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Buying a new car in the modern era

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BubbaJean

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So I am getting ready to buy a new car for the first time in 10+ years. Back in the good old days my savage negotiating skills left many a sales manager scarred for life. But now I see all these car buying tools and services claiming they will save me lots of money. Any advice on what is actually the best resource or process?
 
1. find/know exactly what you want
2. email multiple dealerships your exact specifications asking for quotes
3. play them off each other until you hit a number that looks good to you
4. win

the rise in services is pretty interesting given that the consumer has more power than ever in the negotiation. i guess it's millennials not wanting to deal with the process
 
I used TrueCar the last time I bought a new car and it worked pretty damn well. Helps get price comparisons and will blanket email dealers for you (with your permission). Even helped once I narrowed down to the brand, since it pitted multiple dealers of the same cars against each other.
 
ImTheCaptain said:
1. find/know exactly what you want
2. email multiple dealerships your exact specifications asking for quotes
3. play them off each other until you hit a number that looks good to you
4. win

the rise in services is pretty interesting given that the consumer has more power than ever in the negotiation. i guess it's millennials not wanting to deal with the process
Click to expand...

Yeah, pretty much.

You'll have to account for some nonsense and bait and switch tactics, as always, as well as the "let's focus on your monthly payment, not the cost" BS, but in the end, the strategy above is where it's at.
 
I get access to USAA car buying service as part of my insurance. I didn't use them to actually buy my last car but the pricing information they had (truecar I think) was pretty helpful when coming up with a number to berate the local dealers with.
 
The issue for BubbaJean is that Rolls Royce dealerships are few and far between.
 
TrueCar is pretty nice but you can do your own homework with edmunds/kBB/etc. for free and get a pretty good market price for the vehicle you're considering

the thing that kills me are the people who go to the dealership to test drive/look at cars and have only a vague idea of what they want. what a colossal, BS filled time suck and
 
Omg, I just laughed at an RJ joke! Don't judge!
 
ImTheCaptain said:
1. find/know exactly what you want
2. email multiple dealerships your exact specifications asking for quotes
3. play them off each other until you hit a number that looks good to you
4. win

the rise in services is pretty interesting given that the consumer has more power than ever in the negotiation. i guess it's millennials not wanting to deal with the process
Click to expand...

This but make sure you cast a wide area net large metros usually have more room to play, I've flown to Atlanta from NC for my last two cars and before that had one shipped from Denver.
 
WhatUTalkinBout Willis said:
1- Find car you want
2- Come up with reasonable price to pay for car. Lots of online data to sort this out.
3- Write check for amount of car.
4- Put check in wallet.
5- Go to dealership, hand check to sales person, tell them you want to buy car.
6- Leave with car.
Click to expand...

Who the hell writes checks?
 
A friend of a friend is a new car dealer. He told me that they're much more interested in servicing your car than making money on the sale. They will also give you a better deal if you finance the car through the manufacturer.

Finance it w/o any prepayment penalty, then pay it off as soon as possible.
 
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ImTheCaptain said:
1. find/know exactly what you want
2. email multiple dealerships your exact specifications asking for quotes
3. play them off each other until you hit a number that looks good to you
4. win

the rise in services is pretty interesting given that the consumer has more power than ever in the negotiation. i guess it's millennials not wanting to deal with the process
Click to expand...

I had a neighbor do this with good results as well. Keep in mind that the dealerships know each other's inventory, too. My neighbor wanted a blue car, and one dealership knew that the other did not have that car in blue, so it slowed negotiations at the end. But overall, he got a good deal.
 
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