Car Negotiation Coach

When you use a car price quote service like Edmunds or Vehix, over 75% of the initial email replies will be incomplete, misleading, or simply be a salesman’s contact information.  Car dealerships sign up for these services as a means to bring in new leads.  They’re just looking for a way to get you to the dealership to give you the hard sell.  But they can still be valuable if you know what to do with them.

Here is a recent example from a car dealer responding to a price request for a 2010 GMC Acadia SL.

As you can see, this email contains a lot of information, but none relevant to our request.  All we wanted is the price for 2010 GMC Acadia SL.

This is typical, so don’t let these types of responses bother you. You should simply view these services as a way to get contact information for the Internet Salesman at several dealerships. Those are the people you should negotiate with and make compete with one another.

Once you know who to contact, you can send a follow-up email asking for specific information about the type of car you want to buy. You will have a much better success rate in response to your follow-up email.

Here’s an email template for your follow-up email to a car dealer  (this should get you an actual quote for a specific model)

If the Internet Salesman doesn’t respond to this email or is still vague, then move on.  Using 2 or 3 of the best car price services online, you should easily get enough contacts to begin negotiations for a new car.

Once you’ve gotten acceptable responses from at least 4 or 5 dealerships, then you can begin negotiating.  Using an Email Price Reduction strategy, rank your quotes from most expensive to least expensive.  Send an email to the dealer who gave you the most expensive quote and ask him to beat your best price.  Work your way down the line asking each dealer to beat your current best price until you end up with a great price on a new car.

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It used to be that when you wanted a new car, you only had one choice:  head to the dealership and haggle with a sleezy car salesman.  But these days, you have new options that can save you money.  Here are your car buying alternatives:

1. Old School:  This is what your father taught you.  Put on your lucky tie and head to the dealership to haggle.  Dealerships have no reason to give you a competitive price because you’re not talking to their competitors.
2. Buy Online:  Use a service like CarsDirect and buy the car on the Internet.  You can even have the car delivered to your home.
3. Negotiate Online: Get the best car prices online  from multiple dealers at once.  Then make them compete with each other to systematically lower your price.

Summary

If money is of no concern to you, then by all means, go Old School and buy a car at the dealership.  But if you are like the rest of us, then your best bet is to take a few test drives, figure out what you want, and then go home and get on your computer!

From your computer, the simplest way to buy a car at a good price is to Buy Online through CarsDirect.  You’ll likely get a great deal and won’t have to negotiate.

However, if you don’t mind sending a few emails and want to get the lowest price possible, try Negotiating Online.  It’s easier than you think.  You’ll be the winner when you make multiple dealers compete with each other.  It’s also not a bad idea to check the CarsDirect price after you negotiate in case they end up lower.

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