Share Your Past Experiences and Advice with Buying a Car

You have to be careful about vehicles in accidents. A proper inspection of the car is definitely necessary to ensure it wasn't a insurance write-off or a salvage car, sadly Canadian used car dealers will outright lie and attempt to provide old carproofs or carfaxes to say their cars are fine. This is what frightens me from used dealers, consistently CTV W-Five and the APA do a yearly report and as usual Toronto and Vancouver used car dealers frequently fail on full disclosure. A competent mechanic can easily see whether the car was poorly repaired, the government safety certification checks aren't thorough enough to prevent you from getting a potentially unsafe car.

I'm not shopping at those used car lots on Kingsway (the land of scum used dealers lol) but this particular one is at a new/used dealership rather than those used car lots. I got sent the carproof on it, 2 rear collisions ($3K for one of them, other one was just a third of that). Other than that, it has low mileage and when i took a look at it a week ago (didn't ask about it till today), it looked fairly new.

So based on this newfound information, i'm just trying to think about it since they'll probably still have a hard time getting rid of it anyways (though at the price its at now, its $2-5K below a similar one), it seems like it could be fairly minor but in this case, seems like i'd just knock off a chunk from its current asking price (though seems unlikely as then they'd probably be in the red due to the trade-in value of the vehicle). But i'm in no rush, cars come and go :p

Thinking about it, seems that back in 06 when my parents traded in their Previa (which they actually didn't know it had been involved in at least 8 collisions prior to our ownership) and only for $4K for it, they listed it for $7K (almost a whopping 75% mark-up!). I know that they made money on the Sienna we purchased (probably 20% mark-up) since they pretty much lost nothing and actually gained from the trade. Guess thats just how they make their money, trade-ins and trying to make a quick buck selling used cars.
 
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Try and buy around the end of a sales period. March, June, sept and December tend to be the end of sales target periods (the second and fourth especially so over here). I got a good deal on my car because I bought it right at the end of September- even though I picked it up on 1 Oct, it technically became mine on 30 Sept so they could include it in their quarterly targets.

Go in with a maximum that you can spend (i.e. The amount of csh/loans you have ready to go then and now), and let them know this. Again, I got a fair bit off my car because I told them "I have approval or such and such amount of dollars, so I can sign this contract today". They liked this, as opposed to having to wait for me to get all of that sorted and then signing. It meant I could pick up the car as soon as possible, so I wasn't wasting showroom space.

Don't go for the "we will throw in such and such extras" deal- new cars only obviously, but I prefer to go straight out for cash. You can call up a bit later (prior to delivery) and get a good deal on anything you want for the car anyway most times.

Look for those "odd" finds. Do your research online, find cars at dealers that are fine, but for some reason have been sitting there for a while. My car was a cancelled order from March 2011 (not sure if the person didn't want to wait the 6 months lead time at that point or wanted the "newer" version- oh well, my win!), one of the last of its series (pre facelift and move to Thailand for production). That series actually appealed to me more (the colour is amazing and it was German made), and it was priced quite a bit cheaper- as it was an MY11, it was about $4k cheaper than it should have been as it was included in a manufacturer's sale price for all MY11 models (they obviously assumed all previous gen models had been sold by then). Again, I was able to use the "it's been sitting here for 6 months, I can take it off the floor this week" line to bargain with.
 
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Just an Update

Just an Update

We've arrived to two conclusions currently.

One. We're going to lease the vehicle. Reason being that it's easier for us since it's a first car; reliable transportation and can get into something decent for the cost. Also because after the lease period (choosing 36 months), we just drop off the keys at the dealer and don't have to worry about splitting the residual between us and i could just go off and get my own vehicle. Pretty much this is the hump for now.

Two. We've settled on the 2012 Mazda3 Sport GS-Sky w/ Leather Package. While i'd be perfectly fine settling with the base GS-Sky (comes quite loaded), the extra options added on only increases the total financial obligation of around $1,000 (the option package is $2,100).

Now we've been to several dealers, we've spoken to either a sales person or manager and it's just totally different experiences. However the amount i would have thought would be possible to knock-off seems to be way out of whack. The mark-up (Invoice-to-MSRP) is approximately $1,500 and currently the best one dealer could do is $500 off the unit (throwing in wheel locks). While $500 isn't terribly much, they are still making (as a business, not including overhead or salaries being paid out) around $1,000 and that isn't even factoring in any of Mazda's factory-to-dealer rebates however there doesn't seem to be any active currently.

Seems like the average over here in BC for the Mazda3 would be around $500 off (we've been shown Bill-Of-Sales by the manager only giving out $200 to $300 discounts only) while the rest of Canada is about $1,000. Quite a difference when shopping by geographical location.

But what i found amusing is one dealer's $500 discount vs another's is not comparing between apples to apples. It seems as if one dealer actually adds-on extra fees but in the end, it works out a bit more than the other dealer.

Another thing to look out for is the window-etching (VIN, etc...). This seems to add an extra $295 charge to the vehicle. Now i haven't asked any dealer yet to waive the fee or decline the service but it seems unnecessary. Will report back on this one.

Now i'll probably finish up car shopping soon before residuals change (then we're probably looking through the used car market, not necessarily easy). But i guess it doesn't help our case when there are very few units in the colour we're looking at. Many dealers seem to have to resort to swapping in order to get the vehicle we want. The colours we've seen at EVERY dealership right now is silver.

Just an update! :mrgreen:
 
Just an update for you all and some advice.

We decided to shop used now however we haven't gotten anything yet, so we looked at a couple 2010 Mazda3 Sport GTs and came across one listed at $19,995.

It had mileage on the high side (80k KM) and the condition was eh, yet it somehow got CPO'd (Mazda CPO Program).

They also had one with half the mileage at $22,995 but that would have been a pain to negotiate down to where it should be.

So just to figure out how much we can realistically get off the car, we figured why not give it a shot and see how low they'd go. However i feel that my initial offer was slightly too high by a couple hundred.

All in with taxes and fees, it came out to $23,XXX. Now without much effort, though the sales person wasn't too too helpful, within 15 minutes of actual negotiations, we managed to bring it down to $19,800 all in, only $800 off my original offer.

Now i mean this is an actual new car dealership. However the vehicle has been on the lot for over 90 days. But overall, i just felt that the vehicle's condition wasn't CPO worthy (scratches everywhere, hell the interior plastic was scratched everywhere).

But as we're still in the market, guess the tip is to be persistent and low-ball when you can (don't offer too much in the beginning). I actually didn't have any other vehicles to compare it with (everything had higher asking prices, lower mileage) but only based the valuation of the vehicle based on current trade-in value (Canadian Black Book) and lease residual values ($14,000 to $15,000 is the general residual for the Mazda3).

So know the price and value of the vehicle, find the flaws and then stick to your guns.
 
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Another important tip that I have learned over the years, don't spend a long time dealing for the "best price" only to be hit with all sorts of add-on fees and such. Negotiate for the out the door price. I don't really care what the paperwork shows so long as the price out the door and off the lot is the price I wanted to pay. They can show a $500 fee for paperwork on the forms if they want, but they are losing that $500 off the price of the car, because I don't include any excessive and ridiculous paperwork fees when I am figuring the amount I am willing to pay out the door. I bought a couple of cars back in the mid-90's from a dealer who charged $25 for paperwork. That, I didn't mind paying.
 
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