I spent some time in my life before this web development gig as a car salesman, in fact, a Honda/Acura car salesman. The dealership that I worked for will remain anonymous. During my time there I sold a lot of new cars, used cars, and took in a number of trades so I got to know the inner workings of the dealership pretty well. With this knowledge it gives me an upper hand as a consumer when I go out to purchase a new or used vehicle and I want to share these secrets with you in hopes you too, can get a good deal.

First off I’d like to give a little direction of what you as a consumer need to know before you consider going into the dealership. Know what car you want, what make, model, and mileage, then stick to it. Dealerships will take advantage of rogue customers who don’t know what they want and shoe horn them into something that is over their budget. This brings me to my second point, know your budget, know how much money you can spend and negotiate UP to that amount, this means never start your negotiations at the highest price you’re willing to go. If you simply cannot afford the car you want, then wait a while until you can afford it or re-evaluate what you want.

Research your vehicle, know all of the packages that come in the model you want, look up the invoice value on Kelly Blue Book (http://www.kbb.com). 9 – 10 times you will not get down to invoice but it’s always good to know what invoice is since it can help you determine a good deal from a bad deal. If you’re looking at a used car and you’re at a dealership look up the trade-in value on Kelly Blue Book (http://www.kbb.com), this is what you can expect to pay. For more consumer information just search Google.

Lets get into the good stuff, how does a dealership work. Most dealerships purchase their cars from the manufacturer at what we know as “invoice.” Generally a dealership has a large line of credit that they use to purchase these cars and they do make monthly payments on their inventory. This is true of used cars as well. The dealer is in-fact purchasing your car from you when you trade it in. Knowing this you can understand why invoice can be a pretty hard number to obtain, but with some work you can get damn close to it.

Dealers have a lot of wiggle room on used cars, this means that the MSRP you see on the window label has a good amount of mark-up attached to it. Generally speaking, most used cars can have anywhere from $3,000 – $8,000 of mark up attached to their price tags. This is like equity in your home, you can sell your personal home for less than a builder can sell a brand new home because you have equity in that home, meaning – you purchased your home for less than it’s worth at the date of sale.

So how does a Dealer take in a trade-in? Again, this is heavily based off of the blue book value of the vehicle. Trade-in value is always less than private party value and I’m not going to digress into why. In blue book there are 3 levels of vehicle quality, excellent, good, and fair. Fair being the lowest on the list means there is significant body damage and the vehicle is mechanically unsound or simply does not run. Good is average wear and tear for that car and excellent would be little old lady style. A dealerships goal is to take your car in for UNDER fair value. That’s where they’ll start their negotiations for your car.

Their vehicle on the other hand is always priced at Private Party value excellent. They claim this is because they detail every car on the lot, put new tires on it, gave it some sort of inspection and slapped a 90 day warranty on it. However; the truth to be known is that the dealership is generally at most into the car at blue book good condition, trade-in value. This would leave approx. $4000.00 or more on many popular vehicles in money they can negotiate with.

If you like to buy used, start your negotiation for that car at blue book fair trade-in value and bring in that document with you, you can print off a copy at www.kbb.com. Be sure your salesman understands that you are not about to pay private-party value for a vehicle they took in at trade-in value. Also be sure your salesman is aware you are ONLY concerned with the overall price of the vehicle and you are NOT concerned with payments at this time.

Financing is a hazy grey area that gives the dealership more room to move. You pick up a car at a 5-year loan at 6.5% interest on average and the dealership is able to play with some of that interest to change your monthly payment until they hit the bank wall. Example; if you went to the bank and qualified for 2.99% APR and then went to a dealership and tried to qualify for the same loan, they would most likely tell you that your interest rate should be 4.99% or higher assessing an additional 2.0% of interest as profit for themselves. Don’t be fooled by the smoke and mirrors, if your dealer tells you they can’t give you the car at the price you want but can get your payments to where you want to be you best stand up and walk out.

What about new cars? New cars are a bit different, remember the home equity analogy I used above? Same is true here. Say a dealer pays the manufacturer $20,000 for that car fresh off the assembly line, they are now in that car to $20,000 and will probably price it around $22,000 – $26,000 based on supply and demand. Every manufacturer handles this differently and so does every dealership, there are a few exceptions like Scions.

Research what people in your area are paying on average for that new car and then subtract an extra $2500.00 from that as your base for negotiations. You could walk away paying $1000.00 less or more below what others are paying for the car just based on that knowledge.

