Charlie And The Car Dealerships in Southwest Miami

After doing his homework, Charlie (from Miami) decided he needed the car that was seated lease for people because he is an avid golfer and drives three golf partners to the course. He also need storage space for four sets of golf clubs. Charlie rarely drives on long trips and rarely leaves the city of Miami (not withstanding his regular trips north up to Orlando to visit his kids) so he wants a vehicle that is small enough to maneuver into parallel parking spaces. He usually buys cars and “runs them into the ground” , so he researched repair records. Charlie narrowed his choices down to three basic cars. Once the decided how much he could afford, he researched the various models and dealerships in the Miami area and was ready to start shopping around.

Because Charlie enjoys matching lets with salespeople and considers himself a good negotiator, he went to a traditional dealership or bargaining is the rule. He then narrowed the field to one or two cars and began negotiating on his first choice, with the fallback plan of switching to the second choice car if we could reach a great it on the first choice. After two hours at one dealership in East Miami, and several offers and counteroffers, Charlie and the salesperson were still 400 older part in their prices. He decided to try and other dealer, where he negotiated a price that was $200 last of the first dealers. Charlie was much more impressed by the dealer in East Miami because of their good service record (he had been smart enough to call the Better Business Bureau to check on complaints filed, and spoke with friends), so he went back to the first dealer and asked the salesperson to meet the offer given by the dealership in southwest Miami. When faced with the prospect of losing the sale altogether, the salesperson at the dealership in West Miami agreed. Charlie got the car he wanted from the dealer you wanted, and he was satisfied that the price was as
low as a possibly could be.

Charlie checked his current vehicles retail and wholesale prices, and the difference was about $700. He figured if he sold his car on his own instead of trading in he might get half the difference - $350 extra in his sales price. Clark travels along the roads and highways in Florida for work, and the only times he could count on being in town were on the weekends. He did not consider the possible $350 profit worth the hassle of using up his weekends, advertising in the newspaper, and trying to negotiate with buyers. Therefore, Charlie decided to trade in his car, and because he had already nailed down the details of his do car purchase, he could figure out exactly how much the dealership was actually offering.

After comparing the local banks rates with his credit unions and the dealerships, Charlie opted to go for the dealer financing because the car manufacturer was offering below-market interest rate loans for up to 36 months. He saved 3% points on the interest rate, which allowed him to stick to his $400 monthly payment budget even though the term of the loan was two years less than he had figured (three years versus five). Why? So much more of every monthly payment could go to pay down the principal of the loan because so much less interest was due.

This brings us to the end of our miniseries on negotiating car purchases with dealerships in Florida. Of course the same information applies to all states in the US, but since I live in Florida (St. Petersburg to be exact) I can only speak from experience. There may be different rules of thumb to consider if you live in other states such as California, Ohio, or Texas. Thank you for coming by and I hope I have eliminated some of your questions regarding the purchase of a new car. As I mentioned in the introduction to this miniseries our web site Florida Loan Find is focused on the art of financing your life in general. However, how you negotiate for your car purchases greatly affects your bottom line and your personal financing in general. We will be back within other post soon - good bye for now.

This is the end of our mini-series entitled Negotiating A Car Purchase In Florida - you can read from the beginning of this series on car deals and loans in Florida.