Any tips or tricks for buying a car? I have a 2013 Cadillac with 98,000 miles on it but it’s about time to get a new car in the next six months. Researching now to see what I’d want. Is it better to finance through a local bank and pay with the loan cash at the dealership or do they give you better deals at the dealership financing with them? Looking at a CPO 2021 or 2022 with low mileage. The price of new cars is just retarded right now. Does it matter if it’s a certified pre owned or not? Never buying an extended warranty unless someone convinced me otherwise?
JV My best friend is from Turkey like me and I am the Godfather of her daughter and her legal guardian in case something happens to him and his wife. Telling this for you to know how close friends we are. He is the highest grossing car salesman in the Mercedes dealership that he works which is in Bergen county. I can give you his cell so he answers your questions. I know you won't be buying a Mercedes but his advice will probably help you to decide how to proceed.
Usually I have always bought financing through my lifelong local credit union and took it to the dealer. I know the dealers do everything they can to finance through them, they must get some kind of kick back there, I just ignored that. But I recently found out my credit union doesn't report to all the credit bureaus on my payments. You might want to look into that. I was kinda mad about that, if I'm gonna be making on-time payments each month, obviously I'd like the credit bureaus to all know this. So my last car I got financed through the dealership .
Regarding the loan, its a shop around situation--you may, and its not that likely, be able to negotiate a better price of the car at a dealership by taking their financing. They sometimes make some money on the financing so they can offset the auto price in that way. As BN said above, I've found credit unions to be the best terms--just watch out for added fees which they may try to tack on that are actually voluntary--don't sign anything until you go over the whole structure. You know that anyway. I did not picture you in a 2013 Caddy lol. Not that I had thought about it--maybe a camaro lol.
Never buy an extended warranty from an aftermarket company - too many problems figuring out the coverage and finding a place that will do the work. Extended warrantees can be worthwhile if they are purchased from the manufacturer of that car. You should not purchase it when you buy the car but get a price and then look online where you can usually find a better price (not impossible to pay near half of what you may be quoted) sometimes direct from the manufacturer but often through one of their dealers far away who are willing to sell at a much lower margin.
I bought a year ago off Carvana. I’m not interested in marketing for them, but I was pretty happy with the car and how the sale worked. Knew nothing about it going in. I was looking online for the make/model car I wanted, found one with under-2000 miles that seemed well priced. Clicked the purchase button and did the whole thing from my phone. I’m thinking of driving this one through the winter and trying that again next Spring.
Gotta see pics of the pimpmobile first and foremost. my recent experience for a lightly used Toyota minivan was that the local credit union was by far the best way to finance. About a year earlier my wife needed a pickup and bought a new F150 with Ford Motor Credit at 1% due to some promotion. So I’m thinking for a used car, go with your credit union. Don’t buy the extended warranty. Certified pre owned is definitely good for Toyotas, not sure about other models. Dying to see the Cadillac though.
Go at the end of the month, and have an idea of what you want to pay monthly, and entirely. Even if it’s ridiculous amount from their first offer, you will be suprised at what the will “ go into the manager”and do. They have a lot of wiggle room from that first number they come out with . Rates are pretty high ,may come down a bit after the first of the year. Can always get the dealer rate now then just have your bank pay it off if the rates go down.
End of the month can help when buying a new car because the manufacturers kick back more money to the dealer if certain goals are met. That does not happen with used cars. Second, it may be a good idea to know how much you want to put down and how much you want your payment to be but you should NEVER let a salesman build a deal around a payment but rather on a negotiated price for the car itself. There have to be sample financing contracts online that let you see how much a payment would be, at what interest rate, for what term that allow you to plug in the car value and get yourself into a ballpark.
That’s true, I wasn’t thinking about the used part. And definitely, the price of the car itself is most important. I negotiated with payment with my last one, but was calculating total price /years/rate etc at the same time. But i can see how they can stretch the duration with a Lower payment and some won’t catch it.
Ene of the month matters. You get the best incentives. Guys are desperate to make deals. I got a dealership who insisted they had to do some dumb market adjustment fee that was $5k to give me the KBB value for my trade-in PLUS another $5k because it was the last day of the month and I threatened to fly to Pittsburgh to a dealership who wouldn't charge the $5k. Why pay $5k extra when I'd rather fly to Pittsburgh, get the vehicle I want for no extra fee, visit family, and just drive 6 hours home which is no big deal to me. Sent from my SM-S906U using Tapatalk
Look up Digital Credit Union, they have some of the best rates available. I used them twice and they were great. With regards to buying a CPO, narrow it down to what you are interested in, then build the car NEW the way you want online with the options you are interested in. Most cars don’t change from year to year so, 2024 will give you a baseline price that you can compare when looking at CPO cars, some dealers don’t discount used car prices that much from new cars, so you can see who’s giving you the best deal, especially in that range of years. Hope that helps a bit, happy car shopping.
