The first thing you need to know about buying a new car is that if you're not prepared to turn into a total asshole, you're going to get fucked so hard that virgins within two zip codes of you will have bloody sheets the next morning. There is probably not one other sales industry in America that is so infested with hairy-armed roach-like humanoids who can literally fly from the showroom to the lot when they use their specialized and leatherized olfactory sensors to ascertain that someone with even the slightest desire to trade vehicles pulls into the vicinity of their domain. They have a pecking order which normally negates what you'd expect to happen with such animals -- mass murder to get to the new mark. The new hires and the Gil-like losers are tossed out the door to stand around the front of the dealership when it's cold and/or raining. (You can tell how low the salesperson is on the pecking order by the number of old umbrellas standing in the corner of his cubicle.) The established slicksters shuffle the newbies and losers inside during nice weather and use that time to strut around the open air in front of the dealership like peacocks of prevarication, glomming onto anyone who enters their space. I had to drive through a Chevy dealership once, just to turn around, and looked in the rear-view mirror to see a young man running after me, waving his desperate hands as I sped up. The look of horror on his face stays with me even now.
My advice, after buying several new cars over the last several years, is to ignore the waving arms and ear-wide smiles and tell all the hucksters who approach you upon entering their carnival of corruption one thing. Firmly say, "I'm already dealing with someone else, thanks." And then look around and pick out the one you find with the most honest face. You may wind up being mistaken, but some of these creatures have features so obviously obnoxious that you can bet your last dollar that dealing with them will be so slimy that you will literally have to go back to the body shop and have them strip you naked, cover you in Gunk, and hose you down before you can even pretend to be fit for human company again. If you don't have a natural instinct for finding folks with honest faces, do yourself a favor and get someone who does to buy your new car for you. Pay them handsomely and thank whatever god you support that most folks have learned this skill somewhere along the way. Sign up for a self-help class in your neighborhood which teaches this simple technique after your new purchase has been handled by someone else.
So you (or your envoy) find(s) the guy or gal with the most honest face you can find. In order to gain their good will, tell them that you want to deal with them and no one else. They will escort you to their cubicle and begin the Car Sales Routine. This routine is well-known to all sellers and buyers of cars and is quite annoying to both parties. It involves probing car-related questions such as, "This weather is sure something, isn't it?" Or, "So, do you live in this area?" This intense fact-finding can go on for quite a long time, and there is a very easy way around it. As with many things in this day and age, the internet has a lot to do with problem-solving.
Get the image of your new car in your mind long before you drive to this carnival of corruption. Get it in your mind, firmly. Imagine the make, model, color and all the accessories that you will want which don't come on the standard issue. Do not, and I repeat DO NOT, go into the dealership with any hesitation about exactly what you want. If you for one instant fall prey to a come-on such as, "Have you ever investigated the financial advantages of a lease plan?" or, "Have you ever actually experienced heated leather seats in an automobile?" you are so far past doomed that even the 300 could not mount an assault to save your sorry ass.
There will come a day when the internet will put these carnies out of business. But that day is not today, so gird yourself for battle and put on a steely mask of determination.
There are several websites which will tell you exactly what the car you want costs both the dealership and what it will wind up costing you, unless you're one of the few total fucking retards who walk into a dealership and pay full sticker price for a new car.
Normally, once you've found your honest-faced salesperson and explained to him/her what the car you want is worth, you will find agreement. If the cost to the dealership is, say, $20,000 and the MSRP is $22,000, you can expect to pay around $23,000 when it's all said and done. And that's not a bad profit margin for a car dealership. After all, they've got to get the car there from Japan or their American maquiladora and they've got to pay for the upkeep of the dealership and they've got to pay the salesfolks something for their time and expertise. (I just pissed myself laughing at typing "expertise" there; wait a second while I get a paper towel.)
