You need to prepare yourself well before you go shopping. Being prepared, able and ready to buy today is what dealers are looking for. They are not looking for shoppers. Take this advice and you will breeze through the process, with an exceptional deal. Don't waste your money or your time reading a whole book. This guide will tell you the most important facts you will need to know. 

Have you ever heard of somebody saying they did not even want to talk to me and somebody else got a great deal? Knowledge, of what to say when shopping, makes the difference. You can't just make them an offer. You need to get through the entire qualification process, with a positive outcome, to be in a position to negotiate.

You need to find a dealer that uses the full process qualify technique. This means they will not deal with you unless you go through all of the qualification steps. You need to play along with their (games) or qualification steps. If you say no games just give me a price, it won't be a good deal.

Go to a large dealership because they usually use the full process qualify technique. There is a better chance they will have exactly what you want.  They will be much better equipped to give you the best service. They will be more likely to give you a better deal than a small dealership because they sell a large volume of vehicles. They can afford to sell a few vehicles at a moderate loss as they can make it up in their large volume on other customers. Go there early in the morning, so you will have all day, to get them to drop the price.

First, you need to tell the dealer that you are pre-approved for financing in the price range you are looking for and never tell a dealer you have been shopping at other car dealers. Tell them they are your first stop. If you have done lots of shopping and still have not bought, they will think that you are not a serious and/or a qualified buyer.  They do not want to hear you say you can't afford the payments or have your credit application declined. 

If no other dealer could sell you, they know it will be hard and take up lots of their time to sell you and they may not sell you at all.  It may mean a profit loss sale for them to sell you. This is a good enough reason to let you go. They will not want to deal with you and they will act like, they do not want to even talk to you.

Price shoppers will usually just walk into the dealership to get figures. Go to the lot and just start looking at vehicles. Let them come to you. Try not to appear too eager to buy. Never just walk into the dealership first. Let them work to get you in there. This will give you more of an edge as you will not appear desperate. The salesperson will be delighted that he/she, got you into the dealership as you will walk in, only, when the salesperson asks you to do so. 

Call them up and make an early appointment with a sales person and show up 10 minutes late. Let the salesperson suggest the appointment first. He/she will be delighted that you showed up and you will be treated like a customer not just a shopper.  

Second, get qualified. Be able prove to them you are financially qualified. Your lender can do the math for you to qualify. Get pre-approved at your favorite lender or bring your checkbook. You will need your title or your exact payoff for that day.  They are gonna try to get you to do the negetive walk around on your vehicle. Do not do this with them.  Don't ever try to pay a car dealer with large amounts of cash. They will have to notify local law enforcement immediately.

You need to write down exactly what kind of vehicle you are looking for, the color and the options you desire. To save money you need to try to find the least expensive vehicle to suit your needs. 

I would not buy a leather interior because it is very expensive and does not wear well. There may be other items that you do not need such as fancy wheels. Buy options such as anti-lock brakes, air conditioning, power door locks with remote, power windows and a good stereo system. You will be glad you did and it will bring a better price at trade-in time, so it is worth it. The huge mark up on options will allow much more room for price cutting.

Try not to give the salesperson too much information. Only give necessary information about the type of vehicle and options you are looking for.  They are going to need to know how much money you can afford to spend. This is the financial qualify. You  should be able to tell them the correct price range of the type of vehicle you described you are looking for. You need to assure them, you are pre-approved in that price range and financially able to buy. Payments you can afford, the loan to value ratio, your down payment, how  much you owe on your trade and your credit worthiness is what they want to know. 

They will do a trial qualify. If they cannot qualify you quickly, they will let you go, so they can focus on more qualified customers. Letting you go means they will excuse themselves and tell you to look around and they will go talk to somebody else hoping you will leave.

The trial qualify is an important part of the sales process. It will sound something like this. Are you the decision maker or do you need to ask your spouse? Is this something that you could do today? If we find what you are looking for will you be paying with a check or financing? You answer should be.  Absolutely I can do this today and I am all pre-approved for financing.

Third, play along with the rapport building. The salesperson will try to find a common ground with you such as being a grandparent, having kids in sports or knowing about the same places or people. Really make friends with them. This is what they want. They figure if they can get you to like and trust them they can drain more money from your wallet. Take up as much of the salespersons time as you can. Get their mind off the subject of what you came there for. If they do not go there first. Rapport works both ways. They are your friend they want you to think. They are on your side to help you get a good deal. They will negotiate with the boss for you so they want to make you think.

Do not do a credit application at any car dealership at first, because, they can tell you have been to other dealers, from your credit report and it produces excess inquiries on your credit report, lowering your credit score.

