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Ok, I've always bought from private parties, but this time I want to go to a dealer. I have $14,000 to spend for a used car. I have no idea how to negotiate prices down. Basically, if I want to spend $14,000 out the door tops, should I be looking at cars priced at $15,000? 16,000?
Of course, I will research the cars and look at the kbb value... but I just want to know generally how much a dealer pads used sticker prices. Any tips?
I can give you an example for my experience.
We bought 2.5 years ago a certified 2008 civic with 16K miles. Before we went to the dealership, me and my wife decided to spend total of 15K for all (including taxes, DMV, dealer fess etc). we ended up paying 15200. The dealer priced the car after all taxes and fees for 16900.
You should bargain a lot and be prepared to leave. our first offer was 15000 when the dealer said 16900, but we didn't give up and stayed in the dealership for a couple of hours. In the end we got what we wanted and are really happy until today with the car (only issue until now was a replacement of a battery).
I think that with enough patience, you can get a 1500-2000 discount on a car, even in a dealership.don't agree to pay the ticket price on any car.
Hope it helps :-)
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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For used cars dealers usually pay less then low bluebook, and if it needs work before selling will take that off the trade amount. You could buy for a lot less than the listed price and they will still make money. We recently traded on in for $2,700, just under low book but it needed a few things that would have cost us $300-400 to fix. They told us it would most likely go to auction for about $3,500.
A few days later it was on their website with a price of $10,999, about 30% over high bluebook. A week later they showed a sale price of $7,999 which is
still $1,000 above high book, but two days later the ad is gone. They either sold it or sent it to auction.
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