Car Buying Game

BEFORE YOU STEP FOOT INTO THE DEALERSHIPS DOOR:

After you have decided on the make and model of vehicle you want to purchase and before you visit any dealership, do your homework. The very first thing you should do is to find out what your credit score is. You need to run your credit on Equifax or go to your local credit union or bank and have them run your credit. If you apply for a loan they will do this for you as part of the borrowing process. If you do not belong to a credit union you can join a local credit union for as little as $5.00. Have your auto loan in place and know what your credit score is before you speak to anyone about purchasing a vehicle at a dealership. Your local credit union or your bank will assist you and educate you about your purchasing power. They will tell you how much you can afford and exactly what your payments will be at the price you are planning to pay for a vehicle. I will go into Financing in a later chapter.

Read the local paper, go on websites, make calls to Internet Departments of dealerships and get prices! You are under no obligation to give a deposit or any promissory compensation just for inquiring about how much something will cost you. If they will not give you a price on a particular vehicle, move on to a different dealership.

As a serious shopper, get it in writing. You can go through the Internet Departments of almost every dealership. I personally witnessed sales managers giving potenial customers pricing over the phone or by e-mail and when the customer did visit the store the price of that particular vehicle mysteriously went way up. The vehicle was either sold or they never intended to sell that car at all, they just want to get you into the showroom. One customer had saved all of his e-mail correspondence that he had with the manager of the Internet Sales Department, i.e. price quotes, option prices and so on. When he decided to purchase that vehicle, the dealership denied that they had given him that particular price. He then provided the e-mails between the Internet Department and himself so the dealership had no choice but to honor the price (which by the way, they were not happy about. Boo-Hoo)

Beware of the “to good to be true price” on a vehicle advertised in the newspaper as there is usually only “one” of that particular vehicle on the entire lot. If you actually find the vehicle advertised and take a test drive in that advertised vehicle and you want to purchase that particular vehicle, take down the license number and keep your eye on that vehicle on the lot, don’t let it out of your sight. You would be surprised to know how fast these cars are taken out of inventory and driven to the back lot if you actually want to buy one of them. The dealership does not really want you to purchase the advertised vehicle; they want to upsell you to a more expensive vehicle. The advertised vehicle is there for only one reason, TO GET YOU INTO THE SHOWROOM DOOR!
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