I hated buying too until a mate put me into a different mindset, basically along the lines of:
- Do your homework to create a shortlist of cars/essentials
- visit the dealers to make contact, try the cars and leave your details. You’re not there to negotiate so you’re not stressed and you’re not there for their interrogation or mind-games
- make it clear you’re looking for the right car at the price and leave it that
- be prepared to wait days or weeks for one of them to call
Why this sort of approach? Because the industry works on manufacturer incentives and discount bandings so no matter how good you are at negotiating you want the dealer who needs to make the numbers at the end of month/quarter/year and that doesn’t necessarily mean the salesperson wants that, sometimes they do but the dealer doesn’t need it.
When I last did this I had the usual responses of can’t get that, very popular and you’ll pay for the privilege, our online prices are already as low as we can go, you should order now as prices are rising imminently. All from an industry that has cars in fields or sometimes on container ships floating around in the waters. Within a couple of weeks one dealer was on the phone to me with the right deal and over the next month others followed offering heavy discount contrary to everything they said on the day.
Maybe it’s changed in the past handful of years but I’d be surprised as it car buying seems to be about understanding the dynamics of their industry and therefore how to play their game.
The narrower your choice, urgency or highly desirable must have target then the less this works of course.