The Essential Information You Must Request from the Car Dealer

Remember that purpose of this first dealer visit is to collect the information that is not found on the Internet and is necessary to negotiate the best deal. The two values that you must obtain after the test drive are your trade's ACV (Actual Cash Value) and the Buy-Rate for the financing or lease contract.

           

The two values you must obtain after the test-drive are your Trade-in's ACV and the Buy-Rate for the financing or lease contract.

 

Keep in mind, within these values, dealers can hide "Back-End" profit.  And because they are proprietary to the dealer, they will be hesitant to share them with you.

 

Since these variables are known only to the dealer, it will also be difficult to verify that the salesman is truthful when they quote them. 

 

One of the ways to verify that this information is accurate is to shop a variety of car dealers and test the validity of the values. This technique is very time consuming and often creates an unpleasant experience for the buyer.  If the salesman feels like they will be “shopped” they will put the customer on a “Bubble” and this will lead to major a headache.

 

There is no perfect technique to extract honest answers from the car dealer. When you arrive back from the test-drive you will want to get the ACV and the Buy-Rate and then leave.  Whereas, the salesman will want to move to the "Write-Up" step in an attempt to sell a car that day.

 

This is the tricky part; the best way to get some actual values and not be "bubbled" is to preface your request with “I understand you will need to make a profit…”

 

We are not saying you actually need to pay the dealer a big profit, or any profit at all.  However, if you would like a honest answer to your questions this is a good technique.