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ok, here is the problem. i found a mustang and they are asking 2,500 for it. i want to trade in my car and it is worth 6,000 on trade in (they said that is what they would give me) but i still owe 4,000 on the car. if i were to trade my car for that how does it work? would they swap cars and pay off the rest of my car or would they not even do that? i am just so confused on that, so if someone can help me out that would be great. thanks

Generally they won't touch a car that has money owing on it. You never know though, just ask them, they might give you the difference in cash to pay it off

You have a net of $2,000 which can go towards the Mustang ($6,000 trade value minus your $4,000 payoff). You then come up with $500 + tax/title/license. I used to sell cars.

Only if "they" is a private seller. A dealership is more than happy to take whatever car and money you have to make a sale.

If they did that they would never sell any cars. What will end up happening is they will pay off what you owe and credit you the difference. If you owe more than what they are giving yo they will roll it on to your new loan. Look to sell the car yourself, stealerships try to ***** you as much as possible on trade ins.

If you sell the car yourself, you're going to first have to pay off the loan to get the title - I don't know too many private buyers who will go near a sale without the title.

If you can't pay off the car prior to the sale, work with the dealer and try to get the best deal you can, and good luck. Car salesmen work deals for a living, and no matter how astute we think we are, we're never gonna "win" against them.

It take about 3-5 days unless you have a particularly poor bank, to get a lein release, you can even title the car to the new owener with teh lein on it, just give him the lein when you get it, or as part fo the deal have them hold the title and yo hold the car untill you get the release, nto really that big of a deal especially if you make a few hundred to few thousand more on the sale.

just to clear things up this is at a small used car lot. just making sure everyone knows that. and thanks for all your advice, keep it coming

Only if your definition of "win" is to ensure they get a bad deal. Car dealers are in business to make a profit, if they didn't, they'd go out of business. People who are glad to give Best Buy a 50% (or whatever it is) profit on a stereo often refuse to give car dealers a fair profit. If you do some research, both on your trade in and on the car you are buying, you can "win" by striking a fair deal. But until you accept that BOTH sides can "win" in a transaction, you are just going to be miserable, beating your head against the wall, and wondering why the salesmen are treating you like a jerk.

Case in point: I wanted to buy a new Acura TSX. I did some research on Edmunds, the TSX forum, and elsewhere, and found that most people were getting $1200-1400 off MSRP (at that time). I then looked up the value of my trade-in, and it was between $4k and $5k. The dealer asked me what I thought a fair price would be, and I asked for $1300 off on the new car, and $4500 on mine. I knew I was right in the target zone, but I left a few $$$ on the table for them. They agreed, we did the deal, and everyone walked away with a smile, instead of cursing each other. Perhaps I could have saved myself $500, but it would have taken a long time, been frustrating, and possibly caused me to walk away from the deal. All over an amount of money that turned out to be about 1/60th (1 monthly payment) of what the whole deal was worth. Stressing everyone out and playing the "I gotta "get" them or I lose" ego game isn't worth my time.

there is a huge difference on mark up between a new and a used car. New car mark up is relativly small compared to used car. But on new cars there is a lot of room for negotiation, if you pay anywhere near msrp your getting ****, the numbers yo dont see involve dealer hold backs which come from the manufacturer, and there are always rebates to be had unless your buying somthign thats really hot like a Corvette or the new stangs, but if you buying a super mundane people mover like a minivan or 4 door compact, ther are a lot fo rebates. Also depends when your buyign your car. I bought my Stang for $7000 off sticker, I bought it in november, in a norther state, i went in said this is what i will give you, this is what you will give me for a trade in, you don't like it, fine i will be back in the spring when that car is still sittin on the lot, with an offer for $5000 less. They played their little game and try to make $2000 on every sale, and with some people i'm sure they do. SOme they only make a couple hundred.
Now, if i were buying an suv at that time or a 4wd truck i couldn't of made that deal.

Correct. The dealer I worked for listed most of the used cars $3,000 over what they bought them at. Sometimes we would get car that was "way back of book" meaning the dealer had a car that was traded for a realtively small amount but could sell for $5,000 or more beyond that.

True.

It depends. Rebates are more or less unknown in the import world. To say "if you pay anywhere near MSRP you're getting ****" is an inaccurate generality. There are plenty of cars (Toyota Prius, Pontiac Solstice, Honda Civic Si, Lexus RX400h, Corvette ZO6, etc etc etc) that demand MSRP or ABOVE, and you are going to get laughed at demanding a discount. Even "mundane people movers" like the Honda Odyssey or Accord is not going to sell for much more than $1500 off MSRP; I believe the Odyssey might still have a waiting list. Your statements are just too broad to be correct.


Sure, it's possible to use seasons, etc, to your advantage. But the most important part of your story that you left out was that you presumably bought a last-generation Mustang in its last year, or a leftover after it had been replaced. That is a specific circumstance that you can't apply to car buying in general.

Exactly. Every car buying situation is different, dependant on the vehicle, the supply, the demand, the season, the amount of time until the end of the month/quarter/year, etc.

My point was that it is silly to say you can't get a fair deal from a car dealer. You probably aren't going to pull a fast one on them, and for some otherwise reasonable people, that's their definition of "fair" when buying a car. But it is absurd to make generalizations about "paying near MSRP is getting ****" or "You are going to get hosed buying a car." Do your research, know the market value of the car you want to buy, and don't think that a dealer is going to sacrifice a profit just so you can brag to your friends that you spent $2k less than MSRP. If they didn't make a profit selling cars, there wouldn't be anyone to sell them anymore.