Hi, my name is Bob Brooks, as host of a radio show, I get to talk about a lot of different topics. One of my favorite consumer topics to talk about is how to get a fair deal on a car, and talking about the tips that in things that you need to know. It's here's the reality of it is that people waste a lot of money buying and selling cars, not getting a fair price, not getting a fair trade in value. And it would in the information I'm going to share with you today, once you learn that, this will help you to get a fair price. I'm going to go through a lot of different tips today and things that that I've discovered through the years, and I'm gonna share that with you. First of all, you got to know that you have to get in the right mindset.

Now there's a tendency to rush the process, and there's a tendency to make it into an emotional process. And a lot of times people think, Well, you know, I want to replace my car, I want to get a new car, so they go to the dealership, they get in the car, they start getting attached to it, they start thinking about well, this would be great if I own this. And the next thing you know, they're making a bad deal they haven't done even gone through the process because it is a process. And you have to put some of these things I'm talking about today in place to protect yourself from the emotion that can go into the Gar buying process. Now, what car dealers will focus you on? is it all about the payment, they'll talk about the payment because they know if they can come up with a payment you can afford, you're more than likely going to do the deal.

But they're not telling you what the interest rate is. They're not telling you what the bottom line price on the car. You want to focus on what the price of the car is before you start thinking about the payment so that you know that you have a fair price. Now let's start with determine the age of your future car because there's all types of cars that you can buy. There's all types of conditions that you can buy those cars in. depreciation is a killer.

And this goes along with buying a brand new car straight off the lot because here's the reality is that you buy the car, you drive it off the line, you probably know this. If you took that car back and tried to sell it back to the dealer, you wouldn't get what you paid for it, you get automatic depreciation once you drive that car off the off the lot. So you've got to know that is if you're buying a brand new car, if you're one of those that that goes through cars, maybe every three or four years kind of a high turnover, buying a brand new cars, not probably not a good idea. Now if you're one of those that says, you know, I'm going to put 150 200,000 miles on this car, then buying a brand new car may not be such a bad idea because you're going to really get full use out of it.

And I think if you're going to own a car and drive with that many miles in a car, you want to know what that condition that car was from day one, and that you put the maintenance into it. Gently Pre Owned. This is probably my favorite category of car. It's the car that's maybe one two years old that has the low mileage on it. A lot of times you'll see this a dealerships that blown cars that they've used for customer as They bring customers bring cars in for service and there's put that the loan car back into inventory and sell it now this is a car that might have two or 3000 miles on it. And the thing the thing about the gently Pre Owned is that you don't have to deal with the depreciation the depreciation should already be built into the into the price car with some work history.

Now this is a high mileage car. A lot of times people will shy away from high mileage cars because they just think, you know, here comes the problems but a high mileage car that has all of the maintenance records and so you know exactly when the car had an oil change when the car had a service and this was done regularly on schedule, then you've had a car that's been well maintained and probably will last another hundred 250,000 miles so don't shy away from the high mileage car but only if you know exactly the type of maintenance schedule it's been on and then car with a dented CarFax. What I mean by that. Well first let me see what a Carfax is Carfax is a report that you can pull on any type of a car, any car. It tells you the history of that car, how many owners if it's been in a wreck, so typically what people will do is they'll pull a Carfax on a car that they're looking at, and they'll see it's been wrecked, or it's been in a wreck or any kind of an altercation.

And they'll say, Well, I'm going to shy away from that, because it's been a wreck. Don't shy away, get it. This is where you want to start doing some investigation because the car dealer, they also got a discount on that car when they bought that because of that Carfax and they know that they're going to have to give a discount on that car when they sell it. So it could be that the bumper had to be replaced. It could be that it was some cosmetic and it was repaired. Great.

