How To Buy A Car When You Don't Know Much About Them:
Apr 21 '02
The Bottom Line Do your homework. Research everything you can find and go to the dealer with invoices.
Not long ago my daughter needed a car. She had $10,000 to spend and we went shopping and bought one. The whys of "why a new car versus a used one" are for another review. She did buy a new car though and I hope you will get some tips to make car shopping easier. I am not an auto advisor, mechanic, dealer or in any way connected to cars. This commentary is my experience and it seemed to work.
For a variety of reasons my daughter had to buy a car quickly. A lot of research on cars and looking around happened in a short time. I don't think anything would have been different if we had more time, however.
I will list the chain of events that culminated in the purchase of a car:
1. Since I’m substitute teaching and not working a full-time job I had more time than she did so I did much of the research. I started right here at epinions. She had $10,000 to spend. The search was narrowed down to the Toyota Echo; the Hyundai Accent; the Kia Rio or a used car.
I learned that the Toyota would probably be over her budget. At the time I found no reviews on the Hyundai and Kia; both models that we were looking at were too new to be rated apparently. I e-mailed a few people who owned Echos to see if they still liked them and got one response back and was told he did still like his car.
2. I went to www.askjeeves.com and looked up all three cars. I read both industry reviews and owner reviews on the Toyota, Hyundai and Kia. As I said the Kia Rio was new at that time and the Hyundai Accent replaced the Hyundai Excel so I looked at general information on these cars.
I also looked at Kelly Blue Book on line, which told me what the dealer’s invoice price should be and what is standard in the cars.
3. I went to the library and read Consumer Reports. I trust their recommendations. The biggest problem I had was that these cars were too new to have had any kind of reliable test record. Another model made by Kia was described as the worse car ever (my words); the Hyundai had some potential, as did the Toyota Echo which was too expensive for her. I copied these pages as well as the pages of the recommended used cars among them anything by Toyota and Honda.
3. In the meantime my daughter was doing word of mouth research through her co-workers; she was looking in the newspaper to see the prices of used cars and she was also doing Internet research.
4. It was time to start looking at cars. We spent 2 days at several different dealers. We went to the Kia dealer but weren’t convinced that Consumer Reports was wrong. We went to a Toyota dealer who showed us some nice used Corollas with only a 90-day warranty.
I think a warranty is crucial for a young driver. She doesn’t have the money to put into repairs and even though the Toyota is a terrific car, in my opinion, it will need repairs. You just have no idea of what you are getting with a used car with 40,000 miles on it.
5. We went to a Nissan dealer just to see what they had. They had a very nice pre-owned Hyundai with only 3600 miles and a 3-year warranty. It was very affordable leading us to step #6.
I test drove it. That might surprise you since my daughter the car was to be my daughter's. She wanted a standard, however, but didn't know how to drive one!
6. At this point there were a few things that drove us to this step which was visiting a car dealership: My mom (Some of the $10,000 had come from her so she had some influence.)had heard some good things about the Hyundai Accent; we were armed with some good information; time was of the essence; and the test drive of the pre-owned one was a positive one.
7. Ordinarily I would have gone to at least 2 dealers and priced out the car at each place. The two dealers “in our area” were 45 minutes to 1 hour away in different directions. As it turned out we were happy at the first dealer so stayed with them.
8. At the dealer a young salesmen named Chris greeted us. I told him that I had Internet invoice prices. He told us that since he was new, he didn’t work pricing out with the customer. I commented how “haggling” has been somewhat eliminated with the advent of computers and he told us to make sure his Manager, Jim, knew we had that information.
I have heard that even dealer invoice prices may not be the actual price paid, but at this point in time, that's the best information I could get!
In any case, the information we had was on the 2000 Hyundai Accent. We never thought she could afford a 2001 so I didn’t look up that information. As it turned out, the 2001 was not much more expensive than the 2000 and she wanted a standard. All the 2000 models on the lot were automatics. They had two 2001 standard transmissions on the lot!
Chris took us out back to look at them and talk with us about the Accent.
-Have the salesperson go through the car with you inside and out.
-Have him talk about the safety features even if you know all about them because you have done your homework.
-Let him show you the engine and talk about it. If you have no idea what he is saying, pretend you do.
-Look in the trunk. Is it big enough? Do the seats fold down?
-Look at the spare tire. If it isn’t full size, is that all right with you?
-Make sure you know about the warranty, what it covers, what it doesn’t, how long it lasts and for how many miles.
-Look at the features. Is it all right if it doesn’t have power windows?
-Is it all right if it doesn’t have air conditioning? In my daughter’s case she wanted air conditioning and that was going to be put in at the service department.
We then test drove it and I was truly impressed with the ride; make sure you turn a corner; brake quickly, back up, go slowly and go fast enough to get the car up to 50 mph. It was time to talk.
Chris wrote down a figure of $10,900 after he spoke with Jim. I immediately said she couldn’t afford that and it was way over the suggested Internet price.
Jim came over. He was a very nice man and asked to see my Internet pages. Remember I had the 2000 version so I couldn’t show them to him! I told him I had personal notes all over it and couldn’t show him. I was able to show him what air conditioning cost but that was factory installed. Once it has to be installed at the dealer, I did and do realize it is more money; so in my head I increased my bottom line $100.
You must have amounts written down or in your head that you know are your bottom line and a line right above your bottom line.
My daughter and I conferred many times during this process giving them the impression we weren't sure we wanted the car.
Jim told me that he had forgotten that there was a $500 rebate on the car! We were down to $10,100.
We went over to service to see what they could do about air-conditioning. They couldn’t come down much from their $1100 price but came down $50.
We went back to the desk to bargain. I wrote down my figure, $9,600. Jim said he couldn’t do it. He wished he could but he couldn’t.
In my many years of buying cars I know that the dealer's bottom line will not be reached until you take out a checkbook or cash and your seriousness is seen.
At this point you must be prepared to walk. If you know you are in a fair, ballpark range, say, “I am sorry we couldn’t do business, we just can’t afford more than that.” Jim then wrote down $9,900. I explained that my daughter (who did speak now and then but my dad was a meat salesman all his life and I watched him buy cars and sell meat too often to not be good at this!) couldn’t afford that. She just got out of college, etc. He said, “Let’s split the difference.” I said, “$9700 take it or leave it and throw in car mats.” and he said, “It’s a deal” and we shook on it.
We all left happy. Jim and Chris made money; perhaps not as much as they had hoped to when they saw 2 women walk in but they were never patronizing at all unlike the salesman at the Toyota dealer. They took us seriously, as they should.
By the way, the dealer's invoice for the 2001 Hyundai Accent with factory installed air conditioning was $9731; the suggested retail price was $10,184 without tax.
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