Professional negotiators
What is it about selling cars that attracts the most pathetic and obnoxious salespeople on the planet? Their attempts to kiss up to me and dissuade me from buying cheaper cars are so transparent it's laughable.
It turns out that you can hire an independent negotiator who knows all the ins and outs of the car sales process to handle the purchase for you. They call 5 dealers, and get them all negotiating against each other. While I could do this myself, they know exactly how to work the system because they do it thousands of times per year. I, on the other hand, have done it zero times. The service is $190, but I figure they can probably do at least $190 better than I can on price even if I follow their techniques, and it will save me several hours.
http://www.checkbook.org/auto/carbarg.cfm
I'm yet to find any unhappy reviews of them.
At this point the finalists are:
Scion xB
VW Rabbit
Toyota Matrix
It turns out that you can hire an independent negotiator who knows all the ins and outs of the car sales process to handle the purchase for you. They call 5 dealers, and get them all negotiating against each other. While I could do this myself, they know exactly how to work the system because they do it thousands of times per year. I, on the other hand, have done it zero times. The service is $190, but I figure they can probably do at least $190 better than I can on price even if I follow their techniques, and it will save me several hours.
http://www.checkbook.org/auto/carbarg.cfm
I'm yet to find any unhappy reviews of them.
At this point the finalists are:
Scion xB
VW Rabbit
Toyota Matrix