You can't tell. So nothing is really wrong with the car except it's carrying around that bad Carfax but you can get a much better deal for a car like that. Now, the important thing that you got to do and this is where most people don't go through the process is to do your homework, first place that you will Look is Kelley Blue Book or the nada cake? Kelley Blue Book is kbb.com you go to the site and it's going to give you trade in value, it's going to give you retail value all different types of values based on the condition. So you kind of have a ballpark of what the real value of the car is, but where you really get your good information is going to a site like autotrader.com or cars comm where you can actually put into a search this these, these sites have all kinds of cars for sale on them all over the country.

So you can put in a search to look for, you know, a particular car brand, model, weather how many miles that you want, and you can get a price range of that particular car that you want all over the country. So let's say that you're looking at a Honda and you pull you do all the the input and it comes out that's 32,000 to 35,000. So the lowest being 32. And the highest price that you found is 35. So a fair deal in there with Somewhere I would look for anything about 30,000 33,500 and under closer to 32. And keep in mind, the 32 is still negotiable.

That's just their listed price. But establish a range because if you have that range, you know that you're getting a good deal or you're not getting a good deal. Get pre qualified before you go to the dealership. This is a mistake I see people make all the time. I had a friend one time tell me that, you know, he just did bought a car. And so what?

Well, and I knew he had good credit in so I said, you know, what, what kind of interest rate did you get? And he said, Well, I got 4.75. I thought that was kind of high, but they said my credit wasn't as good as I thought it was. And so that was the rate they gave me. Well, if he would have gotten pre qualified, he would have gotten a 1.99% interest rate. Now that that's a big difference between 4.75 and 1.99%.

Is here's the thing, once you get into that finance office, the second round of the sales process, if you've ever In the finance office in the car dealership, they're going to evaluate your credit, they're going to go out to their lenders and see who's going to pick up the loan. And you're going to know that people, there's a lot of people getting paid in there so that interest rates going to be higher. Rarely Are you going to get the same rate. Now you might get lucky and just tell them that, hey, I'm already pre qualified, you're welcome to match that rate. And if they can match it, that's perfect. But the bottom line is, you're you're gonna get a better rate outside of a dealership that inside of a dealership.

Now dealership versus individual seller. I've done both and I gotta tell you after going through the process of selling a car, I don't know that I'll do it again. Now, your chances of getting a lower price from an individual are probably a little bit better. Then at a dealership, but you have to do all the legwork. You have to show the car you have to pay for the taxes it you got to decide, is it really worth the savings that I would get by by buying from an individual versus going to a dealership where it's turned He says something else to consider. Now starting the search most people start the search by walking into a dealership not the best way to start a search because you can look at the inventory of the dealership online and you can see exactly the cars that you're interested in.

Start the search on the phone call up establish a relationship with a salesperson get your questions answered. You've seen the car on online so if everything they tell us tells you checks out in person, start the negotiation start talking to him talk to two or three dealerships talk to talk to them about price and what what kind of a deal they can give you that they don't they don't get to the to the level of price that you want to Hey, listen, I enjoy talking to you, but I don't think we're gonna be able to do business hang up. I'm sure they'll call back. But you do this with two or three dealerships you establish a price and you tell them listen, if this is like at this price, in this car, everything is the way it's supposed to be. We'll do that. deal when I come and see the car.

Don't shy away from an out of Towner. Now, the great thing about having an auto trader calm or cars calm is that you can see cars all over the country. So you're looking at different parts of the country you find a car, you find a good good price on that car. Don't shy away from from going through the process long distance. Now you can always have somebody check the car out another dealership, and they can tell you any any blemish on at any problem. And in that you can get it checked out that way.

Chances are, that car is going to be delivered to you in good condition just like you expect. Now I will tell you one story of a someone that that bought a car in Illinois, and he happened to be going up to near that city on business. So he just took a rent car drove over to go check out this car that he'd been looking at. And he thought it was a little bit unusual that they waited 20 to 30 minutes before bringing the car up but they finally brought the car out. He got in he noticed that there was kind of a smell to the carpet, it was in battery thing. And so he's decided, you know, I'm gonna definitely do this deal.

