How To Get The Best New Car Deal
11th December 2024 – #2 in New Car Buying Tips
Who doesn't want the best new car deal? Exactly, right? But getting the best deal on a new car is far from straightforward.
Like most pursuits that can deliver us a decent payoff, you need to set yourself some boundaries and have the fortitude to go about negotiating your new car price in ways that most people would feel would-be counter-intuitive.
The best way to explain how to get the best new car deal is probably to first share a little bit about how not to get the best car deal.
A prime example is getting distracted by focusing on individual items in ‘the deal'. This can definitely cause things to slip off in a wrong direction for you. That is cause you to lose control of the negotiations – so…
Know The Value of The New Car Options You Want, But Focus on The Bottom Line
Yes, it’s wise to be informed about the cost and value of new car options and accessories you want, but ultimately focussing on the bottom line will help you get the best price on a new car.
Although it’s important to keep an eye on all items – it’s a trap or a diversion to get too focused on individual items in the mix such as trade-in price or accessory pricing. Once you've determined what a fair price for your trade-in would be, and you know the ‘The Retail Cost of The Item Including Fitment‘
[that being; the amount it would cost you if you purchased the item and had it fitted after the sale]
– and ‘The Value of The Item To You‘
[that is; how important is it that you have this item? Is it a must-have or not really?]
So the value (to you) of the options and accessories you want, then, concentrate on the overall drive-away price, or ‘Changeover Price‘
[that being; the total amount you pay to drive away in the new car you want, with the options and accessories you want and your car traded in, if you are trading in.]
The idea is to make sure all your desired options and accessories are in the mix before you tackle the overall or changeover price – the reason being, if you attempt to negotiate pricing on accessories or options after you’ve agreed on an overall or changeover price (if trading in), you now know no longer have the leverage to negotiate pricing on the options and/or accessories you really want. While all items are in the mix, your overall price can (and most likely will) come down if you're a good negotiator.
The key: It has to be a sale or no sale situation for the dealer. If it's that and they know it, and all items are in the mix, they'll often sacrifice even what they don't have to make the sale. For them, it's making the sale now and worrying about the extra money when the sale is in the bag. For example, they can ‘do deals' with other departments within the business, or even outside the business to justify or validate things on their side – this is after you've signed off and you have what you want.
An example of this would be the dealership making calls to get more money for your trade-in. Whether they get it or not is none of your concern now as you have what you want but in most cases, they'll get it. But know this: it would never have happened if you hadn't have stuck to your bottom line changeover price. The secret is not to ‘overcook' the deal though – you can learn more by reading our other new car buying tips.
But there's more yet on staying focused…
New Car Departments Are Instructed and Have Targets To Sell Cars, Not Accessories
It's key to remember that new car dealers are in the business of selling new cars, not accessories. If the new car is sold (that is you’ve agreed on the car price or changeover price), it's important to realise the dealership's new car department is not really that fussed whether you decide to take the reverse parking sensors or not.
So again… get everything in the mix before you start, and then negotiate the bottom line – you will get a much lower price overall. And, it’s much easier.
With this all said and done, unless you really take the time and spend the energy and effort on knowing what the right price for all items in the mix are worth and how far things can be stretched it's really impossible to know what the best deal really is.
That's where Any New Car can save you all the energy and effort. Unfortunately, it's still quite often people discover our service after they've gone to the trouble of speaking to a few dealers and/or have already spent a great deal of time, energy and effort on negotiating their new car deal themselves.
The problem is though that even after they've spent all that energy and effort, they're still unsure whether or not they have the best new car deal. It's not uncommon for people to discover that we can still save them thousands more off prices they've managed to get for themselves.
Something else you need to know if you negotiate the deal yourself…
When you negotiate the deal on your own, you really need to know what's going on in the particular ‘model cycle' of the new car you're buying. Sometimes there are small windows in different new car model cycles where particular models or their variants can be secured cheaper today than yesterday. But when you channel such a decent volume of qualified sales year-round, these new car model cycles matter much less. But by the same token, they can still be leveraged.
If you’ve decided on the exact the new car you’re buying, and you’d like us to negotiate the best deal for you, click the link below.