Dealers have manufacturer quotas to meet each month on different models of cars, if they miss those quotas at the end of the month it will effect their manufacturer allocation of more popular new vehicles the next month. What this equals to is that dealers are more willing to deal at the end of every month. Also, if a car has been on the lot for more than 30 days the dealer starts having to make payments + interest payments to it’s lenders on the car, and they hate to do that. Imagine if you sit on a car for one year, you took out a $20,000 line of credit to buy it, then mark it up $2000.00 to try and make a profit, by the end of the year you could end up owing more than the car is worth, and dealerships hate to be upside down.

On every show floor there is a spot where the managers sit, and in that spot there is generally a board charting the sales quantities of each sales person. Often times manufacturers and dealerships offer salesmen who sold a lot of vehicles rewards. If you’re in the dealership at the end of the month you may want to try and work with the salesman who’s ranked in the top 3 – 4 on that board because they may be chasing that reward.

Finally, one last consideration, dealerships pick up accessories for almost nothing. If every dealer you have worked with is unwilling to get to your price point but you still want the car and it’s not over your budget ask them to give you some accessories for free as part of the deal. Maybe some new wheels, racks, box, lip kit, etc… Let them know that you are dissatisfied with the cost of the vehicle but would still be willing to buy if you get some accessory at no cost. Often times the dealer will agree to these conditions to make the sale.

I could go on for pages about dealerships and the internal workings, but I hope this bit gives you some insight on how a dealership works and little extra ammunition for those intense negotiations. Remember, a dealership will deny up and down any of my allegations here but I can assure you they all operate the same.

If you have questions feel free to post them below and if you found this to be helpful share it with your friends or use the bookmarks below.

Good luck!

First the story so you can all laugh at my expense, then the proper way so you all can learn after you are done laughing. Like anyone who just put on a new set of adjustable coilovers I wanted to go lower. The shop left me with a .5 finger gap from fender to the top of the tire and I ended up wanting about an eighth inch tuck. So I worked up some courage and thought how hard can it be, lifted up the car and got to work. Once I lowered each side by the same rings I stepped back, looked at it, and thought oh no, this is visibly not level! So for the course of a week every night I’d end up in my garage trying to get my car leveled out, all to no avail. I ended taking the car to a local shop to have them level it off once and for all.

The mechanic had a good laugh when I told him the story of why I was there only a week after he installed the coil overs and he went about leveling them off. About 20 minutes later he came out and said that I really wasn’t that far off and should feel pretty good about it but come out here and let me show you how to do it the right way.

To adjust your ride height properly you must first measure each corner as the baseline, then decide how much lower you want to go, we’ll go with a half an inch (1.27cm) for this example, be sure you are on a flat surface. Now raise the car with a jack and stands and remove the wheels. Adjust each side a half an inch (1.27cm) and measure the amount of threads you have adjusted on each corner to assure that you allowed for half an inch (1.27cm). Now put the wheels back on, tighten the lugs but don’t torque them and lower the car. Measure all four corners again to make sure they are even and you indeed did get a half an inch drop over your baseline. It is completely acceptable to be an 1/8 inch (.3175cm) lower on side depending on which side of the engine by the engine sits. If you have a corner or side that is off by over a quarter of an inch like I did, try again making small adjustments.

Here’s a more ordered checklist:

1. Measure all four corners on a flat surface from floor to the bottom of the fender in the center to get a baseline.
2. Raise the car up with a jack and stands then remove the wheels.
3. Decide on the amount you with lower or raise the vehicle (half an inch in this example), then adjust your coil overs by that amount being sure to measure the thread you adjusted.
4. Put the wheels back on and tighten the lugs (do not torque), take the car off of jackstands.
5. Measure all four corners to be sure they are even with one another, if one corner is off by more than an eighth of an inch raise the car and adjust again. Some of us appreciate at more raked appearance so just be sure the front wheels from fender to ground are even and the back wheels fender to ground are even.
6. Once you are even, torque your lugs down to manufacturer specs.

Be sure to follow your coil over manufacturer instructions when raising or lowering your car, I and JDMLove.org take no responsibility for damage done to your vehicle. Please observe Local Law Enforcement rules, laws, and regulations regarding vehicle ride height.

A friend of mine and fellow tuner made a good analogy when working with coil overs, he said, “measure adjust, measure, adjust, measure.” If you follow that simple analogy your ride will be even at all times.

Allow your coil overs some time to settle out after an adjustment, you can expect a little extra drop over the course of a week due to settling. Get an alignment after this week and your set to go. Congratulations you didn’t look like and idiot like I did!

JustHitVTECyo
Frank Markovich
pdxzine

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