The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: iris lily on July 28, 2019, 11:33:56 AM
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I am getting ready to pull the trigger on buying a used car.
Assuming I have to go to a conventional car dealer, will my position as cash buyer be a negative in the negotiation game? They make money off financing, right?
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When they push the financing or ask "what payment you want" or other such garbage, just say you want to negotiate the actual price of the car first, and worry about that nonsense after. Then take out your checkbook once that's nailed down.
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Sometimes they offer financing at 0% interest. You could calculate what the interest discount is worth and ask for that to be reduced.
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I worked briefly at a dealership back in the day. Their approach was that cash buyers were a negative, because finance was a profit center, and cash meant they couldn’t make money on the loan. I agree with Ketchup that the best way to deal with that is to insist on negotiating the price independent of the financing.
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I worked briefly at a dealership back in the day. Their approach was that cash buyers were a negative, because finance was a profit center, and cash meant they couldn’t make money on the loan. I agree with Ketchup that the best way to deal with that is to insist on negotiating the price independent of the financing.
+1. Financing, particularly "too good to be true" financing, is about either selling you more car than you would otherwise want, or waiting for you to miss payments / rack up fees later on. (and for the dealer, getting some commission from the lender) During the darkest days of the financial crisis, being a cash buyer was something, because many people couldn't get approved for a loan. At all other times, including now, it's best left avoided / unsaid until necessary.