Welcome to Campbell's Auto Sales
Finding a good car.
Many lots will advertise one extremely low priced car that seems to be a very good deal to get you in to look at it. When you goto the dealer to look the car may be a piece of junk or may have been sold long ago. The dealer will then try to show you similar cars for a much higher price. Before you go to look at the vehicle call and ask why this vehicle is priced so low (is damaged or not run and drive well) and make sure it is still on the lot. If they say they don't know, don't bother going in. Why would they say they didn't know if the car ran well, if it did, or say they didn't know if they had it still when they did. In car dealer language "I don't know" or "Ill check on it" means NO.
Sometimes they say the need your phone number and they will go check to see if they still have the car, the truth is they can look in seconds in the computer and see if the car has been sold. If you give them your phone number expect to get called once a week or more until you have bought a car.
When you think you have found the car you want, say you want to have it checked out before you work out a price, unless his asking price is a long way from what you want to pay then it may not be worth continuing with that vehicle. If the salesman says something like "You don't need to have this car checked out, these cars run forever" or "I drove this car myself the other day and it was fine" then say I wont as long as I'm getting a warranty. If they insist you don't need to get the car checked out and aren't offering a warranty there may be something wrong with the car they don't want you to know about. They should be happy you want the car checked out, that means your a serious buyer.
Be cautious of lot who have no prices on their vehicles. You may pay more for a car if it is late and the salesman want to go home, or basing his price on how much he thinks you can will pay.
After you have found your car and had it checked out, check out suggested prices, on site like Kelly Blue Book, or NADA (both linked below). To get accurate prices you need to know the trim level (GT, SE, GLX, Limited, ETC..), how many miles, and options (power windows, A/C, ETC..). The price shown would typically assume the vehicle was in excellent condition for its year. Think like worn tires, dents, dirt/torn interior, or mechanical (engine, transmission, steering, ETC...)problems should all be subtracted from the suggested price. This can sometime be hard to do. IE: a very new car with dents or dirty interior could loose as much as 20-30% of its value but a 10 or 15 year old car a worn interior may still sell at or near book price because its considered normal wear and tear.
If the car has a few "simple problems" why does the dealer not fix them? Why would the dealer say Ill take off $500 for this problem that only costs 50$ to fix? Why would he not spend the $50 and make an extra $450 himself. That may mean there are more problems associated with the first one and they want you to hurry and buy it. It could be a different case if car is very low priced, like under $1500-$2000. In that case it may be a trade in that the dealer just want off his lot and is looking to get his money back quickly and fixing a few problems wouldn't bring much more money for the car.
This page and linked pages are for general information only. All information given is believed accurate but Campbell's Auto Sales makes no guarantees. All information outside Campbell's Auto Sales web site is maintained by other agencies and we are not responsible for content.