Building on website vs. shopping at dealer

[vi edit]

Just go to either:

www.edmunds.com or www.carsdirect.com

Look up the exact car you want on there with the options. It will list out "invoice" price and then break out any available rebates and spit out what the bottom dollar price you can expect to pay.

From there you let the dealers throw out offers. Some will come close to invoice, others will be a few bucks below MSRP. How much they are willing to budge really just depends on the dealer and how much work the sales guy wants.

Spend a bit of time looking over the "confessions of a car salesman" section at Edmunds. It will give you a bit of insight to the other side of the sales desk.

If you really want to make buying easy, check in with Costco if you have one and look at what their buying service can do. It might be within a couple hundred bucks of invoice and requires no work on your end.

 

[JDMnAR1]

An approach that I have found works well for me is to do your research up front (Edmunds, Consumer Reports, etc) and figure out what the invoice price is on the vehicle you want. Only after you have that information do you ever talk to a dealer, and what I typically do is go find a vehicle that fits the bill at a local dealership (check online inventory first to avoid wasted trips) and wait for the circling sales staff to pounce. When they do, I tell them to give me their no BS bottom dollar on the vehicle in question, and if I like their numbers I will stay and talk otherwise I am out the door and they won't ever lay eyes on me again. The first time I tried this, I actually wound up purchasing the car for less than the best selling price that was reported by Consumer Reports on the same model - think it was about $250 over invoice, with a few minor extras thrown in.

 

[iamwiz82]

I have gotten my best deals through email, just an FYI.