Many used car dealers are honest and reputable business people.  However, some are simply manipulative liars.  Consequently, there are few considerations when buying a used car as important as the credibility and reputation of the dealer.

Carsala’s technology accesses millions of listings on a daily basis and our professional negotiators have negotiated hundreds of deals.   We’ve worked with some great dealers, while others have earned well-deserved spots on the Carsala blacklist.  Here are a few stories:

The “Clean” Clunker

You Never Want to See This!

Even if a dealer describes a car as “clean” and the price is right (or lower than “right”), be careful!  Carsala had looked at over 200 cars for a very kind woman in her late 40s.  In order to get her the best price possible, we called close to 20 dealers to negotiate the price.  We always ask the dealer about the condition of the car, look at the car’s vehicle history report, and then arrange a mechanic inspection (if instructed by our client).  In this case, the dealer conveniently omitted any indication that the car he was trying to unload for close to Kelley Blue Book retail value was a total clunker: salvage title, odometer rollback, etc.  Though vehicle history checks aren’t 100% foolproof, they are generally a good indicator of car quality.

On another occasion, a dealer offered Carsala a sweetheart deal (so it seemed).  The problem was he only provided a 16 digit VIN in the listing.  That just might be a red flag (read: sarcasm) given that VINs are 17 digits.  Sure enough, the car had been wrecked.  Minor oversight?  Could be.  You be the judge.

The Botox Beater

1 Owner Looks Good; but Look Deeper

There’s no fountain of youth for used cars, despite what the odometer may say.  We were looking for a Hyundai Sonata for a local school teacher.  One deal stood out – it exactly met the client’s requirements, was a great price, and even had a clean CARFAX report (with 1 owner).  Luckily, Carsala’s technology raised a flag that the CARFAX mileage was notably different than the mileage in the listing itself – 30,000 miles.  Not only was this suspect because of the large difference, but also because the listed mileage was such a round number.  Our professional negotiator asked the dealer for written evidence that the car had 30,000 miles and had not been subject to a rollback.  The dealer subsequently acknowledged that the odometer had a “discrepancy” he couldn’t explain.

The Sleezy Saleman
We were negotiating a deal for a graduate student who was willing drive a long distance “if the deal was right.” So we put Carsala’s technology to work, found a number of good opportunities, and our professional negotiators hit the phones.  The #1 deal was just a steal – perfect car, clean CARFAX, etc.  But something didn’t sit right with the negotiator.  Normally, we get the deal in writing from the dealer after the customer selects a car.  In this case, because of the negotiator’s intuition, we opted to request confirmation in writing before presenting it the customer.  When the negotiator called the dealer back, he was informed that the salesman he’d been communicating with had been fired earlier in the day and there was no way they could honor such a low price from a clearly disgruntled former employee.  Virtually anyone without such extensive experience in the auto space may very well have driven 300 miles to buy a car for an imaginary discount.

Carsala can help you lay all these concerns to rest.  Our technology is world-class; our negotiators are even better.  Or if you are a true do-it-yourselfer and don’t want to turn over the whole process to Carsala, stay tuned for product announcements!

Ah, the age old problem: You are looking for a car, but you want it to look good with the minimal amount of effort. I have seen and experienced black car ownership and it can reduce a normal person to a neurotic mess. There are actually 2 ways to go about maintaining the look of your car, and when you use them together you can be assured that your vehicle with always look it’s best.

1. Color. White is hands down the cleanest color choice. There is a reason why a vast majority of the fleet vehicles in service today are white: It is low maintenance. A white car hides dirt, grime, water spots and the like better than any other color with the exception of camouflage. 
Typically the darker the hue of paint, the harder it is to keep clean. The scale rises exponentially between gray and black simply because black acts very much like a mirror. It reflects and magnifies everything including smudges, over spray, fingerprints etc. 
If you are set on a gray color (including the popular silver paints), try to find a lighter gray as it will be less maintenance than a dark gray. Nonmetallic cars are easier to keep clean, especially in dusty conditions as they do not sparkle. A metallic car must be kept very clean to get full benefit from the metal flakes in the paint.

