Advice For Buying A New Car

By Cathy Seiler

Buying a car is more than often not a fun experience. Quite the opposite really.

Want some real advice for buying a new car? Read on because I am going to tell you what the ideal things to do when shopping for your new ride. I am going to highlight just a few things that make the car buying more aggravating and more importantly more expensive for you.

First and the most important is this. Do not play the trade in game with the dealer. You WILL get screwed. Period.

You have purchased a car before so this is no surprise. As soon as your salesman walks up to you and you tell him which model you are interested in he asks you, "you got a trade in?". Now if you are going to pay as less as possible for your new car then be prepared not to let them play with you.

The best way to avoid this game is to understand it. You see car dealers can play with 2 sets of numbers when you have a trade. Which makes it easier on them to pull in big profits and give you the proverbial shaft. with a trade it is hard if not damn near impossible to even know what you are paying for the car. They tell you that they will give you X amount for the trade, then they start talking monthly payments and not amounts for the vehicle. In the end, they will win and you will not.

Here is how to avoid falling into this...

Don't even do a trade! If you can take your time and sell it out of the paper or Auto Trader. You will get more value from this and you not only get more money for your car but you keep the dealer from having another hand to work you on. You win big time if you can do this.

I know that it is a pain to sell your car on your own, and if you owe money still to have to go to the bank and do all the required errands. However, this will save you a lot of money. Moreover, you don't exactly buy a car every three months so suck it up and get it done the right way.

Now, if you are going to have to trade into the dealer for some reason do it like this...

Now, they will usually stand there like vultures and watch you drive up in your trade. Don't do that! Have your friend drive your car and tell the dealership that is your friends car. Negotiate the price of the vehicle and then mention the trade.

The keyword here is price. Do not purchase the vehicle based on monthly payments. That is a bunch of crap and dealers do this for a reason. If a 2008 Camry has a sticker of $19,187 then why the hell would you purchase it based on just a monthly payment? They will start writing down figures like:

$1500 Down
$567 a month

So based on that do you have any idea if you are paying $19,000 for that car? No you do not. You have no freaking clue what you would be paying for the car, so don't do that.

Just to give you an idea on the level of screwing you would get if you took that deal. A car that is $19,000 with a down payment of $1500 for a 5 year loan should be closer to $367 a month not $567. So that would mean you end up paying closer to $28,000 for that car if you thought that deal was good enough and you could handle the payments.

So it is vital that you negotiate the trade and the price of the car separately. You can do that, there is nothing that says you can not do that. If you are in a position where your car is worth less than you owe you are going to have to figure this out.

In fact most people fall into the dealership trade in trap because of this. People think that since their car is worth $7,000 and they owe $10,000 that they are going to have to trade it in at the dealer so they can get it paid off for you.

I know that you have seen those commercials that they play all the time... "We will pay off your trade no matter what you owe!". Ohh, they will pay off your trade for you alright. Then roll it into your new loan making sure that the next time you want a new car you are in the same predicament.

If you really think that car dealers can afford to pay for all those print, TV, and radio ads by being generous with you then you need to grow up.

The fact is that you still should take care of this yourself. If your credit is good then you have plenty of options. Heck even if your credit is a little lack luster you can still save some money by taking care of this yourself.

So let's go over a scenario that is common. We will use the example above. I owe $10,000 and my car is worth roughly $7,000, and I don't exactly got all that in the bank to cover what I am short.

Still sell your car out of the paper. Sell it for what it is worth and then get a loan directly from the bank to completely pay off the difference. You will need to secure this loan ahead of time, but that is no big deal. The day you place your ad in the paper fill out the forms for your loan. Now, you only need $3,000. So that is not exactly a huge loan and I am sure you can get that.

In this case you are about to save so much money that you could just put it on a credit card and still come out on top (be sure to have a rock solid pay off plan in place before you do this).

Ideally you can get the small loan from the same bank and when you go to sell it have everything waiting there for you at the bank. They have your loan check, they have transferred the title to the branch, the buyer meets you there with a cashiers check and it is all done. I have personally arranged all of this before and it can be done.

Now, what just happened?

I have no trade for the dealer to screw me on and I saved thousands by doing so. I got more for my trade by selling it out of the paper and also have leverage to purchase my car without playing to trade game.

Stick with the advice I just gave and save yourself a ton of money and frustration.

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