HOW TO BUY A CAR THE RIGHT WAY

When you’re buying a car, it’s pretty easy to waste money. The end goal of whoever is selling the car to you is to make money, so it’s in your best interest to minimise the amount spent.

Find a car

For this, just try to find a few cars that suit you. Remember that you need to have a spending budget and that some cars cost a lot to fix when things go wrong (and they will!), keep that in mind because a cheap car may cost more in the end because of the cost of repairs. Once you have a solid list of cars, go test drive what you think would be best and make a decision out of the bunch. But read the rest of this page before you make a decision.

Find the best price

The one place, out of anywhere you should go, is Kelley Blue Book (KBB). You can see not only the average cost of your ideal car, but they also throw in lots of listings for the same car in your area. 

Get a quote

You can do this over email or in person, just make sure you remember that they’re trying to make money however they can here. They’ll often try to get you to pay a fair bit more than you actually should, so make sure you know how much you’re willing to spend based on the average price of that car (which you find on KBB). If you just can’t haggle with the dealer to get the price you want, just leave. 

Trading in your old car

When trading in an old car, you need to look at two basic numbers: Trade-in price and the dealer retail price. Dealers will try to get your car from you at the cheapest possible price, so make sure you know how much it’s really worth. You of course can’t sell it to them at their retail price, but work towards that neighborhood. CarMax is a great place to go to for appraisals.  

Before signing off on your new cars

Make sure you read whatever they hand you. Dealerships tend to throw in hidden fees that they won’t tell you about and they can get real pricey sometimes. Definitely make sure there’s no shady business going on with your paperwork. Ask their finance manager about the different fees, if any of them sound pointless, get rid of them. Typical fees are like sales tax and documentation fees. They’ll also try to sell you warranties and additional coverage so unless you really need it, say no.