Worst Errors People Make Buying a Car

Worst Errors People Make Buying a Car

by 12/28/2015

Most people who do a little, or a lot, of research on pricing, walk into a dealership with entirely too much confidence – so says MyHopscotch CEO, Ali Omooomy. “A print-out from Truecar’s website does not a savvy buyer make”, he explains. “Firstly Truecar works with the dealerships’ input on creating price-quotes, but more importantly, unless you buy three cars before lunch every day, how can you expect to keep the pace of a car-salesperson who makes a career out of negotiating car sales?”

Classic Errors People Make
When Purchasing a Car

1.  Face-to-Face:

Negotiate on the phone or over email if you prefer. There’s no reason you should have to be face-to-face with the dealer. Your decision-making ability is always far more emotionally charged when you’re looking right at the sales person.

2.  Getting Too Attached:

Nothing sells a car like a test drive. Negotiate the pricing “before” you get attached to the car. Don’t picture yourself in it until you know how much it costs.

3.  Thinking Affordability Equates To a Good Price

Don’t think you won just because you can afford it. Getting your payments down to $350 per month is not a victory if you ended up paying too much for the car overall, and/or too little for your trade in? What is your APR? How many payments will you need to make? What you perceive as a good payment-situation often equates to a bad deal as a whole.

4.  Bundling Trade-In & New Car    

If your trade-in is worth $9,000, then get $9,000. Getting $6,000 on your trade-in but a better deal on your car is not the same thing. Get what your old car is worth, and negotiate the value of the new car after that.

5.  “Packing”

Packing is when dealers inflate the monthly payments to more than what they need to be, to make selling other products and services easier. It is highly illegal. However, if it’s done right (or wrong, depending on your position) it is very difficult to regulate. Your payments could have been $320 per month but you have agreed to $350.00. The dealer has $30.00 per month more than it needs. This is what the consumer is agreeing to when he/she is presented with an extended warranty which he/she did not plan to buy.

6.  Not Knowing Your APR

Paying too much for the money is no different than paying too much for the car. Know the APR you’re entitled to “before” you go to the dealership. Dealers can make more money on the “money” than they do on the actual car.

7.  Going the Mile

Convincing buyers to agree to low mileage leases just to make the payments affordable is a trick to make an unaffordable car affordable
or to make more profit. Either way, when dealers engage in this type of behavior, they talk about options for the consumer to deal with their high mileage problem three years from now, when in fact there are no options other than paying for those miles. This is sometimes a lesson learned far too late and at great financial expense.

8.  Misleading Advertising

Advertising an inex-
pensive model for a very low price, only to draw in the consumer. This is nothing new and consumers fall for it all the time. Don’t be mislead.

9. Paying It Just Because They Asked For It

Adding an arbitrary dollar amount to the manufacturer’s suggested price (addendum stickers) only to start the negotiations at a higher price. The M.S.R.P. is, say, $24000 and the dealer decides to put a sticker right next to it that says $27000. Just because, well, he’d like you to pay more please. The idea is to move the goal post, so you’re negotiating from a higher pricing level.

10.  Weary Agreement

During the documentation signing, starting with several items and services at a highly inflated price and lowering the prices and reducing the services, a little at a time, until the consumer wears out and buys unwanted and, at times, unnecessary items.

11.  Impulse Buys

Insisting on a deal to be closed on the same day shopping has begun is a no-no. Same day shopping and buying produces the most uninformed and emotionally charged buyers. They count for the highest profit margins.

Myhopscotch.com is a dedicated group of former automotive industry professionals led by one of the most accomplished car dealers in the country, Mr. Ali Omoomy. The goal of MyHopscotch.com is simple: to level the car-buying playing field, by offering best in class expertise on the “the best way to buy a car” in an open and transparent way that puts the consumer in the best position to save thousands of dollars on their next car purchase. •

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