After you have made a deal, you can then apply at the dealership to get a much better interest rate because the interest is negotiable. They will beat any rate you can get. The dealer has a buy rate, for the loans they write and they make a percentage on the interest rate.  They will do this because, they do not want to let you leave, to get a check from a bank and because they are afraid you will not come back. 

Until you are at the negotiation stage, only give a wide range of figures. Do not let them pin you down to any exact figures. This is really hard as the salespeople are trained, to get all this information as part of the qualification process. You need to get through this process, revealing as little financial or  price  information as possible. You must be very cooperative, about letting them look at your trade. There is nothing that you know of ,wrong with your vehicle. You need to say it like that.

Fourth, try out some vehicles. Test drives, are a very important part of the process. When you are at this stage you know that the dealership believes you are a qualified buyer and trusts you with their vehicles. They hope you may even be a serious buyer that they can convert to sale today for the dealership.

Letting you test drive their vehicles may lead to a sale and will determine if you, in fact, are a serious buyer. This is the dealerships goal to get you to fall in love with the vehicle so you will want it more than the money it takes to buy it.

Always try out several vehicles. Take at least two test drives, of the vehicle you have  decided you may be interested in purchasing.  The more they think you like the vehicle the easier they think it will be to sell you at a higher price. Always act like, you like, a vehicle a lot more than you do so they will think it is time, to move to the serious, qualified buyer step. Once you are at this stage you have their attention and they will do almost anything to get you to buy before you leave.

They will do trial closes that will sound something like this. Lets finish this up so you can have your new car. You say we have not agreed on a price yet.

Fifth, negotiate and close. Negotiate directly with the sales manager. Some dealers will tell you the manager is too busy.

You can tell them that you will come back when the manager is not too busy to close a sale. They will not want you to leave and you will get your way.

The salesperson will still get their commission. Their job is to take you through the steps and help you find what you are looking for. Their job is done but they will stay with you until the deal is closed. Be very careful about being too unreasonable with your offer or they will refuse to deal with you.

If you go through the salesperson they will make you wait a long time while going to ask the manager to try to wear you down so you will give in to their price too soon. Tell them I am ready to buy if you give me the deal I want.

Do not let them try to find another reason or excuse such as being able to afford the payments. It has to be totally a price issue for them to address. Once you are at this stage in the buying process, they will be willing to sell at a moderate loss, if that is what it will take to get a sale. They may just want to close the sale to free up the salesperson to wait on other customers if they are busy. Cash in the deal is a real huge incentive for the dealership. The more you can put down the better deal you will get.

Never make the first offer. Let them make it. Always ask for more than you want. After the second or third offer they will say how much better than that do we have to do? At that point you ask them to split the difference with you to bring them down. Always ask them to split the difference with you before they ask you to with them.

It may take as many as five to ten offers. They will make their largest concession on their second or third offer and each consecutive offer will usually be half of the previous concession plus all previous concessions.

They always allow room for negotiation so they can keep giving counter offers. They will try to get you to split the difference with them to get you to buy. You must do this before they do and stick with your offer.

Eventually they will give in or come real close to your offer if you are willing to stay and wait. Most people are in a hurry so they do not get the best deal.

Getting you to split the difference with them is not a sign they are close to their best offer it is only a tactic to bring you up. They will always make smaller concessions each time. Then they will break down the difference (dollar amount difference between your offer and their offer)  to how much it will cost you per day, making it seem like a very insignificant amount, for you to refuse to make the deal. Usually they can do five times their first and biggest concession.

If you have a vehicle with more than 60K miles on it and or it is more than 5 years old it is a wholesale vehicle so do not expect more than wholesale for it. Most dealers will get an internet printout of your vehicles value and show it to you.

Do not be intimidated by this. You are looking for cash difference or bottom line, not payments. Ask them to give you the difference not figuring in any balance you owe. You will add that in for the total bank loan.

Leasing is not a good deal for the consumer. I like to think of it as a trap because it is very hard and expensive to get out of. There are lots of fees and hidden stipulations that they do not tell you. Usually, you have to pay all of the remaining lease payments, an early termination penalty, any cosmetic or mechanical repairs needed to make the vehicle as new, huge extra mileage penalties and you have to give it back.

Leasing is a very good deal for business owners because they can write off 100% of the lease payments each month.

Do a big flinch on the first offer and get right up and walk toward the door but not until the salesperson has invested lots of time in you and pre-qualified you or you will not have any power with this move. A flinch can be described as an action or physical motion that you do when you hear the offer. Get right up out of your chair as soon as you see it and say you can't be serious, try again.

They rarely expect you to take this first very unreasonable offer but lots of people do.  Sometimes you may get a call back if you leave but give them at least five chances to give you a better deal before you run to the door.

Car dealers use lots of sneaky tactics.

Watch out for the (lowball and the bump). The first dealer gives you exaggerated figures they know nobody can beat. You go shopping or take the deal on the spot, instead of coming back to them, either way it works like this. You see no numbers until you go to closing other than figures scribbled on a blank sheet of paper.

