The last time I bought a car I went into the dealer planning to tap my home equity line for about half the price. It was fun watching the loan guy's grind knowing what my interest rate I already had available. He started off around 9% and kept dropping when I told him "No, that's way too high". He finally got to around 4.5% which was just a hair below what the home equity line was after the tax deduction.
Never accept a car dealers first offer on either the price or the interest rate.
Yep, you’re absolutely correct. I once went into a dealer to buy a new car with a pre-approved site draft. When the dealer asked what the interest rate was I told him and he said, well I can give you that rate. I told him don’t give me something I already own, beat it by at least .5%. Of course, he couldn’t.
Reminds me of a conversation I had with a car salesman when I was buying my daughter’s car.
Me: How much is this car?
Him: How much are you looking to spend?
Me: That’s irrelevant. How much is this car?
Him: Do you already have financing or are you looking to finance with us?
Me: That’s also irrelevant. Do you know how much this car is, or should I talk with someone else?
Him: I’ll have to ask a manager. I don’t understand why you won’t tell me how much money you want to spend on a car. That way I can show you which cars meet your budget.
Me: You don’t need to know my budget. I’m asking you about this one car. What is the price?
Him: Well, if you won’t give me any information, I just can’t help you.
And off he stomped. My daughter and I burst out laughing. It was great. Of course, by that time, I’d already figured out his game was to find out how much somebody wanted to spend, then get them into the cheapest possible car for just over that amount of money. That’s why there weren’t any prices listed on any of the cars. We didn’t buy a car there.