re: Negoiating with car dealership

My dad and I were at the dealership all morning when we bought my first car. We picked it up the afternoon before and test drove it and took it home per salesman's request. When going back to buy it my dad told me to just be quiet at all times and act disinterested in vehicle. If they asked me anything just to nicely act indifferent. When we got there the next morning, dad told me to go inside and give them the key and walk back to his car. I did exactly as he said and the salesman begged us to come inside and talk. The games had begun. I want to say we went through four managers before they finally agreed to a price. They kept leaving us in the glass room by ourselves and the last time daddy told me to come on he was tired of this shite. I was so wore out myself I didn't even care if we got my car or not.

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This is your own fault. Next time, have your number ready and make him get there or leave. If it's doable, they'll do it.

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Umm I was 16. But thanks for the needless advice.

Just remember they should give you Full Retail Value on your old stinky trade in, and you should pay less than invoice for the new car off the showroom floor.

Anything less than 15% below MSRP and you're getting robbed.

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keep their profits and whittled it down to nothing.

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While I have made sure dealers lose money before, I actually feel we should both get a good deal.

I have a question myself if OP doesn't mind a slight hi-jack.

I'm saving for a down payment for a 4runner. I would like to put down a big down payment to keep the note low. Is there a limit on how much or suggestions on how much I should put down? This would be my first vehicle that I buy entirely on my own. I paid for my current one entirely, but my dad helped with the dealer being that I was 18 at the time.

last car I bought, didn't really have a strategy, just kinda dumb lucked into this.

I was in the market. I had gone to truecar.com where you can lock in your price, no hassle, but you have to go to a truecar.com dealer, which was about 100 miles away. Truecar also gives you an idea of what people paid for a car and what I should generally expect as a fair price or even an excellent price.

I guess I had to give truecar my phone number to get access to their site.

Decided to start local and see what they offered. Went to the first place. I was upfront about how I had gone onto truecar.com and had a good idea of what I wanted to pay and where we needed to get to.
We test drive, go into the back and start negotiations. He starts the old back and forth, "gotta run it past my boss" BS. So he comes back after the first pass. they could probably do it.

While I'm sitting there my phone rings. I looked, didn't recognize the number and sent them to voice mail. I was actually surprised when they left a VM.

So here we go again. I make a lower offer. He goes into his boss's office. While he's gone I listen to the voice mail. It was the true car dealer 100 miles away and he was ready to deal.

When the salesman came back he wasn't really wanting to budge. So I say, "you won't believe who that phone call was from. It was from the truecar.com dealer 100 miles away and he's ready to deal."

All of a sudden we were in business. He matched truecar's "good price" and offered me another 2k on my POS trade in.

Go in person and go on the last day of the month. Initiate an online chat with a couple of dealerships close by that morning and express some interest. They will try to get you in that day to come look at something. The inside sales rep you chatted with will give it to the guy who needs the sale the most to meet quota, get a bonus, etc. Once you know what you want, wheel and deal and if they don't give you what you want, tell them you are already talking to someone at the other dealership across town and you can just go there and get it because they already cleaned the vehicle for you. You were just checking to see what else was out there. On the last day of the month, if you get the right salesperson, you can pretty much have your way with them. You just have to play their game.

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While I have made sure dealers lose money before, I actually feel we should both get a good deal.

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Some dealerships (volume dealerships) are willing to lose money on a deal because they make it back in the service department. All those warranty repairs aren’t free; they’re reimbursed by the manufacturer.