Here's How to Beat Dealers At Their Own Games

Tim Healey
by Tim Healey

Yup, it's podcast day! Spend some time during the long weekend with us!


This week, we speak with Lauren Fix from Car Coach Reports on how to get the best deal when car shopping. Then Matthew Guy and I discuss creepers for your garage and an interesting NASCAR win for Harrison Burton at Daytona. Our NASCAR chat also touches on how to keep cars sunnyside up.

You can find us here or wherever you get your podcasts.

We thank Lauren and Matthew for their time and Matt Posky for editing.

Most of all, we thank you for listening!

[Image: Kia/VerticalScope/TTAC.com]

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Tim Healey
Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

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  • Dwford Dwford on Aug 31, 2024
    #1. If you are going to take out a loan, figure out what monthly payment you can afford before you even start looking. Play around with an auto loan calculator to get a decent idea of the amount you can finance to hit the payment you want. THEN start researching vehicles in that price range. #2. Look at your current vehicle. What do you like or not like. What features are missing. By taking an inventory of the features you need, you can more easily find the trim level you need for the vehicles you are looking at. #3. Research the incentives. it is surprisingly hard to find a straightforward list of incentives, even on the manufacturer's own websites. #4. Go for some test drives. You already know which vehicles are in your budget, so there's no need to sit through the whole "show me the numbers process" when you already know if you can afford it. #5. Once you figure out which vehicle you want, you can contact the dealers directly through their website and begin negotiating. If they won't negotiate over email or text, move on to another dealer. Different dealers have different levels of motivation to actually sell you a vehicle. Find the desperate dealer, then take it slow. They will up their offers. If no dealer will meet your numbers, it's probably you not them. Be more realistic.
  • Npaladin2000 Npaladin2000 on Sep 01, 2024
    How long before the F&I guy goes the way of the dodo. There can't be many left falling for it...
  • Picard234 Give me more that I can configure and use when not in Park, please!
  • MaintenanceCosts I prefer the style of the previous one, but may be biased, because my dad had a brand-new silver '76 when I was born.
  • Miguel Perrito and just like california in the 90s, this wont be able to be met, and the standards will be eased. once they figure out there wont be enough chargers for everyone in the EU to charge outside their grotty flats, theyll either change the target or move the goalposts.
  • 28-Cars-Later "That runs afoul of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, which have specific requirements around visibility and illumination of gauges." But no regulations on headlights blinding other drivers it seems.
  • MaintenanceCosts I'm thinking about my friend who recently overpaid for a Sienna Platinum. She probably paid about the base price for one of these, and I think her use case (mom of 2 boys taking them to school and lots of relatively local activities, no road trips) would work fine with the range. She's not the type to want to have everybody asking about her car, but if she were, this would be ideal for her.
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