You guys are looking at this all wrong.... Cars are not investments... Not even Used ones. How many used cars have you bought that gave you a return when you sold it? Think of paying for a car the same as paying taxes for some luxary, like highways or something. Even if the car is paid off, It's still going to cost you money.
And paying cash for a car is fine and dandy... but what if you can get a great interest rate on a car? Would you rather have $20,000 invested somewhere that will actually give you a return? Or sink most of it into a car that will give you a big fat negative on money returned?
If you're in the market for a new car... Wait until June or July when dealers are trying to rid of the previous year models before the new ones come out and the incentives to buy new previous year model will be better. For instance, GM is having 0% interest for 5 years on a 07 cars now because a lot of 08's will be out in the next month. Why in gods green earth would you pay off a car when you could be using that money to get atleast 2% or so return in a freik'n savings account? Especially since 0% financing doesn't cost you anything?
If you're buying a used car: never buy from a dealership that doesn't have a service Dept. Make sure the car was inspected, and ask to see the original ticket that the mechanic wrote on to see what he suggested be fixed; then check to see what was fixed. They keep the tickets, don't let them tell you they don't... then need the documentation for auditing purposes (what the mechanic got paid for!) Just because a dealership says they inspect every used car on the lot doesn't mean they fix everything they discovered in the inspection.
Although many dealers buy cars from auctions that have FLR vehicles (Front Line Ready) In that scenario, the Auction inspected the car and certified that it was in good working condition. The cars cost more for the dealer to buy, but they don't even have to detail them before they turn them.
Also if you want a good idea of what the dealership owns the vehicle for, look up the vehicles Trade-in value on Kelley Blue Book, add about $750 to that amount, and you're pretty close to what the dealership owns the car for. Wait until the last day of the month, offer what you think he owns the vehicle for; which will usually result in verification on how close your guess was -- in which he'll say it's impossible to sell the car for that amount... He'll then usually... because it's the last day of the month and every dealership looks at monthly quota's... Make a counter offer... Probably meeting you in the middle.
And Never trade in your car if you can help it... and if you do, get atleast 3 bids on your car from different dealerships, and ask them if they'll buy the car even if you don't buy there's. If they won't, you either have a piece of crap they can't move, or they are offering you more $ than you're car is worth and making up for the loss in the tremendous mark up in the car they are trying to sell you.
CarMax is a good place to get your car bid as they will buy anything.
Take it from a guy that's currently trying to get out of the car business.
Anyone hiring?
