Posted by John Concrane on June 18, 2019 in Business
Searching for VIN check reports including specs? We have some tips for you and also some recommendations. Service contracts, glass etching, undercoating, and paint sealants are all unnecessary add-ons to help the dealership maximize its profits. Don’t buy them. Go to a bank or credit union and be approved for a loan before you go to the dealership. The dealer may even try to beat their rate.
Once you’ve decided what car to pick, now you need to know how to get the best deal. One way to slash costs is to buy at the right time. Dealers have targets to meet, with bonuses up for grabs. Typically, these are based on quarterly sales, making the end of March, June, September and December a good time to buy. They need to shift cars, so will be more willing to negotiate and offer attractive finance packages. But, if you’re buying from a private seller, there’s unlikely to be a good or bad time. Private sellers don’t have targets to meet, other than the price they want to achieve. If you’re buying this way, keep an eye on prices a few months before you actually buy – if they’re heading down, you may want to wait. Heading up, and it’s prudent to buy sooner.
A vehicle identification number, or VIN, identifies your car. It’s made up of individual numbers and letters with special significance, and provides information about your vehicle. Each VIN is unique to the vehicle. Determine where exactly the car was manufactured. The eleventh digit tells which plant actually assembled the car. This digit is specific to each manufacturer. Decode the remaining numbers. The rest of the numbers provide the production or serial number of the car and is what makes the VIN unique to that specific car. To find out this manufacturer-specific information, you can check their website for a decoding sheet or ask a service repair shop if you can see one. Read more info at VIN check.
Prices are driven in part by where you’re shopping. You’ll find used cars in used-car sections of new-car dealerships, independent used-car lots, used-car retailers such as CarMax and websites where private-party sellers list their cars. Of the four, private-party cars will usually have the lowest selling price. CPO cars will usually cost the most, but for the reasons we’ve noted. To see what other people are paying for the models you’ve picked out, Edmunds offers a quick way to see the average price paid for the car in your area. One easy place to start building your target list is the Edmunds used-car inventory page. To find exactly the car you want, you can filter your search by many factors including the miles on the car’s odometer, its price and features, and dealer’s distance from you. Use the websites for other used-car marketplaces mentioned to save time.