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Use Truecar to get a ballpark price. A yearly membership for Costco costs $55, well worth it if you are buying a car. I bought a car for my daughter and that process eliminated all of the dealership BS. They even gave us $500 for trading in her 18 year old pos Alero!
Use Truecar to get a ballpark price. A yearly membership for Costco costs $55, well worth it if you are buying a car. I bought a car for my daughter and that process eliminated all of the dealership BS. They even gave us $500 for trading in her 18 year old pos Alero!
That's not always true. When I bought my 300 I checked them. They were a couple thousand over the price the dealer was offering at the time.
This is, approximately, the sales model Elon Musk is using to sell Teslas where there are no laws preventing him from doing so. Dealers, of course, are seeing red, and have pushed state legislatures to outlaw Internet sales.
that is pretty wild. I hope Musk makes some headway. There is a reason why many people hate the buying experience
I chuckle at the idea that people think that by cutting out the dealer, the car is going to be any cheaper. The manufacturer isn't going to give up the retail profit if they don't have to.
Well,
After long searching, I think the best deal is really Craigslist.
Equipped with some basic car knowledge, you can easily spot a few older cars, that still are great cars, and have 100k miles on them, for below $3k.
People want to get rid of older cars, because of the age old thought that "old cars break down after 100k miles".
This isn't true for older (Post 2008) model cars! They can last anywhere from 125k miles for the cheapies, to well over 250k miles trouble free!
Most modern economy cars last at leasts 125k miles, some 150k miles, before the engine needs major maintenance.
Even with that (add about $2k on maintenance), you can go for another 50k miles easily; bumping the price to $7k max for ~75-85k miles.
All very well, if you're ok with older car radios, but for me, that's a non-issue.
I don't like those fancy touch screens in cars anyway.
A new car that costs $20k, you can run 10 years, at 10k miles per year, the car would have cost you $2000 per year, or $2 per mile. (maintenance and gasoline not included).
A cheap $3k car, with 100k miles, that lasts you 30k miles without maintenance, would end up costing you $1 per mile, or probably $1000 per year.
Quite often you'll be able to drive a car 30k miles above 100k miles, without any serious maintenance cost.
You may say: "well, a second hand car can be a lemon".
But it could also be not.
Plus, your new car could give you lots of trouble as well!
Also, what would happen if you crashed your new car halfway (5 years), with it being fully paid off?
Insurance will offer you less than half for it (probably $8k, depending on the condition), and your new car would have cost you $12k for only 50k miles (or $2.4/mile, $2400 per year).
Another benefit for buying a cheap car from a person, rather than a dealer, is that if the car will give you 20-30k trouble free miles, for 2 to 3 years, you can easily buy another car down the line; and experience a lot more different cars in your lifetime.
If you're a blue collar worker, A $20k new car, you probably can only afford once every 10 years.
Nope! It is written in law that you have to go through a car dealer to purchase a car. This whole buying process was lobbied in the past, and no one is willing to do anything about this because is a lose-lose for almost everyone, except the buyer and the manufacturers.
that is pretty wild. I hope Musk makes some headway. There is a reason why many people hate the buying experience
I hope he fails. If anything just for duping people into thinking they’re saving money by giving full MSRP to the factory instead of the dealer.
With any other dealer it’s possible to get a car cheaper than the dealer paid for it, if the circumstances are just right.
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