Now, if you're like most folks, you'll be trading in your old car on this new one. And, guess what? Yep. Here is Step Two of Where You Get Reamed Like a Concubine in a Colorful Chinese Film. Again, the internet is your best friend. Just go to a site that will gladly, for free, tell you exactly what your old car is worth. The make and model is obvious. The mileage on the old beast is obvious. What is not so obvious and where you will have to turn into that total asshole mentioned in paragraph one is in the "condition" column. If you're old car is worth around $10,000, the difference between "excellent" and "good" and "fair" and "poor" will be about $1000 per choice. You, of course, will think your old car is in "excellent" condition. You're probably wrong about this because there was that time (remember) when you had mixed some large number of beers with some brown wine and decided to fix your non-cranking goddamned lawnmower by using your car to ram it into the large oak tree in your back yard. Granted, that did do wonders for convincing you to buy a better lawnmower, but it didn't help your front bumper. Nope. Not at all. So count on downgrading your old car to "good," but don't back off of this figure unless you've treated your old car like you do your wife.
No matter how good-natured and honest the salesperson you've picked, they will put you into the car you want to buy and suggest you "take it for a spin." The trick here is obvious. They are hoping that you're so enchanted with this vehicle that you'll beg them to let you pay whatever they ask. And, if this is your first "new car," you might well do just that. However, after you've bought a few cars, you should just use this test drive to make sure that there are no used condoms in the glove compartment and that the brakes work.
After the obligatory test drive, the rest can be summarized to a basic plan that looks something like this:
- You are once again escorted into the salesperson's cubicle.
- You tell them that you don't want to spend a lot of time "hanging out" at this establishment, but that you do want to buy that particular car you just drove around in.
- You tell them that you know what the car costs sensible buyers, and that is X-$500 (-X- being what you're actually willing to pay).
- You tell them that you know what your old car is worth and that you'll expect to get Y+$500 (-Y- being what you'll actually take for your car) on a trade-in. That puts them $1000 in the hole from what you've learned on the internet.
The salesperson will then take these figures to his/her Sales Manager. They'll be gone for about ten or fifteen minutes. When they come back, they will tell you that the best they can do is have you pay X+$1000 for their car and the absolute best they can do on your trade-in is Y-$1000. They will employ some phrase along the lines of, "We couldn't keep the lights on in this place if we lost money on a trade." This puts you $2000 in the hole (in this example; adjust these figures for more or less expensive cars). And here is where you get the revenge that is due every car purchaser since Henry Ford first snarled that magnificent phrase with a filthy cigar hanging from his Whiplashish mustachioed lip: "I'm going to make a fucking mint with this shit!" You get up out of your comfortable cubicle chair, shake the salesperson's hand and say, "Well, maybe the folks over at (insert name of rival dealership) will feel differently."
I could go on at length about the dismay and consternation that will ensue when you say these fateful words, but I'm sure you have the point by now. Just don't back off your threat to leave and you will eventually wind up splitting the difference and they will sell you the car for your X+$500 and they will give you your Y-$500 for your lawnmower-killer. It might take just a few minutes, if they are sure you are serious. It might take an hour or more if they think you're bluffing. It might take you actually driving away. If you have to go this far, they will probably call you on your cell phone within ten minutes to tell you that they've "taken it to the owner" and he's agreed to your terms. It might actually take going to another dealership and going through all of this again. But you can rest assured that it will eventually work. And when you're talking about saving $1000 (in this example), it's really worth a day or two of work, eh?
The funny thing is this: No matter how much you piss them off, they'll forget all about it and shake your hand as they're finishing up the paperwork. Then you can smile and know that you've been one of the small percentage of folks who don't get sucked dry by these parasites. Then you can go find some friend of yours with a car just like the one you bought and ask them what they paid for it. Rub your finger over the front bumper and casually, with a downcast glaze at the shiny black tires, tell them what it cost you. That is, if you're still in the asshole mode.
It's probably better for your mental health if you're not.