Buying a Car
I just bought a 2006 Honda Civic. The experience was well, interesting. The Civic is redesigned this year. I would have been happy to get one for MSRP, but many of the dealers here in San Diego were quite adamant about marking up the cars by $2000 and then adding on $1000 of useless options (you can buy at an auto parts store retail for just a shade over $100). I probed some of the salesmen about these markups and they didn’t really seem interested in moving.
I finally decided to make the move. I was determined to get the car I wanted for less than MSRP. I took in looked at Edmunds to get an idea of what people were paying at what the dealer invoice was.
I found a dealer that was not insisting on the $2000 markup that had a car in a color that was suitable. After test driving the car I grabbed my Edmunds papers and loan paper work*. The car still had the $1000 of typical options. To give you the full numbers:
Invoice: $16,800
MSRP: $18,700
Options: $1,000
Asking price: $19,700
My goal was to beat the MSRP by at least $100. I opened the negotiation at $18,400. There was talk and talk about the worthless options. Finally, after repeatedly expressing the utter worthlessness of the options, I pressed the salesman for his response. MSRP! No we are getting somewhere! I offered to split the difference with him or leave. He accepted: $18,550. I hit my goal.
My thoughts:
• I beat my goal, but I don’t think the goal was aggressive enough.
• Don’t pay for something you don’t want unless it is somehow to your advantage.
• Research pays. I quoted him invoice from memory and had the paperwork to back it up. I think this undercut a substantial amount of gamesmanship.
To follow:
• Get financing you can trust.
• How far would you go to get what you want?
• The dreaded sales manager.
*I had prearranged this. More on this subject later.