“一口价”汽车销售会成为常态吗？

Just bought a used car towards the end of June. For months before that I was trying to find the best deal. I would haggle on the things I had found wrong with the car trying to bring the price down and wouldn't even talk to them about any sort of financing (I was paying cash).

I found the car I wanted. A 2015 black Hyundai Sonata. It had looked like someone tried to Jimmy the door open but could only be seen when the door was open on the frame of the car.

Sat down and talked with the salesman before he sent the finance guy over. The finance guy, on a piece of paper, wrote a number and started talking to me like this was a done deal and all I needed to do was sign and this is exactly what I'd be paying. I told him what I was looking to spend (on the low end intentionally so he'd counter my offer). He immediately crumbled up the paper, laughed in my face, stood up and shot the piece of paper like it was a basketball into the garbage. Told me that's not how this works anymore and was EXTREMELY rude in the way he handled it.

Needless to say I didn't buy the car that day.

About a month or two later I ended up working a much better deal for a much nicer, cleaner and less milage Hyundai sonata sport from a much better salesman. Seriously got the best deal for my money with a warranty included.

Moral of the story is, keep shopping around. Some salesman are shitty people but there are some decent ones out there.

Your tactics should vary based on new vs used. I only buy used so when looking at cars I look up the individual cars I'm checking out. Things I look for that seem to be "bulletproof" when negotiating are:


Agree on a price in writing (usually email) before you show up based on set parameters. If those parameters are not met then start chipping away at the price (The car is rarely what the sales person says it is e.g- missing accessories/features, off mileage, number of prior owners, collision history, tire wear, etc.)
Compare the odometer from the listing versus when you test drive. Many managers drive the used cars as their own. If it has 3,000 more miles than the original posting? Negotiate.
Separate church and state, don't mix up trade ins - financing - and the purchase. If you can do a private sale of your current car. It takes time but commonly gets you an extra $2,000-$3,000 for the vehicle if not more. Financing at a dealership can be good, but walk in with a pre-approval from your bank/credit union with a competitive offer. Don't take a 5%+ rate on a car, better deals are out there.
Check the VIN to see how long that vehicle has been sitting on the lot. The VIN will show when the car transferred title and you can see if that vehicle has been on the lot for 3 mo vs 9 mo.
Be willing to walk away. If they aren't willing to work out a deal and deliver on what they promise, then why should you believe the car is in good condition anyways? At the end of the day it's just a car, there are literally millions more listed for sale right now.


Even if they are a "no haggle" dealer, then make sure they live up to the deal and deliver on the excellent customer service that they all promise.

I sell cars (FL), and this is definitely the new trend thanks to all the third party pricing sites like truecar, cargurus, etc, and the crazy success of Carmax. With the competition so fierce in most areas, dealerships don’t have the ability to mark up prices online because customers are no longer willing to spend days shopping at dealerships, they look online and may contact a few, but ultimately the average customer visits less than 2 stores. Instead, they’ll spend 10-20 hours online doing research then go to the one that has the vehicle they want at the lowest price.

The biggest difference between dealerships will be how they price new cars and handle trades. Many will show crazy low prices to get customers in , then once they have you there, pull the price away and explain the advertised price is only valid for factory workers, military, etc. trade value is the last toss up these days, and because of the aggressive online pricing, dealerships are forced to try to hold money on trade value instead. At the end of the day, a smart buyer knows dealerships can play the Shell game with numbers and should be considered with OTD/payments.

The downside of all this is that customers have been conditioned for the last 30+ years to haggle and have, for the most part, vehemently objected. Now that dealerships are moving to a ‘no haggle’ pricing system, people are seeing pricing thousands lower than the competition, but still trying to haggle because they’ve been conditioned to think that if they take that internet price they’ve been ripped off.

As an example, I sell Ram trucks and even though they just got a brand new redesign and are fantastic trucks, they are still 5-7k off. 2 months ago, ram had incentives based on the msrp, so top of the line trucks were 13-15k off. We had people coming in and seeing a 70k truck for under $60k otd, and still asking for another 2-3k off. We’d send them home, and the first week of the next month we had dozens of people begging us to honor that deal we were offering, unfortunately, those incentives had ended and that same $70k truck was now closer to $66k otd.

In conclusion, would you as a consumer rather have a deal ahead of time that the internet tells you is good and saves you time, or would you rather go in at sticker and spend 6-8 hours trying to negotiate? I’d bet 99% would rather have the first and would save money that way too.