Questionhi,
i'm interested in buying a used car from a major, reputable, new and used car dealership. more notably, a 05-08 corolla, or any other 4 cyl basic car. would it be too much to negotiate for $2000 off, free lifetime oil and filter, annual rust proofing, and change of antifreeze, trans fluid, brake fluid, air filter, fuel filter, and cabin filter upon purchase, if there are no service records proving that it has been done or if the car is over 60,000 miles?
can i ask to see service records if the last owner provided them?
how do i really know when the car was traded in because it could have been sitting in the lot for weeks or months?
please send me any and all tips and tricks that you may have!
thanks,
sk
Answer
Car Guy
Hello SK,
I would be glad to help you figure out the best way to make this purchase. The answer to your first question: "is it too much to ask for a discount of $2000?" The answer is no it's not too much to ask for in fact you may want to ask for a $3000 discount. Why?, because you can always go down and you can't go back up, and $3000 is close to the normal spread between wholesale and retail. What I would do personally, is rather than worry about whether or not the regular maintenances were done recently etc....is I would purchase a Certified Used Vehicle from Toyota. The certification process is rigorous and addresses the issues that you mentioned in your question. Specifically certified preowned Toyotas must pass a 160 .quality assurance inspection. Not only that but the thresholds for what is acceptable and what is not are significantly higher than they would be were it not a certified car. Certification does other things for you as well:
1. It provides you with a three month a 3000 mile comprehensive warranty
2. It also provides you with a seven year 100,000 mile limited powertrain warranty and
3. It provides you with a seven-year 100,000 mile roadside assistance plan
4. Last but not least, certified preowned vehicles qualify for standard new car financing rates instead of the higher used car rates.
As I recall a Toyota can be certified so long as it has fewer than 70,000 miles on it and is no more than five years old. The bottom line is certified preowned vehicles are far superior all the way around than your standard used car. If you find that a certified car is too new to fit within your price range, then you are more than justified in asking the dealer for their inspection report, when it arrived on the lot, or was traded in at the store. However, I would highly recommend the Toyota certified used car programmed to you or anyone.
But, let's talk about the best way to go about purchasing a vehicle from a dealership.
#1 you never never never sit down and work numbers with salesperson while you are sitting or physically present at the dealership. You go to the store that has the vehicle you're interested in, you drive it, you ask for service records (which they generally will not have except for their own), you ask for a Carfax report, and then you go home to "think about it". Toyota dealers all have access to the vehicle's regularly scheduled maintenance histories if the work was done at any Toyota store. This includes all of the regularly scheduled maintenances and you should ask for that report as well... this also includes work done at any Toyota dealer and not just the one that you're at. Gather your information and go home and complete the balance of the negotiations sitting in the luxury of your own chair, in front of your own computer and telephone. The next time you do go to the dealership... After you have test driven the vehicle .... will be to sign papers on the deal you agreed via the Internet.
When you get home with your information go to www.KBB.com and calculate a book value for your car... see how that value compares with what you are paying for the vehicle remembering that certification process does cost the dealer several hundred dollars. Let me know if you need any help with the buying process and I would be glad to walk you through it. You can generally tell how many days a vehicle has been in inventory by looking at the stock number of the vehicle and comparing it to the stock number of the other vehicles. The best place to do this is the dealer's website for you can look at many stock numbers at one time. You can also ask the salesperson who should give you an accurate answer once he goes to ask. Generally speaking we price most of our vehicles at the retail Kelley Blue Book figure and try to buy it for below the wholesale figure. Depending upon what part of the country you're in ...Toyotas will generally sell at or near the wholesale price to the dealer.
My private e-mail is roadloans@Gmail.com if you have any follow-up questions feel free to ask them and going direct to this e-mail will get a much faster response as it gets sent directly to my phone and I check it constantly throughout the day. Good luck.
All of the experts who respond to questions on this website do it on a strictly volunteer basis and don't receive any compensation of any kind... in short we do it to help other people who need more information from somebody on a specialized topic. My only goal is to answer your question to the best of my ability until all of your questions have been answered and understood. Allexperts will ask you to give me a rating based upon our experience together and if there's any reason you cannot give me a perfect 10 score than please get back to me so that I can clarify any ambiguities or parts of my answer that you don't understand or that require further explanation and to continue to do that until you can give me those 10's. I'm committed to answering all follow-up questions you might have until such time as you are completely satisfied with your experience with Allexperts and with me here today
I hope this helps
Roger
P.S here is a link to the certified preowned brochure from Toyota
http://www.toyotacertified.com/ebrochures/toyota_certified.pdf
