Bargaining for a car?

[geojen]

How much should we reasonably expect to negotiate on price? For example, DH and I are thinking of buying a used Town and Country, priced ~18,000. Are we out of line thinking we could bargain it down to 16,000 or 15,000? Or is it more reasonable to knock off 500 or a 1000? What are your experiences?

[GREENBACK]

Go as far down as you want. They will counter your offer and it will still be in their favor. Don't be timid in this process even if it feels crazy. They count on buyers to over value their products. Be aggresive. They need you more than you need them.

[boosami]

I'd start haggling at about 10% under invoice (not MSRP). The invoice price is the "wholesale" price of the car, it's supposed to represent what the dealer paid for it. However, it's always higher than they actually paid due to trumped up "costs" added by the dealership, and incentives or other deals they got from the manufacturer. If they won't go as low as you want, walk away.

You can look up the invoice value at Edmunds.com or another car valuation site.

[disneysteve]

It isn't really possible for us to answer that question but you can get a pretty good answer if you do your homework. Go to edmunds.com and kbb.com and see what they say that model is going for. Check sale ads at places like autotrader.com and vehix.com to see what that model is going for. Check inventories of other dealers in your area to see what that model is going for. Use all of that info to decide a fair price.

boosami - OP is buying used, not new.

[HamSandwich]

i dont think you'd be out of line for bargaining any price. they worse they can do is say no and offer another price. but i would start off the lowest reasonable price you can come up with just to be sure because you never know, they might take it! also, i think negotiation would be stronger depending on how much you are putting down as a down payment etc.

[Inkstain82]

True story:

Needing a second car desperately but not having a ton of money, we went to a big used car dealer in town and asked to see the cheapest thing on the lot. We thought that by going to a big dealer, they wouldn't bother trying to rip us off because of the existence of things like the Blue Book. We didn't think we needed to check the Blue Book itself, because its existence meant no one would bother trying to oversell.

Anyways, we tried to pay $5200 for a $2800 car, and only our bank saved us when they called the car company directly and negotiate the price down for us.

[GREENBACK]

Anyways, we tried to pay $5200 for a $2800 car, and only our bank saved us when they called the car company directly and negotiate the price down for us.

They really do make an insane profit on some things.

[Snave]

If you don't like the thought of negotiating, then I would check all of the dealerships on the internet and then e-mail them directly about the car you want. They all have internet sales people. Send the e-mail with the info on the car they have on the site and tell them you are willing to pay $X. I started out this way for my last car b/c I travel all over the state and din't care where I got it. I certaily didn't have the time to visit all of these places and begin to negotiate with all of them, so I started out using the internet. I finally bought my car a few hours from where I live. On the way home from picking it up I got a call from one of the dealerships near my home. When I told him I just bought the car and was able to get it for about 3K less than what his best price was for me, he kept asking me a bunch of questions about the extended warranty and was it pre-certified, etc... (it was a 1-year old used car) because he said there was no way he could have got me the car for that price. It was the exact car he had but with a few thousand less miles.

[Thrif-t]

How much should we reasonably expect to negotiate on price? For example, DH and I are thinking of buying a used Town and Country, priced ~18,000. Are we out of line thinking we could bargain it down to 16,000 or 15,000? Or is it more reasonable to knock off 500 or a 1000? What are your experiences?

Our friends recently bought a loaded 2007 T&C listed at 21k and they got the dealer down to 16k. Go low, they'll either say yes or move you up.