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Sunday 22 April 2007
BUY A CAR>>GOOD ARTICLE MUST READ
If you're like the majority of Americans, your attempts to purchase a car have left you feeling cheated, isolated, and degraded, more used than the burnt-out Pinto at the end of the lot. You've faced the half-truths, the shifty eyes, the blinding gleam of Super Bowl-style rings. You've sat for long hours in the drab interior of the dealership, staring at the plastic flowers in an attempt to divine whether a lockable gas cap is really worth $75. And you know to expect to be told that seven other people are dying to buy the car you just test-drove. The reason for your distrust and resentment is as clear as a squeegeed windshield. Dealerships have trotted out absurdly inflated list prices, hoping to ensnare every happy-go-lucky buyer who holds an open checkbook. The enemy runs salesmen at you like pawns in a Ruy Lopez opening -- applying relentless pressure, maneuvering constantly for a psychological advantage, attempting systematically to mislead you. They're directed around the board by the King -- the Manager -- to whom buyers are usually presented late in the bidding process. This man (why is the Manager always a man?) will be introduced to you as a fascinating fellow and model citizen, a long-time local resident who has Greater Interests than simply moving inventory; he's purportedly bookish, or maybe a water-skiing freak, or a savvy options investor. The whole scenario is well-rehearsed, carried out by automatons to the inaudible click of a metronome. No wonder today's buyer is short on patience. Why don't dealerships just swear off the current system, establish a prix fixe, and save everyone a lot of time and trouble? Some have, and for them The Fool offers a smattering of claps. The rest of the blackguards slog through their daily operations with our heartfelt disapproval. We can sit around whining, hoping that one day they'll mend their ways, or we can force the issue. As you might guess, our "Fool's Guide to Browbeating Your Car Salesman" does the latter. The aim here is to outwit the swindler, keep the bogeyman at bay. Following are 10 ways for the uncomfortable buyer to turn the tables on the opposition, possibly have a bit of fun at its expense (for a change), and save good money as well.
1. Shop Late
If you're not particular about the color of your vehicle, whether it has vinyl or leather seats, or power or manual locks, then wait till the last week of the month to go car shopping. Dealers are on a month-to-month quota system and have to make space for coming shipments. By the middle of the fourth week, you can bet that those with "product" on the lot are getting pretty impatient. Waltz in on the 25th of a month with a copy of "The Brothers Karamazov" under your arm and a small bag of popcorn. Tell them you're making the rounds for a new car, but don't know where to start. Feigned ignorance will serve you well in the long run.
2. The Best Price
Most of us don't have to feign ignorance when it comes to the long list of automobile accessories. We have no sense of their actual cost. It's almost as if dealers developed rear-window defoggers, anti-lock brake systems, and alloy wheels just to create a new class of uninformed buyers easier to prey upon. So don't stay uninformed. Get a copy of the "National Automotive Dealer Association Handbook" (NADA) at your local bookstore. It contains wholesale prices for both standard vehicles and accessories. Simply piece together the features and their listed costs to mimic your dream machine. You'll wind up with a highly accurate idea of how much your car should actually cost. An alternate method, clever and more elaborate, is to let the dealers value all the features for you. Once you've decided on a car -- let's make it the 1995 Honda CRX -- simply call up the first Honda dealer in your area and get in touch with a salesman. Let's say you've dialed up Honda-Edsel, where you've reached a chipper young man named Ronnie Lawson. Tell Ronnie you love the '95 model; tell him you're driving out his way and looking to buy; tell him all the things he wants so desperately to hear. Then ask him how much he'd mark up the car if you were to ask for, say, anti-lock brakes. When he quotes you a price, pause. Ask if he can go lower. In fact, start bargaining him down to the dollar, if you can stomach it. He'll probably be quite willing to offer you the lowest cost on brakes, or defoggers, or Dolby-sound speakers, or any given item, figuring that he can just knock up the price on some other feature. After all, you sounded SO eager to buy.... Now, having done this, hang up and proceed to the next dealer, and the next feature. No doubt you'll feel Foolish making a big deal about negotiating the cost of lighted vanity mirrors. Hey, who says you shouldn't have fun buying a car?! Push back into your livingroom sofa and talk the dealers' ears off. The less significant the item in question, the more relentless you should be. Go nuts getting the best daggone price out there on headlight washers, timed wipers, and car mats. At all times, bewilder the man you're dealing with. When you can't keep from laughing, fight $10 lower on the car mats, and tell him that otherwise he can just junk the car because you won't buy it. When you've run through the gamut of features, you'll have constructed the cheapest vehicle possible, and become a master barterer AND minor comedian in the process. Sure, you made some long-distance calls, and thus a sizable donation to the telecommunications industry... but you'll be dynamite at cocktail parties. And what's a lousy fifty bucks when you stand to save twenty-five times that?
