The limits of negotiating

[Just Do It]

Plan to visit a lot of Toyota dealers as well as other dealers. Even if you aren't visiting them, tell them you are anyway. I'm also looking to buy either a Yaris or Fit and will be using this in my negotiations in the hopes that someone caves and blows me away with an offer. You have to remember, while it's not likely you'll get the car too much below invoice, all of these dealers have quotas to meet so if the particular dealer is slow in sales they may be more likely to come down in price (even lower than they intend just to get the sale). I'm new to this also but have been trying to read up a ton on tips and tricks to buying a new car. The important thing to remember is you are the one in control. Good luck with your purchase!

[bearda]

I've had better luck not visiting the dealers, but just emailing them instead. Pick the best price you get out of the bunch and send it to all the others, making it clear you're not going to set foot inside their dealership unless they can beat their price.

It might take a couple rounds, but it's a lot lower-pressure than having to deal with a salesperson. For the most part the internet sales guys I've dealt with put a pretty good offer forward, since it's either sell the car and make a little bit of money or never get you in the door and make no money.

[tomato]

Originally Posted by Just Do It

... The important thing to remember is you are the one in control. Good luck with your purchase!

+1

I bought my car used / Certified from a Toyota dealer (found it online, searched their database for a while, then I found it). I really wanted THAT particular car (after having shopped around for months for a good used car at the time, and not being very successful due to the crappy economy, I think). But doing a bit of homework before hand (finding out what comparable cars are worth, for instance) paid off. I let them make a reasonable profit (gave them the highest dealer value in the KBB) but didn't agree to any more than that, and also stood firm on my old car's trade-in value (I wanted $500 for it, or no deal, b/c there is a demand for these kind of old cars and I probably would have gotten $700 for it on Craigslit). The dealership got me with last minute add ons (an alarm and something else, I forgot) so watch out for that and there was some last minute high pressure tactic to get me to buy the extended warranty (didn't get it, though, too expensive, more than 10% of the value of the car for very little coverage.).

Good luck.