Posted on 02/23/2013 11:04:33 AM PST by urtax$@work
A daughter is new car shopping for a Hyundai(they are supposed to be much better made now)and she used Consumer Reports to find the Invoice Price. She is nowhere near a seaport but the difference in Invoice & Sticker is only $200....
It has been a long time since i bought new and i though my Chevy Invoice was much lower than the sticker. I understood that knowing the invoice was a good baseline to bargain with the dealership.
Do any FReepers know if her Invoice from Consumer Reports is bogus or is there a better place to find invoice prices ?? Thanks.
Lots of other resources online, too:
Everything you need to buy a new car
HowStuffWorks "How Buying A Car Works," car purchasing advice
And don't forget online purchasing agents who, for a fee, will do the haggling for you and get you the absolute lowest price they can:
A few years ago we went shopping to get my wife a new SUV. After haggling all afternoon with the dealer, and using every trick in the book we had learned online, we walked away from his best offer and called CarsDirect. They got us the same car, with the same options -- for ten dollars less than we had negotiated on our own and charged us a $100 flat fee, lol. So we were out $90. But my wife felt better knowing she had gotten the best deal she could.
CarsDirect was rated #1 amongst all the online buying agents by Forbes Magazine and several other national magazines a few years ago. They were nice to us, that's for sure. But I wouldn't use them again. After thoroughly boning up, I'm confident enough in my negotiating skills, I don't really need a buying agent anymore. But once was educational and fun. Good luck.
Lots of good advice here, but no one mentioned
A little bit awkward, but it gives a lot of info a lot of other sites don’t like available colors and their goofy names.
Note that sticker prices these days are much closer to dealer costs and modestly priced cars have very little markup.
Also, compare Hyundai to the similar vehicle from Kia, which might be a little better deal.
Excellent advice. And something apropos the above. Salesmen's offices are frequently wired, and your conversation with whoever's with you is being listened to in that manager's office.
obviously best equipment package price.
I use Edmunds and TrueCar.
What another poster said about buying a ‘new’ used car is also good advice. Often you can find a 1 or 2 year old fleet vehicle that will still have the balance of the factory warranty at a steep discount to the new car MSRP. I recently bought a 2012 Volvo sedan coming off a fleet lease that still has 3 years and 30-some odd thousand miles of warranty at a discount of $17,000 off of the new MSRP. Ended up costing several thousand less than brand new family sedans (Accord, Camry, Sonata, Fusion, etc).
We recently rented a Hyundai for 5 days while our CRV was being repaired.
I don’t know what year it was, but we couldn’t wait to get rid of it.
The windshield wipers barely touched the glass and unfortunately we had plenty of snow, slush and spray those days.
We couldn’t get to the seat belt latches to release them and I have very small hands.
When I was seated in the passenger seat and the door was still open, I couldn’t reach it to close it! I’m 5 feet 3 inches tall.
Never will we consider a Hyundai.
1. Get the invoice price from Edmunds.com
2. The Sales Manager should approve an offer (without trades) for $1000 under invoice.
3. Buy at the end of the month. This is when sales contests are ending. Use the argument, “You made your profit, now go for the numbers” to get a deal from the sales manager.
4. The sales person has no authority to make a deal. The Sales Manager approves everything.
5. Buy at the end of the model year for best deals.
6. On some slow moving models, the factory or the district will give the dealer extra incentatives to move the model that is not selling. Sometimes you can get a really good deal.
Good Luck
The aftermarket is also a major consideration; dealerships make more money from their service department so they’ll give a break in order to have you come back for service. This is true of most big-ticket items- when I managed a camera store back in the 1980s we sold cameras at a loss because we got a 30% margin on film and 85% on photofinishing.
What about ‘destination charges?’ Is there anyway to avoid or reduce those for domestically made cars?
By finding a car on the lot a week old or less, the Dealer hasn't incurred floor-plan finance charges with their bank yet, and you don't want to pay for those charges.
I disagree. The opposite is true I worked as a banker setting up and servicing floor plans for several years and I know the longer a vehicle has been in dealer inventory - and the more interest paid on the floor plan - the more anxious the dealer is to sell it and cut his expenses.
I'll also tell you that a new car is the WORST thing you can buy, financially speaking. The second you drive it off the lot it loses 1/3 of it's value to you. Your absolute best deals in buying cars is to find a 2-3 year old model with low to medium mileage on it as someone else has already taken that 1/3 depreciation hit.
Also untrue. You will lose money buying a new car only if you SELL it the second you drive it off the lot. Of course the same is true if you buy a used car and sell it immediately also. But no one does this
No one is forcing the car dealer to make public these numbers; & frankly, they are made up numbers, anyway. It is part of the marketing plan to allow buyers to “believe” they are paying not much over cost, when actually, the dealer is making a nice profit.
