Car Shopping

Ah, Edmunds. 'Bout time someone mentioned them. Great, great car types and honest enough to put in their reviews if a car in a similar automotive class is better, or if they're the same and one's clearly a better buy.

Here's an excellent piece of dealership don'ts: http://www.edmunds.com/advice/youngdrivers/articles/119534/article.html

The two best steps

1) Never agree to a monthly payment. The moment the dealership has that, you're sunk. Sure, they can get you in a vehicle at that cost. But the payments can be stretched over 84 months. I worked in the same building with two people who got stretched to 84 months over a Geo Metro. I wish I were kidding ...

2) Don't be fooled by numbers. Sales types are prone to try to divide a large sheet into numbers: Total car cost, monthly payment, financing percentages and trade in among others. Too many buyers get confused, fed up or pissed off and agree to "whatever." Don't let a dealer do that to you. As said before, break it down into steps. They don't like it. Tough. The key is that you keep the numbers organized, something dealerships don't like because the shady ones can't find hidden money to suck from your wallet.

The third point I saved from OTD's post because I experienced something similar the last time I bought a car. The supervisor was drug out after I walked away from a bad deal the idiots were trying to push on my stepfather and me. He BSed us for 20 minutes ... then we walked. Bought the car I'm still driving. No regrets.

Good luck.

 

Walking is nothing. I've had managers kick me out of car dealerships before.

Good times.

Some places/salesmen will work with you and would rather make $50 on a car than nothing.

Others want nothing to do with you if they can't get every last dollar from your bank account.

 

And don't forget, if you don't like sitting in that little sweatbox with a desperate salesperson, you can buy cars online now as well. Or through your local warehouse store, like BJ's or Costco or Sam's Club.

 

Problem with buying a car through Sam's Club, is you have to buy a really big car or two compact cars.

Prices are good, though.

 

We usually freeze the second one.

 

;D

 

That is, at the least, the funniest thing I've heard in several days.

It does quite a bit toward helping me forget that my list has grown much longer. I now have favorite cars from nearly every manufacturer. There's Subaru, Isuzu, Suzuki, Dodge, Chevy, Toyota, Hyundai, Nissan and whoever makes something called the Vue, which I've built with lots of chrome.