Car Buying Help

My advice - never buy a new car. Especially one that gets 18/27 MPG - that's pretty low these days.

Araxen_sl said:

I'm pretty much a newbie when it comes to price haggling and I'm looking at this Challenger and I'm not sure what my initial offer should be. The price on it I think is fair but it's a brand new car and from what I read you should never pay whatever they are asking for.

Here's a link to the car:New 2014 Dodge Challenger SXT For Sale in Roanoke IL | 2C3CDYAG8EH184462

I was looking at used ones at first but the price difference between new and use isn't that much so I might as well go with a new car.

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I'm going out of town this weekend, so I may not have time to reply, but I'll put together some info that will help you out as soon as I can. How are you planning to pay for the car?

That stock # you linked is a 2014 SXT Coupe with the Super Sport Group package + Sirius XM.
The price they are showing you is $1000 they knocked off the MSRP + the $2000 rebate from Dodge.
The roughly 0 profit price for them is about $25300, but pretty much all dealers will have some fee that they won't budge on ($200 to as much as $750)

What you'll want to do is look up as many Dodge dealerships as far as you are willing to drive to and email them telling them the car (color and options) that you want and tell them you're looking at paying $25000 and see how close they get to that. Do NOT go into a dealership to negotiate. Just do it all via email as much as you can and eventually finish up on the phone with them. Under $25300, it's coming out of whatever fee they tack on. You should get a bite pretty close to $25300 with hopefully only like a $300 fee. In the end if they make $300-$500 then that's fair.

From my experience, the dealers that are outside your city usually fight a lot more for your business since you wouldn't be a typical customer that would even walk into their dealership. For my recent car, all the local dealers wanted like $600-$800 for a dealer fee. I found a dealership, who happened to have the car exactly how I wanted, that knocked off an additional $1000 from everyone else and their fee was only $300. In total their calculated profit was about $450. They were about 3 hours from me. Considering that the next dealership was 6 hours away, I was ok with paying them an additional $150 than what I was hoping for.

If you need to finance, check out the credit union penfed.org. It only costs like $10 to join and they will have the lowest interest rate (assuming decent credit). The only place lower is USAA, but for that you have be in the military, retired military or married to someone in the military and even then they are usually only like a quarter % lower if that from penfed. With either one, the dealer won't even bother pushing their financing because they know they can't beat it. Just don't tell them anything about how you are paying until you've agreed on a price.

Also, very important, when you find a dealer and agree to a price, make sure you get a formal offer listing the stock #, car info and the final out the door price which shows the price of the car + taxes, tag/title.

Just post back here if you want me to review anything for you.

Psypher_sl said:

I'm going out of town this weekend, so I may not have time to reply, but I'll put together some info that will help you out as soon as I can. How are you planning to pay for the car?

That stock # you linked is a 2014 SXT Coupe with the Super Sport Group package + Sirius XM.
The price they are showing you is $1000 they knocked off the MSRP + the $2000 rebate from Dodge.
The roughly 0 profit price for them is about $25300, but pretty much all dealers will have some fee that they won't budge on ($200 to as much as $750)

What you'll want to do is look up as many Dodge dealerships as far as you are willing to drive to and email them telling them the car (color and options) that you want and tell them you're looking at paying $25000 and see how close they get to that. Do NOT go into a dealership to negotiate. Just do it all via email as much as you can and eventually finish up on the phone with them. Under $25300, it's coming out of whatever fee they tack on. You should get a bite pretty close to $25300 with hopefully only like a $300 fee. In the end if they make $300-$500 then that's fair.

From my experience, the dealers that are outside your city usually fight a lot more for your business since you wouldn't be a typical customer that would even walk into their dealership. For my recent car, all the local dealers wanted like $600-$800 for a dealer fee. I found a dealership, who happened to have the car exactly how I wanted, that knocked off an additional $1000 from everyone else and their fee was only $300. In total their calculated profit was about $450. They were about 3 hours from me. Considering that the next dealership was 6 hours away, I was ok with paying them an additional $150 than what I was hoping for.

