Buying Car Next Month. When Do I start negotiating?

Okay,so buying a civic is finally coming close. I'll be buying a civic in 3 weeks and wanted to know exactly when to start online negotiations. I didnt want to do it too early cause I cant buy one sooner or last minute either. I changed my mind. I want a energy green pearl coupe instead of sedan and dont matter if its a 16 or 17. Thanks

The week you want to buy. I sent an email on Friday, went in on a monday and pulled the trigger that evening. My time's more important than money. Don't have time to be caught dead sitting at a dealer for hours or expending mental energy for weeks on it for nickle and dime them for a few hundred

That wasn't my experience. I knew I wanted to buy from my local dealer as long as they would price-match written offers, which they agreed to. My final dealer's discount was 2x their initial offer, with a further savings of >$1K. Getting email quotes from dealers within driving distance doesn't take very much time at all. Car was on order for 1 month, which I made use of to get bids, look at local and national discounted selling prices on Truecar, research warranty plans, decide on accessories, and get my dealer to bid against my bank for my loan rate. I don't think 1 week is enough time (but this also depends on how much you need to line up). When I went in to sign and pick my car up I had all decisions made in my mind. Just tell the dealers you contact when you plan on buying and made sure they email you a standard Honda dealer worksheet.

moomamichelle said:

[...] last minute either.

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Last minute? Do you have to buy the car by certain date?

I myself won't contact the dealers until I get my pre-approved loan, have my trade-in appraised by carmax, and my down payment ready. I will then use edmunds.com to get quotes. When I do that, the dealers tend to race to the bottom*, that the last time I did it, I didn't compel to start a bidding war. Then based on the reviews of the dealers and their quoted price, I make appointment for test drive and sign right away if all is good.

So in theory, if I don't have anything else to do, the best case is I could get quotes via edmunds.com on monday morning, and buy the car on tuesday.

*You will get quotes from edmunds.com, but then the dealers will personally email you with even lower price. So wait for a personal, direct email from each dealer.

Started negotiating with a local dealer yesterday and agreed on price and bought the car today

Do you have a Costco membership? I got my pricing via Costco so I didn't have to haggle at all. They gave me invoice.

Civic Fan 2016 said:

Do you have a Costco membership? I got my pricing via Costco so I didn't have to haggle at all. They gave me invoice.

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If your asking me,no costco membership.

I haggled by email with the internet sales manager.Only 3-4 LX coupes with a manual transmission in Aegean blue so i did the best i could to get what i wanted.

Dealers can (1) swap cars with other dealers, (2) order cars, and (3) swap destinations with other dealers for cars on order but not yet delivered. In no way are you limited to what's on the lot. Being in a hurry can cost you big bucks. There is good information on the forum about negotiating techniques -- look for it.

I have no idea why anyone posts an OTD price when trying to help those shopping. There is just one figure of interest, your starting Discount off MSRP (incl. destination fee). This is the second figure on the dealer's worksheet you get. You should have a worksheet for every quote you get, and you should get several to many. Taxes and fees differ, and you could get $0 to thousands in accessories. You need to compare apples to apples.

Start now. It could take forever for them to try to sell the car to you. I tried to haggle for 4 months here in IOWA and the dealers refused to sell me. They states over and over it sells so well that they wont budge, so I budged to another brand.

ulieq said:

Start now. It could take forever for them to try to sell the car to you. I tried to haggle for 4 months here in IOWA and the dealers refused to sell me. They states over and over it sells so well that they wont budge, so I budged to another brand.

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So you refused to buy, not they refused to sell to you. There's a difference. You say you went to another brand, but it says 2016 civic on your title card?

No I ended up grabbing a 17 Elantra for cheap. Sort of regret is, but we'll be needing a 2nd car next month so still looking at honda. We definitely want a better quality car for our main car. My issue with the Elantra has been the paint, which is cheap, chips, rust & defects.

Okay, funny thing is Elantra was my 2nd choice.lol One dealership took 4,000 off plus 3,000 in rebates for a Limited Edition that was 25,960 to 18,960 which sounds good but my heart wants a Civic and after reading about the paint I can't do it. Local dealership just quoted me 21,900 for '17 Coupe EXL.For the car,not OTR price.I have to read further here what people paid for their coupes to see if I should accept this deal.

I just bought a Honda Civic EX last month. What I suggest is first: get a pre-approved loan second: get E-price from all dealerships which are near you, second: you should wait until the last week of the month and start dealing with them. 2016 is going to end soon and I bet you would get a very good deal. You should get about 2-3K below the MSRP.

Civic Fan 2016 said:

Do you have a Costco membership? I got my pricing via Costco so I didn't have to haggle at all. They gave me invoice.

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Would you mind expanding on this? How much did you ask for since you knew the invoice and how much lower did you pay than MSRP? I have a Costco membership and not having to deal with all the haggling BS is enticing. Granted, I would assume that haggling could get the price even lower than Costco (e.g. the preferred Costco dealer is more expensive than others in the area) but I guess it depends how much you want to nickel and dime.

slapshot30 said:

Would you mind expanding on this? How much did you ask for since you knew the invoice and how much lower did you pay than MSRP? I have a Costco membership and not having to deal with all the haggling BS is enticing. .

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I am working on this now. I plan to buy a car next week, it being the end of the month and year. I went ahead and contacted my Costco dealer. He offered the Costco deal which was dealer invoice but he immediately offered the "Internet" deal which was $1544 below invoice. The fly in the ointment is they insisted on adding an additional $1200 in dealer add ons. I have since gotten them to back of $400 of those. These were all on an EX-L. I have now decided that I want a Touring. I plan on sending out a request for proposal to the dealers within 100-miles on Monday, 12-26. If anyone has any ideas, I am all ears.