Tuesday, August 5, 2008

How to Buy a Car - Five Awesome Tips

By Gee Njuguna


For most of us, buying a car be a daunting experience. Cars are a big investment and most of the time the car market seems such a complicated market. Below are four valuable tips to keep in mind when purchasing a car.

1. Research the Car Market

Any shrewd buyer investigates the selling prices of cars that they are considering buying. Rarely will car buyers rush to the nearest car auction and get a car that prefer to buy. Making use of the internet and local classified ads to compare and review most recent market prices. You will save lots of time and will be able to see the purchase price for similar autos across the world at the touch of a button. This will assist you make an informed decision on how much a car is worth getting and what other car enthusiasts around the earth are paying for the car type that you are interested in.

2. Teach Yourself to be Patient

Never be pressured to make a decision on the spot. Car salesmen are usually aggressive and will employ all sorts of tricks to try and pressure you to buy. Don't negotiate with sellers until you are ready to buy. What this means is that you need to avoid looking as if you are desperate or pretend to be an immediate buyer when dealing with salespeople.

Pretending to be interested is not fair and the salespeople will not be sure if you are a serious buyer. Should you return later to the salesperson, don't be surprised if they ignore you since they know that you like playing games.

While still in the research process, you also need to wait to discuss the price you are willing to fork out for the car. Providing the sales people with your price when researching the market will give an indication to the sellers how much they can try to squeeze out of you. You will find that they might try to direct you to other cars that you might not even interest or meet your needs. Discuss pricing of the car in broad terms and avoid being specific.

3. Use the Phone For Negotiations

After pinpointing the potential cars that are worth negotiating for and understanding your market, you now need to move to the negotiation process. You need to practice good negotiating tips at this critical stage of purchasing the car.

Face negotiation is much harder than doing it over the phone. Negotiating with the salesperson at his territory face to face puts you at a disadvantage. They can also communicate with you from multiple angles and this results in key issues regarding the car not being not being discussed.

When dealing with car salespeople, one trick that they like using is to check with management for "approval". Pressure is one of the greatest assets that sales people have and when you talk to them over the phone leaves you in a less restricted capacity. Talking to car sales people and negotiating over the car yard with result in sales pressure being exerted on you.

Talking with them over the phone will reduce the chances of them playing mind games and using emotional ploys on you since they are forced to talk to you. Also phone negotiations allow you to prepare yourself beforehand and have important data in front of you that you can verify with the sales person before sealing the deal.

4. Be Reasonable

I think that its good and necessary to retain a level of civility and politeness when negotiating for a car even after being well informed. This is important in case your car need repairs cause the people at the dealership will become important allies to you. Also, having a warm relationship with the car dealers can be beneficial in the long run when making future purchases.

What this means is that even if you are naturally good at negotiations, please do not use it to your advantage to engage them in bad arguments. Its reasonable to haggle over price so long as its done in a good manner.

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