So he's waiting on the car, the truck pulls up the car goes off the ramp, he opens the door and gets just hit in the face with cigar smoke. Now, I don't know if you've ever been in a car that cigar smoke is pretty heavy, pretty heavy odor and really tough to get out. So you got to know there's some things that can happen and go wrong. But for the most part, if it's a if it's a credible dealership, that process can work and you can get a good deal going that route. Now negotiating the price. Focus on a failure.

You've heard me talk about a fair price, not a deal, because here's the reality of it. You can get a deal, a great deal on a car, they're out there, but you've got to be very lucky. You got to be in the right place at the right time. And you've got to catch that dealership at a point where they are ready to get rid of that car. It's been there for a long time. And they're ready to sell it.

And it's tough to find that and you could burn a lot of time trying to find that good deal and find out that it wouldn't really worth trying to get the good deal. So what you're wanting to get is a fair price. That's what this whole teaching course is about is establishing not overpaying for a car but getting a fair price estimate the dealerships got to make a profit, there's got to be commissioned, so made in so you're looking for that fair price, not a deal. You know, there's a dealership here in Dallas, and I would watch the so their listings every once in a while when they would get a car in, they would ask out this outrageous price for it. But as that car set on that lot in the time past, you would see that price drastically go down and go down and somebody is going to catch that dealer at the right moment where who knows what that that line in the sand is they got to get rid of the car, but they're going to get just a great deal on that car into the month.

Bye bye This is one of my favorite tips. Because what most people don't know is that dealerships have a quota, they've got to sell a certain amount of cars. And if they get to the end of the month, and they're behind that, then they it comes a little bit more about, about selling a car or getting rid of a car just for the number sake than more so in the price. So try to plan your car buying at the end of the month, because you might catch a dealership that is really ready to deal because they're trying to make their numbers. I remember one time, my wife decided, much to my dismay that she wanted a minivan because we had two small kids. And so I reluctantly went to the dealership, and would you happen to be on a Friday?

It's 630 at the end of the month, and I didn't plan this out. It just happened to be that way. But I learned in watching these these cars, this this car dealer and the salespeople and the sales manager they were really motivated to sell this car. And it was one of the easiest negotiations I think I've ever had. And they kept coming down the price may through windows. In an all kinds of things in there, the whole idea was, we got to get this car sold today.

And every time someone would sell a car, it was like everybody celebrating because they're getting closer to their number. So into the month buying take advantage of that. Now the economy matters. And diff you know, we it at least today, and in this country, it's interesting because if you lived in Dallas Fort Worth, you'd see a booming economy. And you're probably not going to get as good a deal, or as fair a deal on a car here, as you would, let's say in Illinois, where they're there, the economy is struggling, and they're probably more willing to deal because they get to sell inventory. So think about that in your car search.

I had a client come to me, and I do this for clients. Every once in a while, they'll come to me and say, Hey, can you negotiate a car deal for me that's absolutely helped them find a car and negotiate the price. And so he was looking for this specialty car, they only made a limited number. So I knew we were going to have to look all over the country. So I focused in on California, because at the time this was right after the financial crisis, and I knew California was in a tough place. And so I happen to locate a car.

And sure enough, they were they had had this car as a specialty car, they wanted to get it off their inventory, and they were ready to deal. So always check weaker parts of the country for good deals on cars. How long in inventory I've kind of alluded to this a little bit now on the Carfax you can see when the car was delivered in went for sell in inventory at the car dealership. And so the longer that car is in inventory, the more likely they are willing to deal because it comes to a point where it costs them continues to cost them money to keep that car in inventory. So the longer it's on there, they're wanting to deal and you know, if a car is just gotten into inventory, probably not ready really willing to deal. So check for cars that have been in inventory longer.

I've already mentioned this car facts, you'd be crazy to buy a car without getting the car's history. In fact, on autotrader.com, you can pull most, a lot of cars, you can pull them for free to see exactly what they have been through, you know how many owners have actually had the car. And you can start to tell a lot about the history of that car by just reading the details. maintenance records I've already kind of alluded this to this is a huge value, and benefit if buying when buying a car. If you can find a car that has all the maintenance records intact, and you know that cars been taken care of. One of the problems that keeping a car long term is that people don't always get the oil changed.

