Sean blogs yesterday about Top 10 Tips for Buying a New Car (and in under 3 hours door to door). Considering that buying a car is one of the most expensive purchases people make next to homes, this is a great primer for those of you about to take advantage of all the “year end clearance sales” at local dealers.
- Do Your Research- getting the details on manufacturer incentives and holdback are essential.
- Get competitive quotes and deal with the right person.
- Know when to buy.
- Be willing to travel to get a better deal.
- Eat before you go.
- Bring a friend… and your kids!
- Game Time: Set two appointments at different dealerships – and a time limit.
- Don’t sign anything or give up your edge until you have a firm base-price offer.
- Remember: Always be ready to walk out.
- Have financing options and be wary of the Finance “Closer”.
I’ll add one more: ask friends and family for references. You may find a good dealer and sales person via a personal connection, and I found when we purhased our last car that we were able to close the whole deal in less than an hour… with a trade in.
Also, you can use many of these tips for many big purchases, like consumer electronics.
Last, use Edmunds.com, the Kelley Blue Book site and MSN Autos for doing some of the research (points 1, 4, 7), esp as you can find snapshots from Consumer Reports on MSN.
Tags: Microsoft, MSN, buying, customer service.
One reply on “Of interest: Tips for Buying a Car”
simple … call a dealership out of town (your town) that does a large volume of business ( I should point out the obvious .. you should be calling a dealer that sells the vehicle you are interested in) and get the "best deal" from them. Take that ‘deal’ (get another from a similar type dealer if you like) and go into your home town dealer, the one you would like to do your servicing with (95% of your ownership will be service and the relationship you have with that dealer) and ask them to ‘meet or beat’ that deal. Let them know you would prefer to buy from them and service with them but you are willing to travel if need be. Lets face it, they will be happy to have your service business because they make (if they are competetive) 75% on service labor and 36% on parts … so, they make a lot more on service and parts than they do on the sale … trust me!