HOW TO BUY A CAR GET A GREAT DEAL AND AVOID WASTING TIME

By Grant Cardone

I will show you a step by step process of how to buy a car and make your local car dealer easy to deal with. You will control the process and know with complete confidence that you are getting a great deal without you having to shop six different dealerships and go through a long drawn out and painful process.

Dealerships' inventory postings, manufacturers sites, Kelly Blue Book, Edmunds, Auto Trader, CarsDirect.com, Cars.com, Autobytel, and an almost unlimited number of other websites have changed how you buy a car today. Because of the Internet, manufacturer's influence, lower profit margins, and competition, much of the advice on how to buy a car is now outdated and can actually work against you. Spending 3 weeks in research, shopping a 1/2 dozen dealerships, and spending countless hours in painful negotiations going back and forth is no longer necessary to ensure you get a great deal. 

These 6 steps will get you a great deal and avoid a long painful process where you have to become threatening and confrontational:

1) Approach the Dealer as a buyer. Your best offense when buying a car, contrary to popular belief, is to identify yourself as a buyer, not a shopper. Don't be defensive - present yourself as wide open and easy. This will actually make the dealer easier to deal with. The customer that approaches a car dealer defensive and pushy tends to cause the dealership personal to respond the same way.

2) Price is not your greatest concern. Let the sales person know that the most important thing to you is NOT price but knowing, first, you are on the right car.  This will be music to the sales person's ears and make them butter in your hands. Communicate that you are confident that once the vehicle is perfect, the dealership and you can come to agreeable terms. This is going to make the sales process quicker by reducing confrontation and later make getting your best terms even easier.

3) Make sure you are on the right vehicle. The single biggest mistake a buyer can make is buying the wrong product. Putting price in front of selection is an outdated buying tactic. If the product is not right, the terms can never be good enough! The best way to determine the right unit is not online or on the phone but at the dealership. A trick to make sure you are on the right vehicle is to look at the vehicles just above and just below what you think you want. Any interest on either of the other two product choices means you are not yet on the perfect product for you.

4) Test-drive the vehicle. Dealerships love you driving their products. This makes the dealership feel like they have done their job and provides them with more confidence in giving you their best price. Taking time to demonstrate the vehicle will save you time later and give both parties more confidence when negotiating.

5) Ask for a computer generated proposal. Ask the dealership if they could please present their offer to you electronically, rather than by hand. Because of technological advances the most progressive, customer satisfaction driven auto dealers today utilize software technology to provide the buyer with computer generated proposals. The proposal should include price, trade figures, purchase and lease payment, down payments and interest rates all at one time. Ask your dealer, "do you use EPencil or electronic proposals?" Computer generated proposals avoid wasted time in the negotiations and unnecessary figuring by management. An electronic generated proposal can produce 9 purchase payments and 9 lease payments in less time than it takes to fill out a credit app. This also reduces chances of mistakes and wasting time going back and forth. Computer generated worksheets guarantee a full disclosure, complete transparency, and a quick and easy negotiation process that is non-confrontational. Car dealers know that time is important to the 21st century buyer and that extending the negotiations only negatively impacts the buying experience and ownership.

6) How to determine a fair price? Just so you know, franchised automotive dealers in the US operate on about the same net margins as a grocery store--bout 2% net margin (after all expenses). Most car transactions generate more money to state and local taxes than profits for the dealer. For instance, the taxes in California are 8.75%, so if the dealer has a mark up of 6% on a $20,000 car, they will have a gross profit (before any expenses) of $1200 while the state will collect almost $1800. Keep in mind the State of California isn't even in the car business, doesn't wash the car, service it, or inventory the products only promises you schools, roads, and hospitals for the taxes they collected. If it were not for dealerships' service departments and pre-owned cars, the car dealer wouldn't be able to even stay in business to sell new cars. Can you find another dealer 50 miles away to sell for a couple of hundred less? Probably, but your local car dealer who you will be servicing your car with is a human being too. Remind him when you need something that, you came in, you didn't create a problem, you weren't hard to deal with, and YOU made the whole process painless for everyone.

Using old strategies will only make the process more difficult for you. There is no reason that buying a car today should be a painful or a long drawn out ordeal. Most car dealers want to make it easy and painless for you to buy and will do so when you handle them right; they will respond to you like butter to a hot knife.  It is outdated thinking that a car buyer must shop 5 locations to get a good deal. When you are ready to retire your old ride and ready for something shiny and new, just follow my steps; let your dealer know you are there to buy, be sure you are on the right car, ask that they present their proposal electronically and tell them you know Grant Cardone. Follow this advice and you will get a great deal, a positive buying experience, avoid wasting valuable time, and help stimulate your local and state economy.

Grant Cardone
http://grantcardone.com/