Don't always get the tuneups when they're supposed to the services, and that has longer term effects on that car. You may not see him during the time that you own it, but you don't want to end up inheriting those problems. So maintenance records are really important to check to make sure that that car has been well maintained. The warranty that's gonna affect the price too. Now I'm a big warranty guy. I like to have my car under warranty and I'm willing to pay a little bit more for that but that's going to obviously going to affect the the car.

Another thing that you want to do you want to get that car inspected. This is extremely important because I don't know about you I can't look at a car and look at the the lines of the body and say, Oh, that looks like it's been in a wreck or that looks like that was a problem. I don't have that kind of expertise but I want somebody who does to check out that car and say you know what, everything looks great on this car. You're getting a good value for this car and I'd buy it. I want to get that a okay before I go forward so make sure you get the car inspected. Now you're looking for signs that there has been previous problems I've already mentioned this one story about the smells and odors be particularly sensitive to this because if a car dealership really wanted to they could cover momentarily cover up an odor and it but it does come back so you want to look for that.

You know something else to that you want to look for is flood damage here in Texas this year. We had a lot of flooding. And what has happened is that these cars that have been in flood situations are making their way to the Metroplex here in Dallas, and they're getting they're showing up on car lights. And here's the problem with flood damage is that that car could have been repaired all the flood damage the look at the flood damage gone and that will not show up on a Carfax so you really have to have a trained eye to look for where maybe seats have been replaced where carpet has been replaced that should be a big red flag because here's the problem is that water getting in a car or getting into a flooded situation that has long term effects on the engine and in the in the maintenance of the car.

So you want to make sure you're not getting that type of a situation. The finance office now I always call this the second sales process because you've you've been in a finance office before. They're going to offer you everything from Dent Repair, to extended warranties to new tire and guarantee a warranty on the tires and wheels, you name it, they have something they can sell you, and you can rack up two or $3,000. Now, I'm not gonna say don't ever buy any of those things, because it's all personal preference. There's some things, especially if they're if the dealership is willing to negotiate down on some of these, these warranties could be a good deal. But the problem is, is we go into finance, finance office, we've already been through this exhausting sales process.

I don't know about you, but that exhausts me, you get in there. And now they're hitting you with more decisions to make more things to look at more things to consider and it feels like because in most cases, it is that this is a one time shot. You can't go back. We got to get it done today. So you have to make a decision. If you know that you're going to be going through the process a day before call the finance office and talk to him say hey, listen, what kind of warranties and packages Do you have available?

Get the names of them, then do a thorough internet search. Because if they're a bad deal, you're going to figure that out pretty quick. But this will you go in prepared with the information Extended warranties, some people like them, some people don't I always suggest that not to get the extended warranty if you still have warranty left, and consider getting warranty from a third party warranty company when your warranty runs out. Now you got to be careful. There's some really good third warranty companies. And there's some that really aren't very good, but I feel like you get a better deal.

If you go that route on the extended warranty. Now you're into the sales office, the finance office, excuse me, and you're going through all these products and you say well, okay, I'm going to do the extended service to where all my services are paid for. And that includes one free battery that includes this includes this benefit. The thing is, if you don't take notes, you're gonna walk right out of there and forget that you ever that would that what you have come into. I remember one time that this was just recently, I had actually they were getting a deal on tire warranty. And so I took my car in for service Come to find out they replaced a tire because that had a nail in it.

And I hate to admit to this, I probably would have gone to Discount Tire or someplace like that and had the tire replaced because I forgot that I had the tire warranty. So take detailed notes, that one's from experience, emotion. This is the reason we pay more than we should. All the things that I've talked about today are all about, about containing the emotion so that you go through a good process and getting a fair deal. As I said at the at the beginning, I see people waste a lot of money and this is how this is wasting big money. You know, cars probably the second biggest thing that we spend money on besides a house, we want to make sure that we're being a good wise consumer and getting a fair deal.