3. His 3%
Determining the wholesale cost alone won't do you much good. You're not going to get the car for what the dealer paid, and he'll be the first to tell you that... over and over again. You have to give him his fair share to compensate him for coming into the office every day and hassling customers. So take the value you've pulled from NADA -- or your phone frolic -- and mark it up 3%, NO MORE. In ideal situations, you can cut into that 3% markup. After doing the math, make your offer. If the car is priced at $10,000, for instance, say these four words and leave the lot: "Ten thousand, three hundred." As you're traipsing back to your current set of wheels, the salesman will call out to you, wailing that the offer's unacceptable, that his company wouldn't make a red cent on such a deal, ad nauseam. Of course, this isn't true; they're turning a 3% profit, a cut that many will agree is more than enough for the "service" they offer. And about twenty minutes later, you can bet that they'll ring you up at home and tell you they have some Good News... could you come back in? They want to talk some more, and as usual they want you down at the dealership to do it. Upon arriving, you find that they may be willing to take your offer, but they'll have to charge you $400 for "dealer's prep." This is the fee for getting the auto to the lot, you're told. Malarkey! Cross it out and stick to your guns. The "dealer's prep" presumes that it's your responsibility to get the car to the lot. It definitely isn't.
4. Good Means Bad
As was just demonstrated, "good news" for a car buyer is always bad. Go to red alert whenever you pick up a ringing telephone and hear: "Hi [your name goes here], this is Ronnie Lawson at Mercedes-Yugo. Have I got some good news for you!" This threadbare utterance should turn your stomach. Whatever follows next can be expected to incorporate some of the dirtiest, least forgivable lies you'll ever hear. "Good deals" are just the same. A "good deal" is in point of fact an extremely regrettable one for you. If you're about to sign the contract and Ronnie Lawson tells you that you're getting a good deal on this baby, drop the pen. And I mean drop it! You're witnessing a phenomenon that psychologists call "projection." Ronnie is projecting his own feelings about the deal onto you. You won't make any friends at the dealership when you reopen negotiations then and there, but you have enough friends already, don't you? It's an unfortunate fact of human existence that in order to get a fair price for a new car, you'll have to drive it off the lot with the entire sales force shouting insults at you. We all prefer to be loved and respected, of course. Dealers know this. They offer constant positive reinforcement by patting us on the back and smiling affectionately at the very moment that they're cheating us. But remember, if a devil smiles and winks at you, you're doing something wrong. The goal is to have these devils hating your guts. Automobile dealerships are not wise places to seek positive reinforcement.
5. Avoid Trade-Ins
Many car buyers hope to unload their old car as part of a new purchase. This is, generally speaking, a boo-boo. Many people feel that listing a classified ad is not worth the hassle (also not true) and dealers love to exploit this: their offer for the trade-in will inevitably far undercut the open market price. Just as you should be insulted by the list price of a new car, you should be offended by their offer for your trade-in. Start by going to the "Blue Book," available among other places at your local bank. This helpful manual values cars according to the make, year, and mileage. If your vehicle is an automatic in good condition, you've just found its price tag. For standard transmissions, knock some bucks off. After you've located the fair price, go ahead and give yourself a 2% markup; you've earned it. Consider this the "seller's prep," or some such beast. When the dealer asks you why you're deviating from the Blue Book figure, remind him that you changed the oil dutifully every few thousand miles, didn't extinguish cigarettes on the upholstery, and kept the stereo consistently below volume 10. (If you failed to live up to these standards, just make up a list of your own.) A 2% markup is legitimate. Don't worry about the dealers; they'll clean the thing up and turn a nice profit. Of course, if you've taken unusually good care of your car, push the markup higher. If your salesman won't budge on his trade-in offer, fear not. Simply call up the very dealership in town that offers your make of car and let them bid on it. If you own an Audi, you can bet you'll get a better offer from an Audi dealership because they'll have an easier time selling it. Now that you have it, take that offer back to the bargaining table, explaining where you got it to the increasingly tired-looking Ronnie. And smile.