2. Upkeep. Every six months have the exterior of your car detailed. You will be surprised at how much less effort you will have to put into your car’s appearance when you have a pro apply a high quality wax and buff it to a shine. Even if it rains it is not uncommon to not have any water spots on a black car provided it was properly cleaned, waxed and polished prior to the rains. Detailing is expensive but worth the expense if you can afford it.

There are a few products available that will help you keep your car looking factory fresh. 3M makes a clear adhesive coating that is applied over clean paint to guard against rock chips and the like. It must be applied by a professional but it is a lot cheaper to replace than getting the car repainted. American Racing offers wheels that have Teflon baked onto the surface of them which almost eliminates brake dust (which is why the front wheels on some cars are much darker than the rear). Meguiars makes a clear plastic polish that helps take small scratches and light oxidation out of clear plastic (i.e. headlamp lenses)

Naturally, all of these products and services cost money and/or time so it is up to you to decide how clean you want your car to be, once you decide on a color, that is.

I would really like to buy a car now but I don’t have any credit yet even though I have a job. At least I don’t have bad credit but what should I do? My current car is a real clunker and I am 25 and want a nice car!

The first step is to start shopping around banks, credit unions and even insurance companies like State Farm who can offer financing. Get a good idea of what their rates would be with your credit currently undeveloped. Interest rates can legally be as high as 29.9% but you shouldn’t accept anything more than 8% with rates as low as they are right now or you will be a slave to the lender.

The second step is to ask yourself, “What does a NICE car really mean” to you? For some, nothing less than a Mercedes will do but something less glamorous and more practical like a basic Honda or a Ford may be a better choice. Keep an open mind! Manufacturers are getting better at basic comforts in cars so some brands may surprise you! Cars are ultimately tools so don’t buy so much that you don’t get the value out of your hard earned money!

Consider keeping the clunker for a while and starting a program to improve your credit:

1. Take out a credit card or two that you pay off in FULL every month.

2. Ask your parents to add you as aresponsible party to a credit card of theirs (but do not use it yourself- just gain the revolving credit history but only do this if your parents are actually paying on their cards).

3. Make sure that you have no outstanding debts to any bills like utilities from past rentals, medical bills, etc and if you have those- pay them off and ask the collection agency to take them off your credit. (if they say they will then they have 5 business days to notify you that they have done so).

4. Don’t repeatedly apply for credit. You can pull your own credit report but applying for multiple cards outside of a week or so can knock points off your score.

After even 6 months you will start to gain a solid credit history that lenders will like.

Patience is indeed a virtue and jumping ahead will bite you where it hurts so take the correct steps to do this the right way.

Good luck!
MMM

I just bought my first new car (my dream car!) from a dealer and there are some things that I guess I just didn’t ask in advance. I was wondering what the difference between sticker price and final out of pocket cost is? How do you estimate how much you will really pay? Now I am wondering if I really got a good deal?

Susie G, Colorado Springs, CO

Welcome to the table post negotiation and signing on many, many dotted lines. Don’t beat yourself up! You may have still done yourself proud without even realizing it!

MSRP: Called the Monroney or window sticker is required by law and indicates the manufacturers suggested price including the base price with factory warranty, standard equipment, transportation costs, engine specifications, estimated fuel economy and can only be removed by the purchaser. Sometimes erroneously referred to as Mostly Suckers Really Pay, it is not always the case that you shouldn’t pay full sticker price. There are exceptions!

In the case of recent “hot” cars such as the first released new Camaro, demand will keep sticker price right on the money, if not above sticker. Cars are emotional purchases and demand from drivers needing to have the latest and greatest can temporarily maintain MSRP as the going rate for many months. Waiting until a car isn’t as “hot” can save quite a chunk of change. A new, not “hot” car can generally be had for 7-22% below MSRP.

