If you are starting to think about buying a new car, there are a lot of pitfalls you need to learn to avoid and positive signs to look for on your quest for a new ride. If somebody makes vague promises in their ads and promotions, avoid them like the plague. “Nobody beats a Dealin’ Doug Deal” is not the kind of sales pitch you want to look for. What you want to see on car dealer ads are actual prices, actual rates and specific terms of the deals they are offering mentioned in the ad itself. If a sheisty dealer promises no credit apps rejected, that means they are going to seriously jack you on the sales price, deal terms and the interest rate. Even though they could make a pretty penny off of just screwing you in one of those areas, they feel the need to crush you on all three. Stay away from those kinds of car salesmen – they are dishonest and give the the few decent and reputable car dealers in the marketplace(yes there actually are some good ones) a bad name.
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car loan financing handled with your bank first before you even start to look for a car. Many dealers will try to stick it to you every way possible and that includes the financing which the salesman and the dealership both stand to make some heavy commission on for getting you to finance with their partner bank. Then once your financing is in order and you know your price range, start to check the market values on the internet on Craigslist, Ebay Motors, Cars.com, Auto Trader and your local newspapers website. Once you’ve done your research you can move forward with a car purchase on the internet right away if you are comfortable with that.
If you want to be an even more diligent car shopper, then it’s time for the next level – in person shopping. Many mere mortals are easily crushed by even attempting this feat so do not go gently into that good night – at least not if you hope to come out of the experience with any part of your pants still in tact. Plan a day of car shopping carefully – ideally you want to only dealing with owners of cars you found online or in a newspaper and you want to have laid out the parameters of what you are willing to pay before you even get there to see the car. If you are willing to pay ‘y’ for a car, ask the seller if he would consider taking ‘y’ minus ‘x’ for the car, with ‘x’ being about one third to one half of the discount you would ideally like to get on the car if it is as good as the ad says it is.
