade in, and all the crap sold by the finance office and aftermarket department. Maybe every once in a while they'll have a popular new model in short supply that they can hold some profit on. Most consumers pay more in sales tax on a transaction than the amount of dealer profit but it's how the industry is run. Customers would not believe the amount of overhead dealers have today...especially new car dealers. Manufacturers require fancy places and the government is standing right there with HUGE property tax bills.

We (the industry) know every trick in the book because we work deals hundreds of times a month compared to once every few years for the customer. The ONLY trump card the customer has is the possibility of a better deal from a competitor. Of course the customer has to be reasonable when playing that card because you can't defy the laws of mathmatics. As long as the numbers are plausible we have no choice but to assume they're true. But if they're not, you're toast. I would work the crap out of the competitor first and then take that number back to the dealer I wanted to do business with.

And those stories about getting the best deal at the end of the month? They're all true because everybody has goals and quotas and manufacturers oftentimes have volume driven incentives for the dealers.

The current trend is to take the markup out of the cars because if aggressive dealers are going to give away the margin, the manufacturers would rather just price their cars cheaper. I'd say the average margin today is down to around 9% not counting manufacturer incentives for slow moving product. The good news about that is that it makes it pretty hard to pay way too much.

The best way to get a good deal on a used car is to search cars.com for a comparable year/model/trim/miles/etc. The true market value is usually a little above the cheapest ones listed. (which can vary greatly from book value) It's hard to find an exact match, but all those things in addition to condition, the vehicle history report, etc. will get you to a fair point.
 
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I am going to start looking for a new car for my wife. She knows what she wants but here is my question. How much will a dealer go down in price to make a sale. I usually low ball them and end up with what I think is a fair deal, but wonder how much they would really drop the price to make a sale. Thanks

What car does she want?

Is it a gas saver, small car?

Small cars have small mark-ups. Some small cars, like the Ford Fiesta, have miniscule mark-ups. Ford dealer salesmen don't like to sell them. It takes as much time to sell a Fiesta and is does a Ford F-150, and the saleman makes a lot less money. In todays' market, the bigger the car, the bigger the mark-up.

In today's market, the bigger the car, the bigger the discounts. Have you noticed that trucks are now getting big incentives?

Small cars are in heavy demand now due to gas prices.
 
This is probably not going to help most people, but if you can work it your way than try it.

Had a buddy who wanted a brand new $60,000 truck. He had a lifelong friend that was a salesman at a dealer. So before he went in, they discussed what the bottom dollar was on the truck for the dealership. Than he went in and acted as though he did not know him and acted as though he negotiated his way to the bottom dollar. Therefore, he got the best price for the new vehicle. I wanna say he paid like $45,000 for it, but I cannot remember the exact numbers.
 
This is probably not going to help most people, but if you can work it your way than try it.

Had a buddy who wanted a brand new $60,000 truck. He had a lifelong friend that was a salesman at a dealer. So before he went in, they discussed what the bottom dollar was on the truck for the dealership. Than he went in and acted as though he did not know him and acted as though he negotiated his way to the bottom dollar. Therefore, he got the best price for the new vehicle. I wanna say he paid like $45,000 for it, but I cannot remember the exact numbers.

haha, ive done that. never let them know you know the salesmen. THe managers say that if you cant make money off your friends and family, that who else can you make money off of.
 
I am going to start looking for a new car for my wife. She knows what she wants but here is my question. How much will a dealer go down in price to make a sale. I usually low ball them and end up with what I think is a fair deal, but wonder how much they would really drop the price to make a sale. Thanks

You don't need a new car...

But you do need a jet pack!

Buy it used though... Jet packs depreciate quickly that first year you fly them off the lot!
 
You forgot the jimlad. :twitcy:

I figured the Jimlad was assumed. Although, I do find it odd that they don't tax the car before the trade in value is applied. I mean all this talk about the speed camera Money grab and then the state lets this kind of revenue go by? It just seems really odd. Then again, I live in a state who's motto is, "How can we tax that?"
 
I figured the Jimlad was assumed. Although, I do find it odd that they don't tax the car before the trade in value is applied. I mean all this talk about the speed camera Money grab and then the state lets this kind of revenue go by? It just seems really odd. Then again, I live in a state who's motto is, "How can we tax that?"


It wouldn't make sense to me to have to pay the full tax amount when someone has already paid the taxes on the car you've traded in.
 
I figured the Jimlad was assumed. Although, I do find it odd that they don't tax the car before the trade in value is applied. I mean all this talk about the speed camera Money grab and then the state lets this kind of revenue go by? It just seems really odd. Then again, I live in a state who's motto is, "How can we tax that?"

Don't know if it's still that way, but in Kansas, if you sell your car privately within 60-90 days or whatever it is (after buying another car), you can file with the state for a refund. It's almost like.....they've figured out that the lower the cost of doing business, the more that gets done. :jimlad:

In the state of Iowa, the new car dealers have a pretty strong lobbying group so nothing like that would ever get passed here...
 

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