[montecristo#2]

Some great advice already in this thread. I will add a couple of things from my experience, I actually like negotiating when I buy a car. These are for buying a new car, I have never bought a used car (I just prefer new).

In no particular order:

I agree with the comment above. Negotiate on a price not a monthly payment. They try to get you to settle on a monthly payment you are comfortable with that may not be the best price for the car. I usually just say the monthly payment does not matter to me, it is the price of the car.

I also always negotiate the price of the car out the door. I want to know the final price including tax and license. I negotiate that price. If we can get a car for below MSRP out the door, I usually feel pretty good about that.

If you buy an extended warranty (which I typically do), you can often get them for a lot less than they are being offered for. For some types of cars, these are pretty much all profit, so they have room to move. I have negotiated these a couple of ways:

1. By saying I really wanted to get the car for a specific price with the extended warranty. I usually say $500 to 1000 over the price I agreed upon with the sales guy. For some cars, the extended warranties can be $2-3K.

2. I have used the monthly payment as a negotiation here since you are now with the finance guy and not the sales person. So I say with my down payment, the most I want to go on the monthly payment is XYZ. As others have mentioned, I usually know what we plan to put down, the price range I want to buy the car for, and the interest rate before hand, so I have the estimated monthly payment already in mind.

I tried something new last time I bought a car. All of the dealerships around me have the monthly sales figures posted on a white board in the office. You can usually see it if you walk around and look for it. So the last time I bought I car, I just happened to notice the sales guy who talked to us first happened to be at the top of the list. He has sold the most cars that month. I used that in the negotiation. Basically made a comment about how well he is doing this month that he could definitely give me a good deal. He kind of smiled and it was the shortest negotiation I have ever had for buying a call. I think we went back and forth 2-3 times and that was it. I also told them I didn't have that much time to buy a car when I walked in, so when we did get to negotiating, I told them I wanted to get it down quickly or we would be leaving. It still took three hours after we had settled on a price, but there is a lot of paperwork to fill out once you get to the finance guy.