While heating bills, taxes, debt and more keep rising did you know there is one area where if you know a little more than the average buyer you can save thousands?  It’s when you buy a used car.  But, if you do not know what you are doing the exact opposite will happen and you can literally lose thousands of dollars by paying too much!  This happens to people every day – don’t let it happen to you.  Learn how to save your self literally thousands of dollars by reading the rest of this article below.

First beware of the games car dealers play.  They will do everything they can to get you to completely fall in love with the car.  Don’t let this happen.  You need to be unemotional and never let the sales manager see your weakness.  It’s a negotiation and the more stern you are the better the deal you will get.  You also have to be open to walking and going to another car dealer if you are not happy with their numbers.  By shopping around and keeping things in perspective like same accessories and trim levels you can save a bundle.

Step two, all car dealers will attempt to switch you off price to payments.  Once they do this you’ve been had.  Then you have no idea that they are shipping you off to the finance manager with a full retail price in most cases, regardless of the price you may think you are paying.  On top of that they will usually leave a little padding so the finance manager can add a warranty and maybe some expensive and completely unnecessary treatments and add-ons (like credit life and disability – never buy these at the car dealer unless you like paying double or triple for things as that is how much markup they add to it).  Do not talk payments and stick to price – their car and your trade in (if you have one).

Step three, before you go in to negotiate with the car dealer do your homework.  Pull up the website Edmunds.com and get the fair market value for the car and mileage ranges.  This will tell you what you should pay for the vehicle akin to invoice pricing on new cars (you can also look up invoice prices on cars and trucks at Edmunds.com and this can give you valuable shopping information as you can now shop the used car manager against the new car manager for your business – why would I pay that when I can get a new one for $X?)        

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Step four, take the financing out of the deal.  Go and get your own financing online or through your local credit union.  You will almost always do far better on your own getting your own financing than when going through your local car dealer (especially on used cars).  You can literally save yourself thousands here over the course of your loan by doing your homework here.  It is possible that the car dealer may have a slightly better rate, but they won’t give that out to you right away.  Their job as the finance middleman is to finance as high an amount as possible so they get as large a cut of the profit as possible.  Many online financing sources will shop the rate for you and even send you a check so you just fill it in and buy the car.

Step five, do a CarFax VIN number lookup.  Car dealers, their sales managers and salespeople are notorious liars.  They will tell you anything to sell you a car – “it was my aunt’s elderly friends trade and a cream puff that was well cared for.”  Then you look at the CarFax and it was a rental car from five states over with a sorted past.  You need to do your due diligence here.  Verify everything you are told and anything that cannot readily be verified have them write it on the bill of sale.  If they won’t then assume it is a lie.   

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Step six, do a proper test drive.  This doesn’t mean taking the car to show and impress your friends or just doing a quick little stint that the salesperson tells you to.  They just want to get you back into the dealership and turn you over to their manager so you buy the car and they get their commission.  All used cars that you are seriously considering need to go to an independent mechanic for a proper used car check over.  This will either warn you of future nightmares or make you confident that you are purchasing a great car.

Now these steps are a little out of order, but just make sure you do all of them and you are sure to save some serious money next time you need to buy a used car.  As an added tip, many of the tips above also apply to new car purchases. 

        
Article provided courtesy of MDWholesale.com headlight cleaner, headlight restoration and headlight polish.

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