26 Sep 08 How to Get Best New Car Deal in 30 Days Without Headache (1)

Check car price on cars you might be interested in. It is pretty important as sometimes you would find ridiculously huge incentives, rebates or hidden dealer cash going on some vehicles with high MSRP that you usually don’t want to take a look at. With huge discount, you might be able to afford a dream car that you would normally dream about, rather actually own the car. Even if you have made up your mind on some cars or even some trims, check if there are different rebate, incentive or dealer cash available on different trims. For example, if the higher trim of the car you are looking for has a higher invoice price of $1500, and if car maker gives $1000 more incentive on the higher trim, you actually pay only $500 more, or even less due to higher model usually hard to be sold. However, for $500 more, you would get difference of $1700~$2000 in MSRP, which could be sun/moon roof, better audio system, better interior material, bigger wheel and wider tire for only $500 more. Why not going for the higher trim if it is just a little bit higher

It is time for test drive once you target models. Let’s say you are targeting 3 cars after the basic homework. Try to bring 1 or 2 friends with you. The reason you need friends is unless you are able to talk with salesperson while testing the car, you need people to help you handle salesperson so you could focus on what you are doing. Dealers usually only allow people whom they think would buy the car to actually drive the car. However, spending minimum of 15~20k is a huge purchase for most people so money should be used wisely so you would not regret. Therefore, you should make your salesperson feel you would purchase the car today in order to test the car, but do not tell him/her from your mouth. For example, mostly your salesperson would ask you that if you would make purchase today. When you are asked these kinds of questions, tell them you work hard to make money, so you need to test drive the car first before making any decision. Ask car salesperson to let you drive highway if you mostly use your car on highway, and city road otherwise. Keep one thing in mind that if you are given a new car with very low mileage, test what you need, do not abuse the car since dealer might sell the car to other people. However, if it is a car for test drive, just have fun there.

After testing all cars, it is time to think about what car is the one you love. Put price, gas consumption and all other expenses aside, and ask yourself that what the right cars are. Some people might consider the price and all other factors first, but it could have potential problems, which will be addressed later. Does the car#1 have good handling I like? Is car#2 quiet as I am looking for? Questions like these will help you to determine the “best” car for you. The reason not to consider price and all other financial factors is that you have already filtered out cars in the first step, so the candidates are those you are able to afford, even though some might be a little bit harder for you, but you still could afford it. Most people would drive the car for at least 3~5 years, how if you regret the purchase after 3 months, what could you do? There are two simple ways to deal with it. Trade the car back to dealers and purchase a new one or stay with it. If you decide to go with the first option, you would get ripped off badly as new car depreciates a lot. If you go with the latter option, you would hate the car more and more. Hey! You should enjoy your car because you work so hard to save money for your new car and you are not supposed to spend so much money and make yourselves feel bad, aren’t you?