Buying a car?

August 22, 2013

Automotive advertising is loads of fun. And they take liberties all over the place. My guess is that I’ll be expanding this particular post several times.

“We’ll Take Any Application” – Of course they will. How else are they going to approve you for financing?

“If We Can’t Beat Our Competitor’s Price, We’ll Give You The Car Free” – What are the chances that they’ll take a slight hit on the car rather than just handing you the keys?

“Just 88 Dollars Down & 88 Dollars A Month” – That promotional price is likely to last 2-3 months before it goes up significantly a couple of months down the road.

“A New Car For $199 Per Month with 0% Interest” – If your credit score is in the 780-800 range. But if you’re down here with the rest of us, you’re looking at significantly higher payments and interest.

“Your Job Is All The Credit You Need” – Watch out for these types. Miss a payment, even by a few hours and they’ll be calling your job to find our where that “deadbeat” is. Another new trick of the so-called “lumpy lots” (where car dealers dump the trade-ins that they don’t want on their ‘classy’ lots) is to rig a GPS Cutoff system in the car. Miss your payment, they flip a switch. The car stops and they know exactly where to pick it up.

Another trick that these people use is to call the reference people that you listed on the application. Sometimes just to let them know that you’ve defaulted. Sometimes to try and get them to make the payment for you. That should help your relationships, huh?

“We Need Your Car In Trade” – Of course they do. Know why? Cause, on average, they make significantly more money selling late model used cars than they do selling new cars.

Tags: auto dealers, car buying