Last year, I bought a residence in a 55+ community in California to be near my grandkids. My wife and I spend part of the year here in NYC and part in CA. We needed a car to commute the 20 miles to my son's house. I looked into Carvana and saw some good deals, but was too timid to pull the trigger on a BMW X1 or X3. Instead looked around for a new hybrid but discovered that EVs and hybrids were selling for 3-5K over list because the price of gas is $1.50-2.00 more per gallon than here. In a previous trip to the coast I rented a Nissan Rogue and liked it a lot. It was perfect for what we needed. Did a lot of my shopping on TrueCar.com. If you click on "show me the deal" in addition to an offer from a local dealer you get a call from that and other dealers with offers. After all the back and forth haggling, a dealer in San Leandro offered to sell me a Rogue SV AWD (didn't need the AWD but I like AWD) for a little less than list price and threw in the luxury pack option worth close to 3.5K. I decided to accept it. Had to accept the black color which wasn't our favorite but could live with it. At the dealer, because of high interest rates, I was prepared to pay the full price of the car, however, Nissan had a promotion of 1.9% financing for 3 years. So I took the money I was prepared to pay for the car and put it in a money market which was paying 5.25%, paying a little less now but still a lot more than 1.9%. I signed on the dotted line and drove out of the lot and didn't have to pay a penny up front. I tell this story to show that sometimes you can get a good deal on a loan from the dealer. On another occasion (about 20 years ago) I was buying a car off an expiring lease and wanted to finance it. Checked all the traditional sources of lending such as banks and decided to try Lending Tree. Within minutes I got five loan offers, all lower than any of the local banks. I opted to go with one and financed through them. It was a good experience. Hope this info helps.
For those interested in a new car it's a different ball game than used but with rebates and factory financing now is a good time. If you're flexible in what you want to buy this listing is usually up to date on the best financing and cash back deals. It's a good place to find deals on all makes without going to each company's website Best Car Deals & Incentives in October 2024 | U.S. News (usnews.com) You might find you can get something new and get a much better rate (some even at zero percent) than buying used. If you put in your zip code and click it you'll need to give your info to go on; if you don't want to do that just click on the make near the top of the page for details on different model dealsthen go to the manufacturer site to confirm.
You can also do a lot of the bartering online now. Getting the OTD price sheet PDF sent to you and begin messaging other dealerships in your area or further has worked for me in the past. I would just create a secondary email to keep all the trash out of your main one
Certified Preowned or CPO is a good way to buy a car if your looking at uplevel cars such as BMW, MB, or AUDI. You get some peace of mind because they offer a 1 Yr warranty on the car. Going uplevel is like what JP Morgan said about affording a boat: "if you have to ask, you can't afford it." After the warranty expires, I would just do the maintenance and pay for any repairs out of my own pocket rather than an extended warranty. If you are buying a used Toyota, Honda, Mazda or Subaru buying CPO is not necessary because those cars are well built and generally reliable provided they are well maintained. For any used car other than CPO from the dealer, have the car checked out by a trusted mechanic before you buy and go from there. There are always exceptions to the above rules. I have an Alfa Romeo Stelvio. Got a good lease deal just before the pandemic. Because Italian cars don't have the best reputation for reliability, after the lease ran out, I bought the car and an extended warranty but one recommended by my dealer who I have come to trust. I would say the same might apply if you are buying a performance car such as Corvette or Mustang, etc. All an extended warranty does is provide peace of mind, and some don't even do that. For example, I've seen a lot of Car Shield complaints online.
For two reasons: 1) He may not have enough cash on hand to pay for it. 2) I believe it's almost always better to finance a car when you can. A car loan is one of the easiest lines of credit you can get. Why tie up your cash when you may have other things you need to spend your money on. I feel the interest is worth it so you can still have money in the bank for other things you may want or need to do. For example, maybe there is work that's needed on the house. If all your money is tied up in your car, it's a lot harder to go to go to the bank to borrow money for home improvement, or to take a nice family vacation, or G-d forbid, an emergency.
Agree...Buy it and run it into the ground. Have 100 thousand on my 2015 BMW but with oil changes and regular maintenance in tiptop shape If you lease or finance a car you could unfortunately lose your job, get fired, or laid off (perhaps an unlikely scenario) but they take your ride away Find a car you can afford ,buy it, and keep that baby working
Drove a Stelvio for a couple of years - great car! Hope you got it in red. I wonder how much the warranty would have cost from this place: Save $$ on A Genuine Mopar Vehicle Protection Plan! (chryslerfactoryplans.com) Interesting sidenote: the new Dodge Hornet SUV is actually a Stelvio in Mopar clothing - it just lost a few inches and about $15,000 or more.