6. Work The Phone
Once you've outlined your offer in detail, be prepared for the brutal intermediate rounds of negotiations. To bolster your position, get back on the horn and start calling out-of-town dealerships. You'll need some firepower when your local salesman calls you to say that he can't find a buyer for your Volvo anywhere in your region of the country. Exactly what you've been waiting for. . . won't he be startled when you announce you've located a better offer 100 miles north! Oh, and while you're at it, tell him you're thinking about buying your new car up north as well. Then push back again in your couch and wait through the long silence. That long silence is music to a buyer's ears! Aim for it every time the phone rings and you hear, "[Your name goes here], this is Ronnie Lawson, Jeep/Eagle-Rolls Royce."
7. Apples & Oranges
Never let a salesman get you into a situation where he's trading you apples for oranges. Your trade-in and the new car are unique, separate vehicles; they should be valued separately. If the deals are kept separate, you'll stand a better chance of fairly pricing them. So just walk out when your salesman or his suave Manager tells you, "We'll give you back $200 on the new car, but unfortunately we won't be able to budge on our trade-in offer." Better yet, don't trade in your old car at all. If you want decent value for it, sell it separately (c.f. #5).
8. Hit The Road
If your current car can make the trip, don't hesitate to drive out of your way for a better deal. At the very least, you can use this option as a bargaining chip in your hometown showroom. If you're in Boston and can get a better deal in Maine, make that known in Boston. The salesman will probably remind you how inconvenient it would be for you to go all the way up there. Don't hesitate to remind him that you enjoy three-hour drives that land a thousand bucks in your back pocket. If only the rest of life were so inconvenient. In the same vein, don't hesitate to leave the lot during a bidding skirmish. Go for a sandwich, go for a walk, sit on a bench and agonize over The Motley Fool Stock Portfolio. Relieve the pressure by walking or driving away. Of course every time you return to the lot, Willy Loman will seem more impatient, less willing to bargain. But remember, behind every mask is an actor or a scoundrel.
9. The Lemon Test
If you don't have a trade-in and you think you're a brilliant barterer, challenge yourself: Prior to initiating negotiations to buy a new car, purchase a $200 used one. Attempt to trade it in. Give yourself ten points if in the final hour you've bid up your two-bit lemon to the $500-$1000 range, fifty points if you're getting $1000-$1500. Because dealers have so much success fixing these vehicles up and reselling them for more than they paid, they're often willing to chance the swap if it means selling a new car. Obvious risk is involved here; this strategy is not for the faint of tongue; you DON'T want a new car AND a bag of unsellable bones competing for space in your driveway. Nevertheless, The Fool knows such tactics have worked, and they do seem fiendishly clever.
10. The Local Hero
Why, when we know it to be patently untrue, do dealerships insist on playing up their managers as local heroes? One reason may be that these are the same cheeseballs you often see embarrassing themselves on local television advertisements. Whatever the true reason, customers are expected to be as excited to shake the untelegenic top dog's right paw as they are to drive off with a new car As mentioned earlier, your rendezvous with the Manager usually comes at a key point late in the negotiations. For instance, following your insultingly low offer, the frowning Ronnie Lawson has to go back and talk to the Manager. "He's been living and working here for twenty-seven years," Ronnie tells you, walking away, "and he's very involved with the community." The Manager comes down and affably -- always affably -- tells you a bit about the business, subtly explaining away the discrepancy between the dealership's reasonable price, and your unrealistic one. But if you leave it at that, you're missing an opportunity for some good, old-fashioned fun. The well-prepared Fool will bring to the negotiations a clean, white baseball -- just purchased -- so that at the very moment the Manager swaggers out front for introductions, the Fool can stick the cowhide in his face and bum a John Hancock. If these people want to be celebrities, give them a taste of the downside. Hound them for autographs.
