Category: Auto News

It’s a good idea to consider contemporary realities when asking around for car buying advice. While certain ideas might have been effective in days gone by, they can be pretty much toothless today.

Let’s take a look at some of those car-buying myths to avoid.

Paying Cash Will Get You A Better Price

Yes, the dealer does stand to make more money when you finance, but that can work in your favor. While it might feel good to walk into a dealership with a briefcase full of money and drive away in a new car, it won’t really net you a price advantage.

First of all, the store might be in a better position to give you a discount on the price of the car because it gets a commission on the financing deals it writes.

Second, paying cash can rob you of the opportunity to take the majority of that money and generate even more by investing it.

A car loans calculator will give you an idea of what you’ll pay to finance the purchase. Take that information and compare it to what you could make over a five-year period in the stock market with what’s left after you make an adequate down payment.

You might find you’ll come out even farther ahead buying the car “on time”.

Buying Out of State Reduces Sales Tax

While it’s true you can get a tax advantage by registering your car in a state like Montana, the tax burden will follow the car right into your driveway if you buy it there and register it in your home state. Further, you might run into problems operating a car registered in another state over a long period of time.

Now, with that said, you’ll definitely see some savings if you move to a state with a lower tax rate than the one in which you currently reside. However, that advantage is likely to be overshadowed by the cost of moving — unless you’d already planned to do so.

Shopping on a Rainy Day

The idea here is the dealership will be slow because it’s raining, so they’re likely to give you a better deal just to make a sale that day. However, the reality is quite the opposite because they’ll have more time to negotiate.

If the store has a long line of people clamoring to buy cars, sales managers are going to want to move through those deals as quickly as possible to capture as much of that business as they can. However, they can be as methodical as your patience will allow when you’re the only person in the store.

Shopping on the Last Day of the Year or the Month

Fueling this belief is the notion the dealership will be anxious to close as many deals as possible when they’re falling short of their projected numbers. However, you have no way of knowing those projections. The boss will be far less likely to roll over and take whatever you’re offering if you’re at a store that does a lot of volume.

Similarly, you’ll learn salespeople are more than happy to stay just as long as it takes to wrap up a deal if you think showing up just before the store closes will get you a better price. After all, they stand to get a cut of every dollar they harvest. Why would they just give you the car so they can go home — if it means they’ll have less money to support their home when they get there?

Here’s How to Get the Best Deal

Modern tech beats old-school beliefs every day of the week. Everything you need to know to get the best deal possible can be found online. Do your homework rather than relying upon fairy tales.

Once you’ve conducted the proper research, you can get quotes over the internet. You can also negotiate the price of your new car by email, text messages and on the phone. Shunning these four car-buying myths to avoid will find you far more likely to get a good deal on your next car.