When financing, it is important that you never negotiate according to what you would like your monthly payments to be. In fact, don’t even mention that you will be financing until you negotiate to a price that you feel comfortable with based on research done prior to walking onto a car lot.

Your final out of pocket pain will be the final price plus sales tax, title transfer fees and the interest on your loan spread over the number of months that you chose. All of them are unavoidable and part of the process.

Don’t stress! Enjoy your new ride and keep in mind that research is always key!

Confidently,

M

A study done in the UK by MoneyExpert.com showed that almost 25% of parents have had to help their adult children with their car debt when they have become delinquent in their payments. The expensive reality of raising a child has now extended beyond childhood, into adulthood and threatens parents who are now in their 60’s to compromise their hard earned savings and ability to maintain their retirement and health care needs. The real irony is that adult children today are beginning to literally spend their own inheritance at the cost of compromising their very alive parents.

Of course all of this starts with the devastating news coming from the financial and mortgage industry of people over-borrowing for their homes or getting into loans for which they were not qualified in a lenient lending market. This crisis is not limited to the housing market: it also quickly became a problem with the way that we buy our cars.

In an article in the LA Times just 2 years ago, at a time when the economy was not yet as mired in foreclosures and repossessions as it has been in 2009, it was ominously pointed out that the amount of people who couldn’t make their car payments for 60 days was up by 20%. Additionally, the average car loans are being paid off over a much longer time period than in the 1980s and 90s. 45% of all car loans are for 6 years or longer. It is common that these longer loans are, in reality, for more than one car because many buyers drive cars for 4 years or less and then trade in that car, debt and all, for newer and more expensive cars. The debt owed on the old loan is rolled into the new loan and the cycle begins to spiral from there with some consumers these days paying for 3 loans or more in a single car loans and owing, in some cases, $30,000 in debt on a single car worth far less. This is especially true with car owners who were forced in the last months of recession to downgrade to a less expensive and more fuel efficient model while trying to lose a large monthly payment.

These statistics may begin to uncover a inevitable time bomb for the spoiled babies of the Baby Boomers but a similarly frightening reality is beginning to reveal how this affects the parents that raised these consumers who over expected so much for themselves!

So what is the solution for protecting our Gen X  dollars and, as importantly, our parent’s money? We should take a ticket from their book: our parents drove their cars for much longer after they were paid off and took on much shorter loans. It is may be common today to get financing on a car for 6-8 years but our parents usually had 3-4 year loans thus reducing the amount that they were paying in heavy interest. Additionally, new cars are still very expensive these days so foregoing a need to have a brand-spanking new car and instead negotiating a car that is 2 years old at least (so has lost the majority of it’s depreciation) is realistic for long term goals and financial stability.

Buying smart not only protects your hard earned money but the savings of your parents.

With the world at our fingertips now courtesy of the internet it really is quite easy to educate yourself about just about anything. But, just as reading every opinion on real estate can make you quite educated about neighborhoods’ square footage and school districts, signing a deal on the perfect house at the right price is not so easy. In fact, it can be extremely intimidating whether you have done it before or not.

In the online world of cars it is easy to trip over experts on everything from tuning to collecting, from buying to selling and from torque to trunk space but what seems to bind them all together besides their love of things with wheels and engines is an unabashed insistence that they can bring a salesman to his knees, begging for mercy when negotiating for cars. What all of these people often forget, myself included, is that buying a car is a very personal process and asking for help getting the best price on a car is not so simple. Sometimes folks like to pick their own car and figure out how to deal with negotiations on their own.

A recent third party study for Carsala has revealed that in reality, car geeks aside, 73% of used car buyers dislike the negotiating process and a majority of them rate themselves as being poor negotiators. What is shocking is that almost 20% indicated that they had not attempted to negotiate the price of the car that they most recently purchased.