If you need to finance, check out the credit union penfed.org. It only costs like $10 to join and they will have the lowest interest rate (assuming decent credit). The only place lower is USAA, but for that you have be in the military, retired military or married to someone in the military and even then they are usually only like a quarter % lower if that from penfed. With either one, the dealer won't even bother pushing their financing because they know they can't beat it. Just don't tell them anything about how you are paying until you've agreed on a price.

Also, very important, when you find a dealer and agree to a price, make sure you get a formal offer listing the stock #, car info and the final out the door price which shows the price of the car + taxes, tag/title.

Just post back here if you want me to review anything for you.

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This is really solid advice! The key is adding multiple dealerships. Don't be afraid to let them know you're shopping around. They typically ask. Just a tip that I felt helped me when dealing with a sales person. I would manage to fit in the conversation that another dealership told me they had the biggest inventory and could offer the lowest price. It always got a great response as most of these sales people are dudes with egos. When I bought my truck last year I used 4 dealerships. Literally treated them like an auction at the end until there was only 1 standing. I told them so and so dealership came down $500, can you beat them!?

Just an idea of where I started and what I ended up paying.

I bought a 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee, MSRP was like 34,500 I believe. Plus I was trading in my 08 dodge ram that I bought in 08 for 18k off a friend who worked at Enterprise and gave me a low ass price.

When I started most of the dealers would come down to around 33,000 for the Jeep and 15k for my Dodge Ram (without ever seeing it) By the time I was done with these guys I bought my Jeep for 31k and they gave me 17.5k for my Ram(without ever seeing it) Had the the thing for 4 years and got $500 less than I paid for it haha!

They were willing to push a car under inventory. It happens if you catch them right. The sales guy claimed he only made $100 off the deal. I have no way of knowing but I felt feeling like I made a solid deal. That's really what matter most I guess.

I've never liked trading cars to dealers. On my last purchase they all wanted to give me like $7000 for my 05 Acura TL which was in pristine condition and lower than average miles. I sold it privately for $9700.


BTW, I don't want to make it sound like I buy cars all the time and even think there's nothing wrong with buying a new car. I haven't bought a new car in almost 10 years. The only reason I bought a new car recently was because I've always been a fan of Mustangs and I wanted to grab one before the new line changed. I prefer the more retro styling. It's a car I plan on keeping for a very long time so I didn't want to get a used one. Plus getting almost 10K for my old Acura and the 4K cash back from Ford made it an easy decision. It only cost me 20K to get a brand new 5.0 with lots of options. Also financially it's not a big hit for me.

With that said, before you dive into a new car, make sure it's a smart financial decision, as typically unless all your other financial obligations/planning are taken care of, buying a new car for the sake of buying one is pretty dam low in life's priorities.

TrueCar, a lot of dealers are affiliated, and they have a "truecar" zero negotiation price which is usually quite low compared to msrp and you can also see (iirc) user submitted data for purchase prices to get a feel for your area.

Chaotic_sl said:

TrueCar, a lot of dealers are affiliated, and they have a "truecar" zero negotiation price which is usually quite low compared to msrp and you can also see (iirc) user submitted data for purchase prices to get a feel for your area.

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Don't put too much into these types of services. You'll get added to their lists and you'll get hounded for a while by dealerships. They are just another middleman that will be taking a cut and their prices aren't that great. Their price for my Mustang was a couple thousand higher than what I negotiated on my own.

Their price $35782 not including taxes (like 7% here) and tag. That puts it at around $38500 through them. I paid $34938.64 out the door, that's $3348 less than Truecar. Their pricing is even short on incentives by $1000, but even if you got that included, they would still be $2348 higher.

Now on the Dodge, Truecar is actually lower than what I calculated, but I only spent like 5-10 mins on it so I'm sure I added something wrong or depending on the manufacturer they get a much larger discount. Even after the 2000 rebate, they are still an additional 1720 below invoice, so 3720 below invoice, that's a pretty large amount if its not coming from an incentive. Is Dodge trying to dump these cars? hehe

In this thread plebs brag about how much they got fucked by a dealership.