In conclusion, it seems appopriate to remind the reader that conventional wisdom is something any right-thinking Fool shuns. For example, conventional wisdom about buying a car tells you to find the one that you like, bid on it, and accept the dealer's counteroffer. This quitter's mentality may be attractive to some; for our own part, we'd rather spend our years acting, rather than being acted upon. Another example of the drivel that issues from the mouths of the Wise tells you to pay up for quality. But that oversimplifies the problem, doesn't it? How much exactly should one pay up for quality? If a little moxie will save you a thousand dollars on the car you want, you didn't have to pay up for quality.
SOURCE :
http://www.fool.com/School/BuyaCar.htm
1. Shop Late
If you're not particular about the color of your vehicle, whether it has vinyl or leather seats, or power or manual locks, then wait till the last week of the month to go car shopping. Dealers are on a month-to-month quota system and have to make space for coming shipments. By the middle of the fourth week, you can bet that those with "product" on the lot are getting pretty impatient. Waltz in on the 25th of a month with a copy of "The Brothers Karamazov" under your arm and a small bag of popcorn. Tell them you're making the rounds for a new car, but don't know where to start. Feigned ignorance will serve you well in the long run.
2. The Best Price
Most of us don't have to feign ignorance when it comes to the long list of automobile accessories. We have no sense of their actual cost. It's almost as if dealers developed rear-window defoggers, anti-lock brake systems, and alloy wheels just to create a new class of uninformed buyers easier to prey upon. So don't stay uninformed. Get a copy of the "National Automotive Dealer Association Handbook" (NADA) at your local bookstore. It contains wholesale prices for both standard vehicles and accessories. Simply piece together the features and their listed costs to mimic your dream machine. You'll wind up with a highly accurate idea of how much your car should actually cost. An alternate method, clever and more elaborate, is to let the dealers value all the features for you. Once you've decided on a car -- let's make it the 1995 Honda CRX -- simply call up the first Honda dealer in your area and get in touch with a salesman. Let's say you've dialed up Honda-Edsel, where you've reached a chipper young man named Ronnie Lawson. Tell Ronnie you love the '95 model; tell him you're driving out his way and looking to buy; tell him all the things he wants so desperately to hear. Then ask him how much he'd mark up the car if you were to ask for, say, anti-lock brakes. When he quotes you a price, pause. Ask if he can go lower. In fact, start bargaining him down to the dollar, if you can stomach it. He'll probably be quite willing to offer you the lowest cost on brakes, or defoggers, or Dolby-sound speakers, or any given item, figuring that he can just knock up the price on some other feature. After all, you sounded SO eager to buy.... Now, having done this, hang up and proceed to the next dealer, and the next feature. No doubt you'll feel Foolish making a big deal about negotiating the cost of lighted vanity mirrors. Hey, who says you shouldn't have fun buying a car?! Push back into your livingroom sofa and talk the dealers' ears off. The less significant the item in question, the more relentless you should be. Go nuts getting the best daggone price out there on headlight washers, timed wipers, and car mats. At all times, bewilder the man you're dealing with. When you can't keep from laughing, fight $10 lower on the car mats, and tell him that otherwise he can just junk the car because you won't buy it. When you've run through the gamut of features, you'll have constructed the cheapest vehicle possible, and become a master barterer AND minor comedian in the process. Sure, you made some long-distance calls, and thus a sizable donation to the telecommunications industry... but you'll be dynamite at cocktail parties. And what's a lousy fifty bucks when you stand to save twenty-five times that?
