At the Dealer

In ALL if this planning I forgot to ask the Dealer what information I needed to bring with me. So I actually needed to send Husband back home to get our current insurance card that was sitting on the desk.

Needed:

• Drivers License
• Proof of Insurance.
• All the information to fill out Credit Application.

… That is it.

I also recommend bring something to do. Something that you can start and stop.

I saw a lot of people playing with their phones. I would not recommend Hearthstone since at any moment you would have to deal with questions and paperwork. I chose to bring my daughter’s school calendar to update my paper calendar and our family Google calendar. All done through December!

All the prep work was worth it. Here is where it came in handy.

First, after finishing the Financial paperwork, they didn't want to approve me for my income since it was low. That is ok. I had the CU check.

I told them I should get $500 off since I would get $1500 rebate instead of the $1000. Salesman went back to talk to the GM.

Surprise! They can qualify me for the 0% if I use Household income. Sure.

Next off to the Financial office.

I sat down and pulled out a much loved and used blank Yellow Pad. Then placed my phone with my open spreadsheet next to the pad.

FO: Which finance deal were we doing?
Me: I don't car care there was only a $39 dollar difference.
FO: How you get that?

On my Yellow pad, I wrote out my 2 offers I currently had. Repeating exactly what was on my Sheet 1: Interest Calc.

	1.24% + $1,500	0%  + $1,000
Car OTD Price	$26,500	$27,000
Interest Paid	$1,015.82	0
GAP	$345	$900
Total Price	$27,861	$27,900

I circled the GAP insurance in the 0% column and told him that is where I can see the only difference.

I was smiling and laughing this whole time. Giddy is a good descriptive word. This was the fun part for me. With all the leg work done I would go in knowing I was good even with the CU deal.

He gave me his lowest price for GAP, $349, taking the number sold in his numbers and not necessarily the value.

Me: You meant $345. right?
FO: No, $349. That is the lowest.
Me: Works for me.

He went over all the up sales. Which I had looked into and said decided were not for me. When we were walking out...

Me: How many people come in with spreadsheets?
FO: No one.

In total 2 ½ hours I drove home in my new car.

WAY TO LONG DEALERS. It was only not a waste of my time, because I brought SOMETHING ELSE TO DO.

The Math it Hurts so Good

The math didn’t click until I was talking to Dealers about getting proposals. This was the day before I was planning to buy. I was told 3 things in those conversations:

“Just add $500” “GAP is offered at $900, but I have a 25% off” “Dont worry about GAP only the car price.”

That’s IT!

This helped me fill in two of my spreadsheets.

First, when I was getting the proposals, some dealers give me the $1500 off price and others would give me both. I could use the “Just add $500” to each of the deal columns to get the price.

In my “Sheet 4: Call Dealers” I would have completed columns of:
OTD $1500
OTD 0% + $1500

I now had a list of my proposals from each of the Dealers they would give me with no negotiation.

Second, I could fill in my “Sheet 1: Interest Calc” spreadsheet with 2 columns:
Deal 1: 1.49% + $1500
Deal 2: 0% + $1000

	1.24% + $1,500	0%  + $1,000
Car OTD Price	$26,500	$27,000
Interest Paid	$1,015.82	0
GAP	$345	$900
Total Price	$27,861	$27,900

You can see the “Car Price” changes the exact amount if the Cashback by $500. The interest paid is accounted for. And my currently quoted GAP was also accounted for.

NOW with the “winning” Dealer, I could compare ONLY the financial deals with confidence. There was no noise of deal confusion, car price, or anything else.

This Dealer reminded me that even GAP insurance is negotiable! Thank you!

Having this, and fully understanding where all the numbers came from, made it exciting to get to the dealer with my offers.

I could SEE that there was only a $39 difference between the Financial deals. And as it stood the 0% was NOT the best offer I had.

Don’t walk in blind when you can see clearly.

Is it not Three Offers

Dealing with the manufacturing offers confused me. I have to admit I was not strong on the financials in comparing deals. I knew what I wanted but I was having trouble grasping exactly how I wanted to lay it out in a spreadsheet.

Toyota Financial had two deals going on. A cash back offer of $1500 if I pay cash/check. Or a finance offer of 0% with $1000 cash back.

The loan deal is “available to eligible customers”. I know I’m eligible, not just from the Credit Union offer, but also from my Credit Score on Credit Karma. No surprises.

At this point I put all this information on Sheet 1: Interest Calc. But it was not useful on a way I could use to negotiate with comfortably.

I left it as is.