When you go to closing you will sign other papers first before you see the buyers order sealing the deal. They may just insert their own numbers in the buyers order, hoping you will not notice it.

Usually, when you are ready to sign the buyers order, the sales manager comes running in (acting very sorry with a long face) and says they made a mistake and cannot sell you the vehicle for that price and bump up the price. It could be anything from an unpaid service due bill or anything they can say to raise the price.  

If you object they will try to make you feel like the culprit by saying what are you trying to do to us? You knew we could not do that and tried to put one over on us etch.

The counter for this is you ask them to let you review the buyers order before you agree to any deal and insist that they and you sign this document first before proceeding to sign any other papers. Make sure any salesperson's promises are added on this order. 

Watch out for the (deal buster tactic) It goes like this. They know that there is something about the deal that will break the deal if they bring it to your attention too early in the process. This means you will not do it. So they wait until you are ready to close the deal and they then tell you with a sorry expression, they just discovered the problem. You will be most likely to give in at this point. You can use this on them by asking for something after you go into the closing room like a better interest rate or a rebate check.

There are several examples of this. You will need your spouse to co-sign is one. They need a down payment. They discover an expensive repair that needs to be done on your trade. It can even be a price hike if you act like you think you got too good of a deal. 

The counter for this is confronting them that you are aware of the deal buster and shame on them for pulling such a dirty trick and you walk.

The innocent no obligation over the weekend trial. When you come back they expect you to buy the vehicle. You put 200 miles on it how do you expect us to sell it as new now? They will be livid if you do not buy it. 

The counter for this is you ask them if there is any limit to how many miles you are allowed to put on the vehicle before you return it to them.

Never buy extended warranties or life or disability insurance they are usually a rip off and seldom pay you without a legal battle.

The warranties are cleverly written so it will look like they are paying a lot. The salespeople lie about what they cover.

On the life and disability insurance they will usually find a way to disqualify you or just make up a reason. If you fight them the insurance company will refund your premiums and not be legally obligated to pay you anything.

If you are over financing gap insurance would be worth buying. The gap insurance makes up for the gap or difference in what your auto insurance company will pay you and the loan balance in the event of a total loss or theft.

Do not let your automobile insurance company find out you have gap insurance. If they find out they will make a real low offer on a claim causing a dispute with the gap insurer.

If a dealership looks busy it is not the time for a good deal. Go when they are not busy, usually in bad weather. Weekends are way too busy. It is worth taking a day off to shop. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are usually the best days and near the end of the month in February, January or December are when the best buys are made.

Never buy a leftover because the discount they will give you will be no where near the depreciation.

Usually it is a leftover for a good reason. Some reasons would be too large an engine, too small an engine. Poor gas mileage, ugly color, too many options, not enough options or too high of a price. Or it just came in late in the model year.

I am not an advocate of electric or hybrid vehicles. If you are rich and have money to burn, buy one for a toy. Alternate fuel for your  gas or diesel vehicle is the answer. They have very limited trip range and they are very expensive to buy and maintain. You are not going to save any money at all by buying one.

Buying used is very risky and you could end up with somebody else’s problems. Lots of vehicles are rental vehicles. Stay away from these as they have been abused and not property maintained. Repossessed vehicles usually come from auctions. These vehicles may have been deliberately abused and may have serious engine, transmission damage and excessive brake wear. A one owner vehicle owned by somebody who trades every two years is the best.

When you are looking with the salesperson ask them to show you the vehicles they have had on the lot the longest. Usually a lower stock number will be a way to tell. You are more likely to get a better deal on these vehicles as they will be more likely to sell them at a loss to remove them from inventory. The longer they stay there the more they depreciate. You can get an extremely great deal this way.

Here is another method for those who do not want to use all the complicated tactics that works real well. Do not be in a hurry to buy.

You go to several dealers (NEVER TELLING ANY OF THEM THAT THEY ARE NOT THE FIRST) and go through the entire process but do not take their final offer but tell them you are going to check a few other dealers for their prices and take the best offer.

They will either give you their best offer then or call you in a few days with a much better deal that will be close to their best offer.

They will have your name and phone number put on their lead list so when there are no deals going they make follow ups on recent people who qualified that they could not close. Sometimes they wait up to a week to call you to see if you have made a purchase yet. They are usually real hard up for a sale when they do this and are likely to offer you a much better deal over the phone to get you back there. Just be aware of the lowball and the bump here when you get there.

No haggle here and it is a very low non confrontational way to shop. After you have been to three or four dealers never telling any of them that they are not the first and proving you are a qualified buyer and having made an offer they refused one of the dealers will call with an exceptional deal and you can then and only then can play one dealer against the other.

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