The only interesting dealership financing is the one that allows you to return the car after 3-4 years-finally payments, no matter how run down it is.
Even then you can get a better deal selling it second hand and using the money to pay for the final payment, but the dealership deal insures you against having you car crashed and not being able to sell it.
Have not shopped carmax, but have heard good things recently. I was headed there the other day and a dealer came through with the offer I was looking for.
The Honda Fit is a nice car. And Hondas last forever of course. You could also go bland and look at older Toyota Corollas or Camrys, which are pretty much bulletproof. Maybe even a VW Golf.
Oh and there is this. I have not tried it though, not yet.
I bought one from Carmax. They are a âno haggleâ shop, so you donât have to worry about getting beat up in the sales room. But their pricing is usually ok, not great. You can do better if youâre good at hunting and negotiations. The cars they sell are typically pretty good, I think they try to focus on cars that arenât too old and were not badly beat up. They do a good job of cleaning up the engine before selling.
Theyâre also a good place to get a quote before selling a car. You donât have to sell to them but their quote is usually in line with Blue Book values. Most other dealerships will low ball you if they can.
First thing, before the new car stuff, donât junk the Malibu. Sure, a scrapyard will give you $300-$500 for it, but you can also donate it to Goodwill or a similar charity (even if it isnât running) and the write off will likely be higher. You can also check with local non-chain repair shops and/or list it on Craigslist as many mechanics like to buy cars like that to fix and resell themselves for a profit.
As for new car shopping, I have used Edmunds True Market Value meter in the past as a tool to help me gauge what is a âgood dealâ in my area on a specific make/model/year. There are other similar tools on the web as well, and itâs nice to go into negotiations with a decent idea of the median âafter negotiationsâ price other people paid for your car.
Do your research online first. Go to the Honda or Kia website and use their online tool to build the car you want, then have it search dealer inventory for up to 100 miles around your location. You could find the perfect car at a reasonable starting price at a dealership you would never have visited because itâs 70 miles from you, but the dealership down the street can negotiate a deal on that car as easily as they can on a car sitting in their own lot.
Once you know what you want and how much you want to pay, itâs just negotiation and patience. Check for any incentives being offered, sometimes theyâre different at different dealerships. If you live near a state line, check with a dealer across the border in the other state, sometimes they have different pricing and incentives. Donât be afraid to walk away either. You can leave one dealership and go to another and negotiate for the exact same car, as dealers can swap/buy inventory with each other. Donât be put off by the âI need to talk to my sales managerâ bullshit either, as Iâve sent guys back to the manager multiple times to get better deals.
On financing, sometimes you can get thousands off the MSRP if you agree to use the financing preferred by the manufacturer. If the incentive is good, and the rate low enough, it can be a great deal. On the other hand, if you belong to local credit union or regional bank, they often offer low interest rates on car loans for existing customers, sometimes way less than dealer financing, so it can pay to check around before going shopping.
Good luck man! My only advice on the Kia vs. Honda is that you canât go wrong either way in terms of reliability. I own two used Hondas (both my sons drive them) and theyâve been fantastic. I myself drive a Kia Sorento (as everyone in the Bargain Thread is well aware of now) and can honestly say itâs been the most reliable and enjoyable vehicle I have ever owned.
Iâll second several of your points. I am driving a Kia Niro hybrid. So far itâs been pretty good. Superior gas mileage, well appointed in most regards, Iâm overall happy with it.
I used them and also KBB and also Truecar. Truecar has changed over the years and isnât quite as good as it used to be. Now, to get quotes it will broadcast your info to dealers where in the past it just gave you the quotes and let you initiate contact with the seller. And where it used to try to gauge the dealerâs cost for you as a negotiating tool now it just does the same as Edmundâs, telling you what others have paid for the car.
I did find cargurus.com useful too. It shows how long a vehicle has been on a lot and the history of price changes so you can see if the dealer is more likely to deal on a unit thatâs been sitting around a while. Sadly for Texas residents the price history is hidden and Iâd like to kick the legislator in the ass that allowed this obstruction of knowledge.
Agree again. My Niro was on a lot at a dealer 45 minutes from me, but one of the dealers I was working with at a closer dealership gave me a better price and then had that vehicle transferred to his lot. This depends on the sales guy though⌠some may not want to go through the hassle of acquiring the car from the other dealer.
I am an avid Consumer reports reader and Subaru, Toyota and Honda have been battling it out for reliability honors. In around 2014 - 2015 Kia jumped up in the reliability and features dept, and clearly is close to top tier with some of their models.
We got pre approved for 48 month loan at 17k, at 4.09% which will beat most of the dealers,through our credit union, which we have premium checking due to the number of services we have.
Will pop back in with test drive results, thanks for the tips!
