Originally Posted by
codex57
Do you have a trade in?
All those services, including carsdirect.com (which up front shows you the prices), don't pre-negotiate the trade.
Nowadays, with the internet, buying a new car is easy.
Search my other threads, but essentially, figure out exactly what you want. Then, just e-mail all the dealers you're willing to drive to. Tell them exactly what you want (color, options, etc). Then, tell them to give you a quote. Half won't give you one and just tell you to come in and they'll take care of you. Ignore them. Take the actual responses with quotes and find the three cheapest or so. Then, just send a couple more e-mails playing them off each other.
You're done in 24 hours or so. Everything's prenegotiated. You walk in, test drive your car to make sure nothing is weird about it and it has no scratches and stuff, then sign the paperwork. Ignore everything finance tries to push on you.
Make you you ask for an "out the door" quote so you can compare fees and taxes and stuff. Some unscrupulous dealers will try and screw you on that. You don't care how they break down the price of the car with the various fees they charge, you just want to compare apples to apples so you want quotes for the "out the door" price.
Done this for my last two cars. Easy as pie. By the time I even start a conversation (thru e-mail so at my own pace), I've already weeded out all the scummy sales types.
This is pretty much what we did and we walked out with a really good deal on my Odyssey!
mom to DD1 (17), DD2 (14) and DS (9)