3. His 3%
Determining the wholesale cost alone won't do you much good. You're not going to get the car for what the dealer paid, and he'll be the first to tell you that... over and over again. You have to give him his fair share to compensate him for coming into the office every day and hassling customers. So take the value you've pulled from NADA -- or your phone frolic -- and mark it up 3%, NO MORE. In ideal situations, you can cut into that 3% markup. After doing the math, make your offer. If the car is priced at $10,000, for instance, say these four words and leave the lot: "Ten thousand, three hundred." As you're traipsing back to your current set of wheels, the salesman will call out to you, wailing that the offer's unacceptable, that his company wouldn't make a red cent on such a deal, ad nauseam. Of course, this isn't true; they're turning a 3% profit, a cut that many will agree is more than enough for the "service" they offer. And about twenty minutes later, you can bet that they'll ring you up at home and tell you they have some Good News... could you come back in? They want to talk some more, and as usual they want you down at the dealership to do it. Upon arriving, you find that they may be willing to take your offer, but they'll have to charge you $400 for "dealer's prep." This is the fee for getting the auto to the lot, you're told. Malarkey! Cross it out and stick to your guns. The "dealer's prep" presumes that it's your responsibility to get the car to the lot. It definitely isn't.
4. Good Means Bad
As was just demonstrated, "good news" for a car buyer is always bad. Go to red alert whenever you pick up a ringing telephone and hear: "Hi [your name goes here], this is Ronnie Lawson at Mercedes-Yugo. Have I got some good news for you!" This threadbare utterance should turn your stomach. Whatever follows next can be expected to incorporate some of the dirtiest, least forgivable lies you'll ever hear. "Good deals" are just the same. A "good deal" is in point of fact an extremely regrettable one for you. If you're about to sign the contract and Ronnie Lawson tells you that you're getting a good deal on this baby, drop the pen. And I mean drop it! You're witnessing a phenomenon that psychologists call "projection." Ronnie is projecting his own feelings about the deal onto you. You won't make any friends at the dealership when you reopen negotiations then and there, but you have enough friends already, don't you? It's an unfortunate fact of human existence that in order to get a fair price for a new car, you'll have to drive it off the lot with the entire sales force shouting insults at you. We all prefer to be loved and respected, of course. Dealers know this. They offer constant positive reinforcement by patting us on the back and smiling affectionately at the very moment that they're cheating us. But remember, if a devil smiles and winks at you, you're doing something wrong. The goal is to have these devils hating your guts. Automobile dealerships are not wise places to seek positive reinforcement.
5. Avoid Trade-Ins
Many car buyers hope to unload their old car as part of a new purchase. This is, generally speaking, a boo-boo. Many people feel that listing a classified ad is not worth the hassle (also not true) and dealers love to exploit this: their offer for the trade-in will inevitably far undercut the open market price. Just as you should be insulted by the list price of a new car, you should be offended by their offer for your trade-in. Start by going to the "Blue Book," available among other places at your local bank. This helpful manual values cars according to the make, year, and mileage. If your vehicle is an automatic in good condition, you've just found its price tag. For standard transmissions, knock some bucks off. After you've located the fair price, go ahead and give yourself a 2% markup; you've earned it. Consider this the "seller's prep," or some such beast. When the dealer asks you why you're deviating from the Blue Book figure, remind him that you changed the oil dutifully every few thousand miles, didn't extinguish cigarettes on the upholstery, and kept the stereo consistently below volume 10. (If you failed to live up to these standards, just make up a list of your own.) A 2% markup is legitimate. Don't worry about the dealers; they'll clean the thing up and turn a nice profit. Of course, if you've taken unusually good care of your car, push the markup higher. If your salesman won't budge on his trade-in offer, fear not. Simply call up the very dealership in town that offers your make of car and let them bid on it. If you own an Audi, you can bet you'll get a better offer from an Audi dealership because they'll have an easier time selling it. Now that you have it, take that offer back to the bargaining table, explaining where you got it to the increasingly tired-looking Ronnie. And smile.
6. Work The Phone
Once you've outlined your offer in detail, be prepared for the brutal intermediate rounds of negotiations. To bolster your position, get back on the horn and start calling out-of-town dealerships. You'll need some firepower when your local salesman calls you to say that he can't find a buyer for your Volvo anywhere in your region of the country. Exactly what you've been waiting for. . . won't he be startled when you announce you've located a better offer 100 miles north! Oh, and while you're at it, tell him you're thinking about buying your new car up north as well. Then push back again in your couch and wait through the long silence. That long silence is music to a buyer's ears! Aim for it every time the phone rings and you hear, "[Your name goes here], this is Ronnie Lawson, Jeep/Eagle-Rolls Royce."
