This weekend I went car shopping with my best friend, Ploman. There was a giant sale at one of the local dealerships, and he had seen online that they had an ‘02 Civic with 60k miles for $11k. I told him he had to take me with him because I’m Super Negotiator when it comes to buying cars. When I bought my CR-V, there was still a waiting list for them, and I still managed to get them to sell to me well below MSRP, as well as extend my warranty and throw in all-weather mats for free.
We were walking around the lots, and ended up in the back lot where they literally have more cars packed in then you would think possible. I guess the current economic crisis has really affected the car dealerships. As we were walking out to a reasonably-priced Civic with relatively decent mileage, I noticed a red Accord coupe and pointed it out to Ploman…and that was the end of that. They wanted WAY too much for it, though it is a very nice car; leather heated seats, CD changer, sunroof, alloy wheels, V6 w/6-speed manual, etc. etc. – basically, I would have purchased that car had I been looking. I managed to talk them down over $3K from what they originally wanted, made them drop his financing by 4 points, as well as throw in a 3-year full bumper-to-bumper warranty with my “you will not take advantage of me, I grew up going to the flea market every weekend” attitude. Which gets me thinking…
Why is it we can negotiate prices at places like flea markets and car dealerships, but not at department stores? Why can’t I go to Sears and say, “you know, I really like this vacuum cleaner, but it’s just $45 too expensive?” When is the price negotiable? Is there an etiquette rule for price negotiations?
For those of you thinking of buying a car, now is the time – it’s a buyer’s market. Remember my attitude; “well, we have a car that works. We don’t have to buy this car from you if we don’t like the price” and don’t take no crap!