Gadrel_sl said:

In this thread plebs brag about how much they got fucked by a dealership.

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Cause a lot do. I fucking despise car dealers. Doesn't everyone?

I guess I didn't/don't. I bought my last 2 new trucks at a dealer that has 20 trucks on the lot and 1 car in the showroom. The salesman is also the owner/finance manager and the only other office employee is a receoptionist. They ran an ad in the paper for my truck and it was $24k something on a sticker of $33k. I went down and drove it, asked the owner to give me a total with TT&L and he used a calculator to come up with the total and gave me the piece of paper off the calculator. I took it next door to the bank and got a certified check (the one before this one I wrote a personal check). I drove the new truck home and the owner drove my old truck and had the mechanic pick him up. Total time at dealership was less than 30 minutes. It was Friday and the dealer told me to come back the following week one day to finish the paperwork. They delivered my license plate to me when it came in as well.

Dealer said he was having a hard time selling an extended cab truck (which I prefer since 99.9% of the time I drive alone) instead of a crew cab or a diesel because we were having an oil boom and the mineral rights checks were being spent on much more expensive trucks so he discounted it. A year later I looked up the estimated sell value and it was still higher than I paid for it. The only paperwork I ever signed was a recognition that I knew OnStar did not work in my county.

I got under truecar on my car as well and also did not go through them, but some people will literally walk into a dealership and pay whatever because they are terrified of negotiating. Not saying that's OP but for those people, it's a tool to at least make sure you're not getting ripped off. Or, a leverage tool vs a dealer who is overpricing (if you can say hey , 68 people in our general area bought the car for X amount... ) etc

I'm a very aggressive negotiator, but most people aren't. For those who aren't, or who aren't educated about the process, I think it's a good *tool*

Chaotic_sl said:

I got under truecar on my car as well and also did not go through them, but some people will literally walk into a dealership and pay whatever because they are terrified of negotiating. Not saying that's OP but for those people, it's a tool to at least make sure you're not getting ripped off. Or, a leverage tool vs a dealer who is overpricing (if you can say hey , 68 people in our general area bought the car for X amount... ) etc

I'm a very aggressive negotiator, but most people aren't. For those who aren't, or who aren't educated about the process, I think it's a good *tool*

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you have to be. I told a salesman if he didn't throw in a dog bed from Mopar I was walking! lol his face was awesome! I didn't end up going with that dealership.. Side story/slight derail but has to with my Jeep purchase and why I know I made out. I initially agreed with another dealership on a price for the same jeep I ended up buying. A girl I know works there and told me I could trust him. Anyway, After going back and forth with him and a few dealerships I got him to agree to 30.5k for the truck. In the middle of the deal he was nerd raging over by the printer making copies. I heard him say"I'm not going to make anything off this deal" in a distraught voice.. One of the managers jumps in and says I told you man, I don't know why you and John(manager he went thru) agreed to it. So all 3 get together and start looking at me and whispering. I knew shit was about to go south.. He walks over like a chump looking at the ground and says "We need to add $1,500 to the deal, Final price is 32K" I gave him a quick LOL and told him that's not the number we agreed to and walked out. I had another option lined up for 31k with the dealership I actually bought from. Putting the effort in can really save you some serious $$.

Dont buy new, buy used, unless you are one of those folks who MUST have a new car no matter what. Once the car is titled, DOES NOT even have to be driven, just titled, you will lose your ass on the car right off the bat if you want zero down.

Profit margin is slim on new, so there is that if you feel like you must not let the car dealership make money. Profit margin on used vehicles are much higher, but a good portion of the gross on new or used car deals is in the back end (EG finance and insurance). So make sure you go into whatever dealership with the mindset I am only buying X product or I am not buying any F&I products, because they will sell you, and sometimes sell you hard. Just get used to saying "no thanks" a lot, and you should be OK.

