re: On the market for a new car. When is the best time to take advantage of year end pricing?

The best prices on "current" model year (18) is going to be the leftovers after the calendar year flips, when they're competing with arriving 19 model years in 2019.

That process actually starts next month (if not earlier) at a lot of dealerships, but kind of slides as the 2018 models stick around on the lot unsold - typically "loaded" models that never got bites get heavily discounted during this time (while they desperately try to sell them online), or it is a package that just wasn't popular because it was missing something (or unpopular color) and didn't sell before the year end (or they made too many of a model declining in popularity).