How to Buy a New Car Below Dealer's Invoice

Car dealers sometimes advertise brand-new cars for a dollar below dealer invoice, or even $50 or $100 below invoice. It sounds like an amazing deal, but the seller is not taking a loss, the Edmunds car-buying site reveals. His true cost is affected by other things, like special manufacturer incentives such as direct-to-dealer rebates. You can often buy a new car below the base invoice price even if the dealer is not advertising a special if you do your research and time your buying carefully.

Instructions

1

Determine which new car makes and models currently have "hidden" incentives. Consumer rebates are widely advertised, but factory-to-dealer incentives are not. You will find them on an automotive research website like those of Kelley Blue Book or Edmunds. Look up the holdback at the same time. This is an amount of money equal to a certain percentage of the invoice or retail price given to the dealer by the manufacturer, Edmunds explains.

2

Choose a make and model from among the vehicles with high incentives and calculate its invoice price and true cost. Kelley Blue Book and Edmunds both provide invoice calculation tools. Select the car and enter your preferred packages or individual options to get the basic invoice price. Subtract the incentives and holdback to get the actual price the dealer pays for the car. Determine how much you want to offer under the invoice price, keeping in mind that the dealer has to make some profit on the sale.

3

Block out time in your schedule to shop for your new car on the last day of the month, the Scambusters advice site recommends. Salespeople are often trying desperately to meet a quota, win an award or qualify for a cash bonus on this day. This gives them more reason to accept a smaller profit from the customer in order to get a bigger reward in some other way.

4

Review inventories on local dealership websites to find the location with the most cars of your chosen model in stock. The dealer may be eager to move that big inventory and may be willing to give you a good price to get one of those cars off his lot.

5

Visit the first dealer on your list early on the designated day and give the salesperson your offer. Don't waste time if he balks, tries to talk you down in price or plays time-wasting games like running back and forth to the manager. Simply leave, go to the next dealer and repeat the process until you find a place where your offer is accepted. You will almost always be able to make a deal if you did your homework and came up with a fair offer. If not, increase your offer and try again the following month.