re: Who is our resident car salesman on the board?

Well, there's plenty of info and wisdom there, but it's an old school approach. There is a MUCH better way.

Step 1: Determine exactly what you want, make, model, options, all but the color. Leave yourself 2-3 color choices. Don't feel bad about test driving and walking away without any sort of deal during the evaluation process.

Step 2: For almost every marquee sold in the US, somewhere there is a truly super high volume dealer who legitimately has the best pricing you can find, and will openly include all the OEM incentives. You can usually locate this dealer by looking on the owner's forum of the model you want. For example, Dave Smith in Idaho is the world's largest Jeep/Chrysler/Ram dealer. They have everything set up for you to fly into the nearest airport and buy from them in a 30 minute transaction. They will give you a quote via email. Get a quote from them if you want a Pacifica. Their pricing usually falls between what the industry calls "X Plan" (supplier) and "A Plan" (true internal employee) pricing. People treat buying from them as a cross country vacation. If you're coming back East, you're going to drive through some of the most spectacular parts of the country.

3. Use the OEM's search tools to locate every vehicle within 200 miles or so that fits your criteria. Look in metros where you and the wife might enjoy a day trip, or that are within a short flight distance. Find everything that matches your criteria.

4. Start emailing the dealers with those vehicles you just found. Make them an offer based on your Dave Smith (or other national dealer) price. Or, ask if their internet listed price is the best they can do. Start the dance with multiple dealers. You might even ping some of the more aggressive dealers who don't have your exact model in stock, this worked for me on my last buy. Dealer transferred the car from another dealer who wouldn't budge on price and sold it to me for what I wanted to pay. Ironically, the car had to be driven ~100 miles, passing near my house, for the transfer.

5.Be patient. This may take weeks, or maybe one day. I've had both happen. The end of a month with bad weather would be a great time to buy. You could get some real bargains over the next two days in Texas, for example.

6. Get ALL of the paperwork done and sent to you for your approval via email. NEVER go to the dealer without the paperwork done. The more sophisticated ones will be set up for you to remote sign with a service like Docusign. CHECK THE VIN AT EVERY STAGE, to make sure the vehicle is the same, and cross check it with the Munroney sticker and the OEM's website. Go over the paperwork with a fine tooth comb. Two of my last four cars were signed off in airport cellphone lots, and I was gone with the new car 20 minutes after stepping off the plane.

6. Don't ever get sucked into buying an OEM warranty at the dealer, and NEVER but a 3rd party warranty under any circumstances. Now, with modern cars, an OEM warranty can be worth it, IF you take the time to find a dealer that sells them at cost. Flood Ford does this for Fords and makes their money off volume kickbacks from FoMoCo. I believe Sacucci Honda in NJ does it for Hondas. There is a dealer that does it for Chrysler products too, just don't recall them. These are OEM extended warranties, valid at any dealer. Again, owner forums are a great place to find these dealers.

I have pretty deep ties to the major OEMs, so I go into the process already knowing what X plan and A plan pricing are most of the time. I've never failed to beat X Plan by a substantial amount, and I've even beaten A Plan (which isn't supposed to happen, but the complex dealer incentives allow it to every now and then) a couple of times. I've only spent more than an 30 minutes in a dealer once in the last 20 years (10-12 car buys for myself & ext fam) and that was because COVID had them too short-staffed to do anything before I got there. I still had the entire deal in email done, but they were stacked up with printing and signing. I mainly just wandered around and looked at cars then, the actual signing process was again something like 15 minutes.