As far as haggling a price, it just really depends on the dealership. No dealership will give you a firm price (basically in writing) for the most part, because any dealership will undercut the price by X dollars, and then they will try to make it up someplace else. Yea, they may have just lost money on a vehicle that had been on the lot for over 60 days, but they would have ended up wholesaling the car and lost their asses even worse had they not retailed it for a loss. So in essence they got what they wanted, a car retailed rather than wholesaled, and they know next time not to get as many of X vehicle when forecasting. What does all this mean, it means you could have gotten a better deal than what you got. Trust me when I say, a dealership is going to get their profit, and why should they not, they are in the business of making money. Think of it like a casino, house always wins.

If you were in the south I could get you good firm pricing on whatever vehicle you were looking for so at the very least you have a barometer of what prices you are going to get and weed out the good from the bad. Illinios is a different market with different pricing on vehicles so it would be hard for me to get you a price that makes sense in the Gulf states, but would not make sense in Illinois.

So TLDR:

1.) Do some homework, research what the prices are around your area. Call some internet departments, that is your best bet. Sometimes a dealership in east bumblefuck will ship to you if you find what you are looking for at the right price. Plus they will more than likely give you a pretty firm price.

2.) Be ready for the F&I dept, know what you want, and know what you dont want. Dont be afraid to say no (a lot)

3.) Take your car to CARMAX, get an actual wholesale cash offer for your car. You can use that for the basis of your trade in. See if the dealership will pay you just cash for your vehicle based off of the trade in value they give you.

4.) If you buy used, get a CARFAX, see it and make sure it has not been flooded/totaled etc etc. Dont get screwed on something so easy to check. It wont include fender benders (sometimes), but it is pretty good about tracking major damage.

5.) Dont go to a dealership until you are ready to buy. Like I said in 1.) utilize those internet departments, they will be your best friend in that you can get the negotiating done in advance of showing up, and you can haggle between different dealerships.

6.) Also, make sure you have your financing addressed. They will do in house financing, but remember dealerships get a buy rate, then give you a sell rate, the rest in between is profit for the dealership. If you have financing you will at least have a good basis to judge what APR you are at, and if the dealership offers you better, take it. If not, you are good to go anyways.

7.) Dont buy Dodge products, seriously =\


Good luck

The small lots are generally for people with bad credit, generally. Which means they will rip you off on the sell (because they know you are desperate) and they will rip you off on the back end (because they know you are desperate). Some even do those pay as you go, they put a device in the car that basically locks the car up if you miss a payment, and the repo you right then and there. IMO not much better than those payday loans places in all honesty. Anything outside of that is a toss up. I personally would never buy from a small lot, I also have personally bias as my friend got ripped teh fuck off by one when we were in the military.

We had a customer come in to get insurance on their car they had just bought at one of those tiny used car lots. As I was looking through their paperwork for the VIN# and Lienholder address, I spotted their financial terms. The $8000 car loan was done at 24.9% interest for 60 months.. Holy shit, you could put the car on a credit card and it would be cheaper than that. I guess if your credit is terrible and you have no savings you don't have a lot of options though.

That 8K loan is going to run them $14,000 over those 5 years. I felt bad for the girl.

OUAriakas_sl said:

I was actually more wondering about the condition of the vehicles in those tiny lots. I pay all cash for my used vehicles and was thinking about trying to hard ball one of them on a cheap SUV because I inherited my wife's shitty Mazda 3.

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Best thing to do is just do a CARFAX on them, or make sure they have it. A lot of those lots make huge gross because they buy flooded or total cars for next to nothing, do some minor body work and a lot of cleaning and turn around and sell them for near retail pricing. Best thing I can say is do your homework when buying from them. Make friends with a body shop tech if you can and bring by whatever you are interested in buying. They can spot stuff pretty quick if they are experienced.

Hold out for self-driving cars imo.

OUAriakas_sl said:

I was actually more wondering about the condition of the vehicles in those tiny lots. I pay all cash for my used vehicles and was thinking about trying to hard ball one of them on a cheap SUV because I inherited my wife's shitty Mazda 3.

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Keep in mind the source of the vehicles when asking yourself that: write-offs and dead-beats who had them repo'd. Maybe there's some diamonds in the rough, but overall, I can't see many of those places having quality vehicles that any sane, financially stable person would want to consider.