7. Apples & Oranges
Never let a salesman get you into a situation where he's trading you apples for oranges. Your trade-in and the new car are unique, separate vehicles; they should be valued separately. If the deals are kept separate, you'll stand a better chance of fairly pricing them. So just walk out when your salesman or his suave Manager tells you, "We'll give you back $200 on the new car, but unfortunately we won't be able to budge on our trade-in offer." Better yet, don't trade in your old car at all. If you want decent value for it, sell it separately (c.f. #5).
8. Hit The Road
If your current car can make the trip, don't hesitate to drive out of your way for a better deal. At the very least, you can use this option as a bargaining chip in your hometown showroom. If you're in Boston and can get a better deal in Maine, make that known in Boston. The salesman will probably remind you how inconvenient it would be for you to go all the way up there. Don't hesitate to remind him that you enjoy three-hour drives that land a thousand bucks in your back pocket. If only the rest of life were so inconvenient. In the same vein, don't hesitate to leave the lot during a bidding skirmish. Go for a sandwich, go for a walk, sit on a bench and agonize over The Motley Fool Stock Portfolio. Relieve the pressure by walking or driving away. Of course every time you return to the lot, Willy Loman will seem more impatient, less willing to bargain. But remember, behind every mask is an actor or a scoundrel.
9. The Lemon Test
If you don't have a trade-in and you think you're a brilliant barterer, challenge yourself: Prior to initiating negotiations to buy a new car, purchase a $200 used one. Attempt to trade it in. Give yourself ten points if in the final hour you've bid up your two-bit lemon to the $500-$1000 range, fifty points if you're getting $1000-$1500. Because dealers have so much success fixing these vehicles up and reselling them for more than they paid, they're often willing to chance the swap if it means selling a new car. Obvious risk is involved here; this strategy is not for the faint of tongue; you DON'T want a new car AND a bag of unsellable bones competing for space in your driveway. Nevertheless, The Fool knows such tactics have worked, and they do seem fiendishly clever.
10. The Local Hero
Why, when we know it to be patently untrue, do dealerships insist on playing up their managers as local heroes? One reason may be that these are the same cheeseballs you often see embarrassing themselves on local television advertisements. Whatever the true reason, customers are expected to be as excited to shake the untelegenic top dog's right paw as they are to drive off with a new car As mentioned earlier, your rendezvous with the Manager usually comes at a key point late in the negotiations. For instance, following your insultingly low offer, the frowning Ronnie Lawson has to go back and talk to the Manager. "He's been living and working here for twenty-seven years," Ronnie tells you, walking away, "and he's very involved with the community." The Manager comes down and affably -- always affably -- tells you a bit about the business, subtly explaining away the discrepancy between the dealership's reasonable price, and your unrealistic one. But if you leave it at that, you're missing an opportunity for some good, old-fashioned fun. The well-prepared Fool will bring to the negotiations a clean, white baseball -- just purchased -- so that at the very moment the Manager swaggers out front for introductions, the Fool can stick the cowhide in his face and bum a John Hancock. If these people want to be celebrities, give them a taste of the downside. Hound them for autographs.
In conclusion, it seems appopriate to remind the reader that conventional wisdom is something any right-thinking Fool shuns. For example, conventional wisdom about buying a car tells you to find the one that you like, bid on it, and accept the dealer's counteroffer. This quitter's mentality may be attractive to some; for our own part, we'd rather spend our years acting, rather than being acted upon. Another example of the drivel that issues from the mouths of the Wise tells you to pay up for quality. But that oversimplifies the problem, doesn't it? How much exactly should one pay up for quality? If a little moxie will save you a thousand dollars on the car you want, you didn't have to pay up for quality.
SOURCE :
http://www.fool.com/School/BuyaCar.htm
THIS CAR IS REAL....OR....??
I RECEIVE THIS PIC 5 YEARS BACK.. BUT THIS CAR STILL WAITING FOR THE RIGHT TIME TO BE LAUNCH MAYBE..
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