How to buy a used car in Charlotte, NC
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It isn’t a bad idea to test drive a few of the vehicles you are interested in to make sure they will meet your needs. Take the car and use it for your daily routine without the salesperson. If the car dealer won’t let you do that than move on to the next one. There are far too many car dealers out there with both new and used cars to deal with this. When you return the car, do not go inside to talk numbers or anything (make sure you have test driven all the vehicles you are interested in and completed you research to where you are comfortable first).
Make notes of which cars or vehicles work best, than compare with prices on your research through Google, Ebay, Edmunds.com, etc… If you are paying cash, my advice is to bypass the dealer altogether and buy it through Ebay. Watch some bidding first to get an idea of what you should pay. Watch out for hidden fees (all fees and similar must be clearly listed in the Ebay listing for if it isn’t a deal can be negated for any omissions). Pay attention to a sellers feedback. This is what sets Ebay apart from your local car dealers, Each seller has a report card on Ebay of how they conduct business. Remember the old adage if something looks too good to be true it probably is. Just like you should have any used car checked by an independent mechanic to look for mechanical problems, fraud like mileage issues and more, you should also check out the seller, read the Ebay listing thoroughly, and look at past sales. Generally on Ebay you will save between $1500 and $4000 on any vehicle based on availability, price range and year of vehicle versus going to your local dealer.
If you do decide to use your local dealer go in prepared. Their job is to get you to part with as much cash as possible (if you finance they can hurt you for many years). Know exactly what you want to pay and see what they have. Be prepared to walk and regardless why you are in the market for a car, do not ever tell the salesperson you need to buy a car. Do not play into their game. It is designed so you will lose. When you go in this time you have already test driven many cars and know what you want. If it is a recently new low mileage vehicle (under 30,000 miles) or new it will be covered under the manufacturers warranty and you don’t need to scrutinize the vehicle as much. For older vehicles if you haven’t driven it then take it for a good test drive and, if possible, have a mechanic or a friend that is good with cars look it over.
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Have a carfax pulled on the car (most dealers are Carfax or similar members and can provide this free – make sure you get all the pages of the carfax as some dealers will omit troublesome pages (hint – look at the bottom or top of the printout pages for all the page numbers and look at the dates reported on the carfax). If all checks out to your satisfaction sit down and talk prices. Do not play the four square game. All car dealers and their salesmen use this to get you off of price and on to payments. $329 sounds a lot better than $19,995 doesn’t it? And at the $329 they actually have it at $22,500 so they have room for an over priced extended warranty and other unnecessary and extremely overpriced add ons. When they try to talk payments draw a big X and cross through it. Tell them you are only interested in talking price and let them give you numbers.
Ever hear the saying that the first one who talks loses, well, here it is the first one who gives out their starting numbers loses. For instance, if you threw out $18,100 you will never pay less than that - even if you could have bought it at $17,100. Let the dealer come down on their price. If the dealer is only coming down in small increments like $100 or so, than make sure you only come up in similar small increments. A good rule of thumb in the used car business is that the car dealer has around $3,000 to $4,000 of markup in every car (sometimes they may have more with rarer cars like a new model, etc…) So a good rule of thumb is offer between $16,000 and $16,900 on that car they are asking $19,995 – but only after they have made their first offer or price reduction.
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