Just because the dealer tells you his “cost” doesn’t make it the truth.
You make a good point that the opposite is also true for the reasons you stated. Don't know about you, but I don't want to buy a vehicle that's been sitting on the dealer's lot for awhile (6 months or longer) because (a) chances are it's been test driven repeatedly even though the odometer says it only has 20-25 miles on it and you and I don't know if it's been mistreated during its break in period and (b) cars that sit for long periods of time that don't get driven tend to deteriorate. Hoses, seals, etc.. dry up, rust starts forming, etc.. Again, less likely on a brand new car, however I like to minimize the possibility of anything going wrong when buying a new car.
I'll also tell you that a new car is the WORST thing you can buy, financially speaking. The second you drive it off the lot it loses 1/3 of it's value to you. Your absolute best deals in buying cars is to find a 2-3 year old model with low to medium mileage on it as someone else has already taken that 1/3 depreciation hit.
Also untrue. You will lose money buying a new car only if you SELL it the second you drive it off the lot. Of course the same is true if you buy a used car and sell it immediately also. But no one does this
Your correct, no one turns around and re-sells a car immediately after they purchase it and I should've qualified my answer far better than I did. The fact however is this: the buyer of a new car takes the brunt of the depreciation the minute the car is driven off the lot. That's just fact. Now, if they trade-in that car in 2 years or less, you and I both know they're going to take a bath on the trade-in, and chances are high that they'll owe more on the car than it's worth. I think you and I both also know that when the trade-in value is less than the value of the car, a Dealer is all too happy to roll the difference between the two into a new loan on another new car because they make more money on the deal. By arranging to roll the loan and finance the new vehicle, the Dealer gets compensated by the bank (I forget the term, it's been over 20 years..)
The other fact is that car's are not "investments." Whenever a car dealer tells you that a car is the second biggest investment most people make --- run away!
Cars are nothing more than depreciating assets. Most people don't know or realize that which is why they're often surprised at how little they receive for their car on trade-in, especially if they trade it in 2 years or less after purchasing it in the first place!
Finally, the only person who "wins" in the car sales game is the Dealer (and the bank/finance company that finances the purchase.) The customer never wins the game, the best one can do is minimize their losses in the initial purchase, and then drive the damn' thing to the junk yard when its useful life is completely exhausted - and not a minute before.
That's how I should've qualified my answer.
Was supposed to be:
when the trade-in value is less than the remaining loan on the car ...
Boy, I sure need to slow down when I type....
BTW: Don't often run into folks who understand how the car buying and financing game is played. Kudos for your valued contribution to the discussion and allowing me to clarify part of my response.
I'm willing to bet you're a car dealer's worst nightmare when you walk in to purchase a car. The things we learned in that business huh?
Bookmarking for priceless (pun) info later.
I agree with you on that - but I’m a bit taken aback by the whole notion that a customer should negotiate based on the profit the business makes. To me, that’s simply not relevant.
I disagree with that because most people buying a new car are going to be holding on to it for a number of years. A car is not meant to be an investment (unless you are collecting antiques) so it is irrelevant how much "value" it loses when you drive it off the lot.
Buying a used car might be cheaper up front but it carries the risk of major repairs because you will never know how the previous owner maintained it. Plus, unless the previous owner was a neat freak, you are going to be dealing with somebody else's food crumbs in every nook and cranny, stains on the interior carpets, etc. Most people are slobs when it comes to their cars. I absolutely forbid anybody to eat food in my car and get it professionally detailed every spring so it keeps looking brand new year after year.
It's true that more people are holding onto their cars now longer than ever before however many of the folks I know are still trading in/trading up every 2, occasionally 3 years. Every time they do, they take a financial bath.
For those of us that drive 'em until the wheels fall off, you're right.
Of course it is not relevant. Customers should negotiate based on what they value the purchase.
Dealers want you to dicker based on their mythical profit/loss on a vehicle. They are trying to make you sympathize with them, & make you think you are being unfair. You wouldn’t want to be unfair, would you?
If the dealership cannot make a profit, I could care less. That is not my responsibility. My only priority is the best vehicle at the lowest price.
At best, sticker prices, invoice games, & the like only give you a starting point in the negotiations. Research on the Internet is a much better way to prepare to deal.
My wife taught me this trick. It has saved me money & heartache over junk products. Read the reviews of a product, especially the negative reviews. Good reviews are often quite general, “Great product!”, & such, but bad reviews are more often very specific, alerting you to aspects of a product you may not like but wont find out about until after purchase.
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