That last sentence just makes me shudder but friends and family are constantly buying cars around me and never ask for my help despite knowing what I do in the car world. At first I would take it personally but then I realized that they were taking their investment in a car personally and wanted to do it themselves. I can tell someone over dinner or the phone which car I think they want because maybe they really do like the Malibu or an X5 and I would try to get them to consider something else comparable or better. They might listen. But what about when they really want help with the act of buying the car and the dreaded negotiation game at the dealership? Unless I have a good several months to help them search the car lots and an entire day to spend at the dealership while the sales guys play their game, I have my own house to clean and job to do so they don’t want to bother me. Fair enough!

Now if only real estate agents representing you actually were like Carsala, we would be moving in the right direction!

How do you feel about the car buying process?

VIN Locations on a Car via checkmyvin.com

My mother emailed me and told me that I need to cover the VIN number in my car window because if I don’t, thieves will steal my car! How can they steal my car just by being able to see the little tag that every car has inside?  -

Laura C., Bakersfield, CA
Dear Bewildered in Bakersfield,

Don’t you just love those Fwd: Fwd: Fwd: emails that our mothers all seem to think we just have to have? As with any of these, approaching it with a bit of skepticism is always a good first move.

The 17 digit VIN could, in theory, be used by a thief if they copied the VIN, created fake registration and identification for themselves, went into a dealership and had them create a new key. That is not as simple as it sounds! There have only been a few cases of this ever happening and they were stealing the VINs from used car lots where the cars would be sitting still for some time.

Covering you VIN may not only be a futile exercise but also illegal. Several states have laws regarding the VIN being visible at all times and never obscured. Also, that little plate is not the only place where you can find your VIN. Manufacturers now put it many places including on the engine and inside door panel to dissuade thieves from being able to hide the identity of stolen cars.

My suggestion is that you ask your mother to stop forwarding you these urban legends and feel confident that your car will not end up in a chop house.

There was a study that I came across recently that was done on consumer behavior and how touching an item physically dramatically increases their chance of buying that item regardless of price. Now you know why dealers want to get you on the car lot!

There are a bazillion tools for doing online research when you want to buy a used car. Professional reviews, consumer ratings, industry value reports and referrals to car lots that might have a car that you are considering are all pretty easy to come across while surfing the web. As much as you like to think that you are prepared when you arrive on a lot there is always that moment when you see a car that you weren’t considering; it could be a newer model, have less miles, be a different trim or be completely different than anything you had every considered and now you are second guessing yourself and all of that armor of research you did.

Carsala now has a free tool that you can use on your iPhone while you are standing in front of the car that is making your mind race and help you answer some questions quickly. By going to http://www.carsala.com/pricecheck/ on you iPhone you simply enter the 17 digit VIN number found on the driver’s side of the dashboard, your ZIP code and the sticker price.

What next?

• Carsala will tell you if this car’s make/model/trim/mileage is common in dealership inventories
• The dealer’s asking is price is rated out of 4 possible stars & if the price can be had better elsewhere or be negotiated better by Carsala, it will tell you
• Carsla’s Self Service or Full Service tools for finding and negotiating similar cars of the same year, make, model, and color (if selected), with equal or fewer miles, and the same number of doors within 200 miles of your ZIP are offered as a next step.

Just to show you in more detail how the site will work, I put a VIN for a 2005 Honda Civic in my area in the Price Checker and when I followed the link to the self service tools, the Carfigurator showed me that there were 639 cars in my area that matched that search. Maybe the one in front of me isn’t such a good deal at $13,995.00 because it indicates that 3 Killer Deals can be provided to me to go see for $9.99 on my own.

What if you had just gone with that car in front of you? Now you know that armed with an iPhone, BlackBerry, Google Android or any other phone that has browser capabilities, you can know for sure that you have choices and are paying the best possible price for a car in your area.