If you have the time check out Mazda also. I have owned a few Mazdaâs since 2003, zero major issues other than normal ware. Most of them I drove till 70-90k miles.
I think I remember when these were first sold, and radios were optional, a fee based feature. I really havenât looked at them since. Perhaps in the future I may.
Definitely got the Mazdas on the list. I would love the CX-5 to replace my Ford Escape, but the smaller Mazdas might work for my wife, they always seem to be reviewed well.
Yeah, the main rules of thumb are get your own financing lined up, know what you want, and know what you should/will pay. The dealer might offer you a better finance deal, if you have really good credit, but in general, you will do better with your own financing, even if itâs just because you are more comfortable with it.
In general, if you multiply the MSRP by .93, you get something pretty close to the dealer invoice. Another rule of thumb is to take that number and subtract $1-5k, depending on the demand for the car you want, the local inventory, etc. to get your asking price. You can go through all sorts of elaborate calculations, but usually this will be close enough. If the car is a bog-standard, everyone has tons on the lot type, you can shoot for the high end of a discount. If itâs something that is in high demand and low supply, with little local inventory, naturally you will end up at the lower end.
Iâve found that the straight up approach, using the Internet and email, works really well. You let the dealer know exactly what you want, what you will pay, and that you have done your research. They tend then to drop the bullshit and just deal with you reasonably, more often than not.
I hate how much of a dark art buying a car is in the US. Why hasnât Google or someone stepped in to save us from this madness?
Laws. To be more precise, franchise laws in nearly every state that force manufacturers to sell only via franchised dealers, and which regulate the degree of control manufacturers have over how cars are sold at the nitty-gritty level.
But, the Internet has indeed tipped over the rock and shone a light on the squirming mass of grubs and worms that is car sales. Ask any decent dealer and they will tell you the game has changed entirely. When I bought my last car, it was pretty simple. I figured the price I wanted, went to TrueCar to have it send a note to the dealer Iâd been talking too anyhow (for the initial test drive, etc.), got their price and when I sat down, the dealer simply cut right to the TrueCar price (which was, actually, the price I had already calculated), and bam, we were done. Itâs not as simple as buying a TV at Best Buy, but even then you have to do a ton of research and check out all the weird no-interest credit offers and stuff.
Tbh itâs also a dark art over here. The range of reasonable discounts itâs even higher. 15% off is pretty standard and you can go higher if you hit special brand offers + dealership offers. So the price different dealers offer for the same âŹ30k car can vary from about 28k⏠to 20kâŹ, from my recent experience.
Theyâre doing me a favor. I buy a car right now around every 10 years or so. I might⌠might buy them more often if the experience wasnât so damn awful.
2016 Honda Accord, certified pre owned for 15,999.33k miles.
Was listed at 16399, They also got us 2.9 apr through their financing.
Test drive went well, 6â5â self fit comfortably.
We tried a fit, too small. Camry was nice, but a tad more cramped than the Accord.
Was really painless, the comparables online were a similar price. I think Cargurus had it set as 16399 as 180 below expected price. Probably could have haggled more, but I didnât want to waste more time since we liked the car and it was off a single owner lease.
Congrats! I had a 2003 Accord for a long time and it was a fantastic car. It had 130K miles on it when it was unfortunately totaled in an accident ($9k damage done on a car worth maybe $4k was easily a write off). When I replaced the 03 Accord, I remember test driving an Accord of that vintage and found it to be very comfortable. Iâm 6â3", but have an unusually long torso for my height so head room is usually a problem in most cars. The (I think it was actually a '17) Accord had no issues whatsoever with room. Even with me sitting in the front seat, my wife had plenty of room in the rear seat behind me so seating 4 fairly large adults would have been no problem. It was very tempting to buy that car. I think you made a great choice.
Heh, I know what you mean. I used to be kind of âaddictedâ to buying cars; always had to have the next fastest one, the one with even more options, nicer interior, etc. My own fault really. I got in over my head pretty quickly in my 20âs (1980âs).
Then one day, I just quit cold turkey. Well, my business going bankrupt in 2000 was a big help, actually. It grounded me. Bought a 1988 Pontiac Grand Prix with 180,000 miles on it for $700 and drove it for years. I actually drove it until one day, I opened the door, and it fell off the car. This was in 2005.
One of my generous sisters heard about this, and was in the process of trading in their 1997 Explorer (which they had bought new). It had only 49,000 miles on it, but the Volvo dealer would only give them $2,000 for it on a trade to a brand new Volvo (seemed unreasonable as hell to me), so she said she could do better selling it to me for the same $2,000, but in cash.
Iâve been driving it daily ever since.
You know, I think the last car I bought from a dealer was in 1995. I havenât exactly been pining to do it again.
Accords are really nice. Pics or it didnât happen. ;)