car buying tips?

neville · 10-21-2009, 08:15 PM

So here is my experience from the whole dealership thing.

1. Try to get down the selling price first. if its below the edmunds TMV, and KBB value you can atleast be sure that you are not getting ripped off. Talk to the internet manager, after getting them to give you quotes online (use edmunds, yahoo autos etc). The other clowns in the showroom will assume that you are internet ignorant, and dont know what a good price is. So they usually start with a high rate.

2. Then negotiate on the APR - never ever negotiate on the monthly payment. Do your homework. checkout the amortization tables on calculator web and know how much interest you end up paying. This helps if you are planning to refinance your car later - You will know what the expected remaiing principal will be, after say one year.

3. I think the dealer makes more money out of the accessories that they try to sell including the warranty. And most of these can be purchased later as well, and might be even cheaper when you buy from somewhere else. The problem is that they try to sell you these at the last minute when signing the deal, (like they tried to sell the warranty to me at a higer price). So when doing the research, make sure you know what accessories you need, whether it can be fitted in later, or how much they cost. This is the step that I didnt do!

4. To my understanding nowdays with all the internet thing around, the dealers dont end up making a lot of money by selling the car at outrageous margins. All the dealers I talked to mentioned me that they make money only if Acura thinks that you (as the customer) were satisfied with the dealership/dealer. Acura calls you once you make the purchase. The dealers pleaded with me to reply with "5 stars" to all the questions they ask - apparently their bonus/commision depends on that. Not sure if this is true. The good point of knowing this upfront, is that we can use this as a bargaining chip to lower the cost. I am not against the dealer making profits - (thats how they live), but I dont want them making profit in my expense :P. So I guess I will answer 5/5 for all questions if I think they are giving me a good price.

5. You can walk out anytime you want. I walked out atleast 4 times - at the last minute, when it almost came to the point that I am going to buy the car. I went back & thought about it and then came fresh the next day. Each time I did this the price goes down! So patience is essential.

nwinnie34 · 10-22-2009, 01:21 PM

good stuff man... i'm looking to buy in the next few months...

VQ30GTR · 10-22-2009, 01:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nwinnie34

good stuff man... i'm looking to buy in the next few months...

When a sales person comes to you and asks if they can help you or will you take it home today, your first response/question is "Are you a volume or comission dealer?"

If the answer is volume, go ahead. comission go away. Volume dealers get paid onthe # of cars they sell, not the price of the car. I bought my wife a 2007 Honda Odyssey @ Invoice the first week they were out. I called a few dealers and asked if they woudl sell @ invoice and I literally got laughed at on the phone by one guy. He told me it's new, it's sticker. I found a volume dealer 5 miles form my house, and got it @ invocie, and a good price on my trade.

Next when I got my TSX, I actually bought the $14.95 report from Consumer Reports. Reason? IT had the dealer hold back cost in it. IT happend to be some $968 or something like that. I offered them the $968 below invoice (From Carquotes.com) and he got within $1 of it. Now it was end of model year, but still the $15 saved me over $900.

Also like he said, negotiate the interest rate, when you qualify, Ask for any "Coupons" for the rate, they have said in the past we can lower it by .75 points.

Good luck!

nwinnie34 · 10-22-2009, 02:33 PM

thanks for the info.... i passed this post off to a few friends who are in the market....

so do you straight up suggest avoiding any dealerships that have commission based sales staff? try to find a volume dealer only?

and whats the deal with A-spec packages?
is that installed upon dealer request or is there a TSX package out there with it included?