Buying a new car can be both exciting and nerve-racking. After all, beside our home, it’s the usually the biggest expense we have.
But the process of negotiating with
a car salesman at the dealership can also be a highly aggravating and depressing experience. That’s because we never truly know if we are paying a good price or not. In fact, the entire process often seems designed to confuse, frustrate, and wear out the buyer – until eventually, we just give in.
This leaves us second-guessing ourselves whether we could have bought the car for less. Worst of all, it mars the excitement of buying a new car. In any case, nobody wants to wonder if they paid a lot more than the last guy, just because they didn’t bargain hard enough.
A smart way to navigate this windy road is by finding a company that does the work for you. There are numerous car research sites that have all the data on new cars. They then publish on their websites the actual prices that people have paid recently for specific cars in local areas. You just enter the make, model, location, and options you want, and these sites instantly show you exactly what prices people paid for that car in your chosen area. This information is gathered through a huge variety of sources, and they have price data on most every make and model.
What’s most impressive is the concise, easily comprehensive way these websites present the pricing data. After you enter the vehicle you are interested in, they sometimes generate a list or graph that incorporates a huge amount of information in a snapshot visual; including the vehicle’s dealer cost, factory invoice, sticker price, and most importantly, the average price paid by buyers.
You can look at this pricing on a national, regional, or local basis, and also see things like how the average price is trending (up or down), and the number of vehicles sold during the period. Armed with this information, the consumer is in a much stronger position to determine if the final price they are being offered is fair—or, if they are going to overpay.
These research sites are often FREE because they are plugged into a network of dealers across the country. This way you can instantly compare their prices to the average in the area. If you choose to contact any of these dealers, they usually guarantee to honor the price they quote on the referral website.
Again, these sites are normally free to use and you don’t have to create an account or provide any personal information to use them.
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