At a time when I have become a bit “meh” about the automotive industry, Carsala has come up with some tools that appeal to the how and why I started writing about said industry. Okay, I say appeal but what I really mean to say is inspire! Yeh, that does sound really like some silly PR statement but I am serious. These tools, and by tools I mean applications that can actually help buyers in the used car market, haven’t existed before. I know we are all a lot more than “meh” about words like “appeal”, “inspire” and “unique” being thrown around a world where every car is going to do all of those things and get you to work and protect you children and change your life and help you find the love of your life and express exactly who you are AND not make you feel like you are the one being owned when you realize you are expecting a hunk of metal to do all of those things and you can’t even get your garbage disposal to work like you would like!

Follow me here for a few minutes and you tell me if you have seen anything like this before.

• Which car can you afford? I don’t mean one of those many calculators that asks you about expenses and APR and how many months you will slave before you see the title in your name and uses a little Java to pop up numbers that are not the crystal ball to your next car! Let’s start simple! Carsala Budget Search allows you to start with the simple idea that you want to know which car you can afford. Your parents want you to buy a safe sedan but, gosh darn it, you saved the money, have your job to pay for the car and you want to know if you really can afford a convertible or a crossover that reflects you and your lifestyle? How much do you want to spend, what is the oldest year of used car are you willing to consider and what is your ZIP code? Et, VOILA! Look at all of those cars that will make your dad squirm! See a sample result where I searched for $16,000 SUVs in my city. Pretty amazing, huh? Now click on one of the models and see how much Carsala says they can save me by negotiating for dealers in my area. Are you with me here?

• What about THIS car I found? You are standing on a car lot OR you found your dream car online through one of the many sites like eBay Motors, AutoTrader, Cars.com or another dealer classified site. Is it a good deal? Can you do better? With Carsala Price Checker you will know more easily than walking in and asking a random salesman, calling the salesman listed on the site or emailing and waiting for a response. By simply entering the VIN, ZIP and dealer’s asking price you can have a realistic price immediately. Believe me: I entered a VIN in my area for a 2008 BMW 3-Series that I know to be quite rare here and Carsala’s Price Checker told me the truth: “There are not many cars with this trim, engine, transmission, and color in your area. If this is exactly what you are looking for, you should probably buy this car. If you are flexible, request a detailed quote.” When I entered a VIN for a pretty standard Honda Civic Si for sale in my city, the results gave the dealer’s pricing 2 out of 4 stars and gave me the option of Carsala’s Full Service (where they will negotiate for me) or Self Service which showed me, “We searched through 6 million cars, analyzed 819 Honda Civics in your area,
  and found these 3 killer deals” and that Carsala can show me 3 “Killer Dealers” in my area up to 44% of the price I entered. See a PDF of a sample Killer Deals report here.

Anyone else know of a site out there that can do those two things (and, oh, so much more)?

Teen Driving Week at Carsala: Part One

Image from Wired.com

Teen driving now has a fresh young face from the NASCAR world to help promote a program designed to teach safety to teens.

Colin Braun, 20-year old NASCAR Camping World Truck Series driver has teamed up with Ford Driving Skills for Life (DSFL) to promote the importance of safe driving to teens around the country.

Mile for mile, teenagers are involved in three times as many fatal crashes as all other drivers. Ford Motor Company has a wonderful program called Driving Skill for Life, through which teens are able to improve their skills in four key areas that are critical factors in more than 60 percent of teen vehicle crashes: Hazard Recognition, Vehicle Handling, Space Management, and Speed Management.

Braun, now in his second year driving the No. 6 Con-way Freight Ford F-150 for Roush Fenway Racing, knows the importance of safe driving on and off the track. As part of the yearlong partnership, Braun will participate in DSFL hands-on training events and various nationwide teen safe-driving initiatives.

“I am pleased to be a part of the Ford Driving Skills For Life program. Having grown up racing all my life, I learned early on there is a time and place for driving fast, but public roads are not it.” said Braun. “I think teenagers are more likely to listen to a message coming from someone closer to their own age, so I hope my involvement will make a difference teaching young drivers how to be safer on the road.”

Throughout the year visitors to www.DrivingSkillsforLife.com will have a chance to view Braun’s blog dedicated to safe driving tips, videos, photos and updates from his race season.