haggling

[The Truth]

I think there was a post a while back about buying a new car and the best method of haggling with the car dealership (I tried the search function and couldn't find it; anybody got a link?).

The first step was to ask for the invoice from the manufacturer. Does anybody know what that invoice is named? How much above the invoice is an acceptable offer for a car whose invoice is $50,000 and a car whose invoice is $20,000?

Also, was the useage of the word "whose" in the previous sentence correct?

[MrWookie47]

I have no knowledge of haggling or links, but I do know you got your grammar correct.

[JimHammer]

Go to this site (http://www.kbb.com/) to figure out the invoice price of the car you want. Print up the sheet with the MSRP and invoice prices on them and take them to the dealer for reference when car shopping.

What I did was go to several dealers, asked them what the best price they could give me for the truck I wanted, thanked them, and left. One dealer stopped me 3 times and came back with a lower price every time. I ended up buying a truck for only $200 over invoice, but that was 5 years ago.

My advice is to shop around and don't buy a vehicle the same day you look at it. It's a big investment and you shouldn't buy on an impulse.

[Randy_Refeld]

The first step is to pay consumer reports $12 for accurate price info about the car, the other sites I have seen leave out the kick back to the dealer for selling the car (I forget what it is called), which allows the dealer to make abour 500-1000 when they sell a car "at invoice."

[diebitter]

Not for a car, but to haggle for smaller items (fridges, dishwashers etc) - this used to work (and will probably still work in smaller non-chain stores; larger ones the salesmen don't care if you use credit cards etc)

Take the cash with you, and when asking for a discount, take it out, and make sure the salesmen sees it, and keep saying stuff like 'I've got the money here, but the original price is a little steep for me...'

[edfurlong]

[ QUOTE ]
Not for a car, but to haggle for smaller items (fridges, dishwashers etc) - this used to work (and will probably still work in smaller non-chain stores; larger ones the salesmen don't care if you use credit cards etc)

Take the cash with you, and when asking for a discount, take it out, and make sure the salesmen sees it, and keep saying stuff like 'I've got the money here, but the original price is a little steep for me...'

[/ QUOTE ]

When buying a car you want them to assume you will be financing it. If you are paying cash bring it up after the numbers are on paper.

[istewart]

Great avatar ed.

[-Skeme-]

[ QUOTE ]
Great avatar ed.

[/ QUOTE ]

"What the [censored]?" Is that what he's saying? What's it from.

If the car salesman you are haggling with looks like this:

http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/6734/hag7om.jpg

And he starts with 20K, counter with 10K and then eventually settle on 16K.

p.s. Don't let him throw in any gourds!

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Not for a car, but to haggle for smaller items (fridges, dishwashers etc) - this used to work (and will probably still work in smaller non-chain stores; larger ones the salesmen don't care if you use credit cards etc)

Take the cash with you, and when asking for a discount, take it out, and make sure the salesmen sees it, and keep saying stuff like 'I've got the money here, but the original price is a little steep for me...'

[/ QUOTE ]

When buying a car you want them to assume you will be financing it. If you are paying cash bring it up after the numbers are on paper.

[/ QUOTE ]

Very true. They will drop the price if they think they can make it up on the financing.

I'd also suggest going for last year's models. The dealers have to pay for that car every day they don't sell it, and when new car models come out, usually around August, those old but still brand new cars are a terrible burden to them that they just can't get rid of. If you dicker with them and tell them you know how much it costs them every day to have an unsellable car taking up space on their lot that's getting to be smellier to the consumer every day, you can sometimes talk them into dropping the price enormously just to get rid of the damn thing. They'd MUCH rather have the exact same model in this year's version as keep this old worthless thing tying up their cash.

[The Truth]

Cool. thanks for the responses.

I heard that if i go to the dealer and ask for the invoice from the manufacturer that they are required to give me a copy of it. true or false?

blake

[jba]

it is perfectly acceptable to use "whose" when referring to inanimate objects. The alternative is to reconstruct the sentence fragment using "which", but that would sound stupid.