Which are the best tactics to use when negotiating a car price?
Surprisingly, the first – and maybe the best option – is not to negotiate at all!
For this approach to succeed you will need to decide in advance how badly you really want the vehicle. As in all negotiations, you need to be able to walk away at any time.
That is particularly true for this tactic. You simply tell the salesperson your target purchase price, leave your name and phone number – and walk out.
If you get a call back, you win. If not, convince yourself that you didn’t really care anyway, move on – and never look back!
If you can’t bring yourself to do this, then you’ll just have to go back to old-fashioned ” horse-trading” with all of its pitfalls and dangers.
We all know that negotiating a car price for the average person is akin to having a root-canal job at the dentist in terms of pleasurable anticipation
So, to help minimize your risk, our Life Daily team has put together a short list of tips for you to checkout.
The first was above – these are the others:
2. Know what the car is worth
For new cars there are a number of online sites which give current list prices. These include Edmunds.com and TrueCar.com and their figures are reasonably accurate.
For used cars, you can refer to KBB.com which tells you both retail value and wholesale or trade-in value.
Your initial offer for a new car can be up to $1000 less than list price as most dealers have reserve funds for this contingency.
For a used vehicle start at 10 -15 percent below trade-in value.
3. Saturday or Sunday night follow-up
Call around an hour before closing time; if the dealer had a quiet day, the possibility of a last minute sale might be tempting.
4. Last day of the month follow-up
This is just an extension of the weekend follow-up idea in case they had a bad month.
In principle, the end of the day, week, or month is always better for the buyer, as the seller is under more pressure to meet sales targets.
5. Bad weather follow-up
The more atrocious the weather, the better. The fewer customers the dealer has seen that day, the more flexible he or she will be.
6. More than one dealer option
Make the same offer on the same vehicle to more than one dealer. You can even hint that is what your doing. It may put the seller under a little more pressure.
7. Financing the deal
It’s always preferable to arrange your own finance if you can. On the other hand, if your credit rating is not so good, or the dealer is offering something like zero percent interest, it’s worth looking into that option.
8. Don’t raise your voice
Never shout or lose your temper, and always be polite. Telling a dealer to ” take it or leave it,” and threatening to leave won’t work – unless you mean it. Car dealers are used to histrionics so they won’t be impressed.
Usually, courtesy is reciprocated, and since most dealerships are subject to manufacturer’s review of their performance, they don’t want too many customer complaints.
As we said, very few people welcome the ” cut and thrust” involved in the process of buying a car.
But there’s no choice – so we hope these tips on how to negotiate a car price will help to ease the agony.
Have you bought a car recently? If you’d care to share your experience, or even tips of your own, you can do so easily by using the comments feed below.
