How to Negotiate a Vehicle's Price

By Liz Opsitnik
Friday, Aug 21 2009 18:47

What is the dealer invoice price of the vehicles you are considering? If you don’t know what the dealer pays for the car, you won’t have a starting point for price negotiations. Once you know what the dealer pays, you can go from there. Remember, they need to make some profit to keep the doors open, but you shouldn’t be paying an extremely high amount for the vehicle. Sometimes, buyers can get vehicles at a price less than the dealer invoice if it’s a model they really want to sell. Remember that they will try to make up that profit in the finance manager’s office and with add-ons.

Multiple Dealer Quotes Give You Options to Find the Best Deal

Get several quotes on the car you want to buy. If you go to a Chevy dealer and they say they can give you the car you want for $20,000, for example, leave and go to another Chevy dealer. Tell them what the other offers on the table are for the car and see who can beat it. If you’ve got three or four dealers competing for your business, one of them will want the sale bad enough to give you the lowest price. You can also get multiple car quotes by emailing the dealer.

If you are not a good negotiator, but your friend or relative is, bring them with you. Let them do the dirty work of getting you a good price on the car and then you take care of signing all the paperwork. There are companies you can hire that offer this service as well. One of their expert negotiators will work out the best deal for you and you pay them a fee. You should do your homework though so you know what a good deal on that particular vehicle would be. Not everyone is a natural negotiator!

Does the thought of negotiating the price of a car terrify you? Try a no-haggle dealership. At this type of a dealership, the price is clearly listed on the vehicle. The price listed is a fair price and you will pay what any other buyer would pay for the same vehicle. You will not have the option to talk the price down though. Saturn was the first brand to try this sales approach and Scion currently uses no-haggle dealerships. You may get a better deal at a dealership where you can negotiate, so keep that in mind.

Confused or unsure about some of the car loan terms used in the article? Click here for our Auto Loan Glossary.