Haggling over a new car saved me over $1300

I hate having to do this, but I know car dealerships always try to get people to pay as much money as possible for a new or used car, so I know there is haggling involved.

Yesterday, I bought a new Toyota Corolla. I checked the dealerships website and they had 3 Corollas on an "internet sale."

Two of them were for $14,176 and one was for 14,990.

As soon as I came in the door, I told the salesman that I wanted the Corolla that was on an internet sale for $14,000. Note that I was already haggling because none of their cars were on sale for the flat 14k.

I was trading in a 2005 Toyota Corolla with 77,151 miles on it. KBB said (with the wear and tear defects that I honestly typed in) that the value was between $6100-$6800. It has a cracked windshield, a dented roof, and it badly needs a front end alignment. This doesn't count the repairs it needs that I'm unaware of. I was hoping to get 6K for it.

When we sat down to negotiate, the salesman showed paperwork that offered $14,999 for the Corolla and $3500 for the trade-in. He falsely claimed that I said I wanted the Corolla that was on sale for $14,999. I know I did not. And he also showed me a Carfax report that claimed my car was towed in 2013 in Arizona. I have never been west of the Mississippi River, nor have I ever been in an accident in that car. He acted as if I had lied to him about the car never being in an accident.

I scratched out the $14,999 and wrote down $14,100 and scratched out the $3500 and wrote down $6300.

He went back to the sales manager to consult and came back with an offer of $14,176 for the new car and $4000 for the trade-in. I strongly suspected they weren't going to go up much more on the used vehicle. I realized I was being overly optimistic on what I was going to get for a 9 year old car.

I told him I would take the deal, if they paid the $50 title search because I could not find the title.

They said yes, but the negotiations weren't over yet. They then said I had to agree to financing or pay an additional $500 because those were the terms of the internet sale. I wanted to simply write out a check and buy it outright like I always buy cars.

However, if I put $3,000 down, all I have to do is pay $158 a month for 4 months, then I can pay it all off and avoid the 7% interest.

I think I got a pretty fair deal. Without haggling I would have been out over $1300 more.

They have the exact same car on their showroom floor for $19,000...only difference is it is painted red.

I don't like the way car dealers take advantage of naive people. And I'm never sure, if I could have haggled even further and saved even more money.