Mopar Register.com

I've purchased quite a few vehicles so far in my young life. Here are some things that I've learned along the way:

1. Always go for invoice price. On any given Dodge Ram there is 3-5k price difference between invoice and the MSRP that you see on the stickers. That means that the Ram with a sticker of 36k will have an invoice around 31-32k. I was lucky and found a dealership in my area that doesn't hassle you about this. There is PROFIT built INto the INVOICE price for dealerships, so don't let them tell you that they won't be making any $$. Ask to see the invoice of the vehicle, if they give you a hard time there are plenty of other dealerships that you can talk to (and they know this). You also get incentives on top of the invoice price. Quite often you can get up to or over 10k off the sticker price of your new vehicle when you combine invoice and incentives. Remember, no matter how much you want to buy that vehicle, the dealership wants to sell it even more.

2. Any maintenance plan (free fluid changes/tire rotation/etc.) the dealership offers you is likely written off as an advertising cost. This means it costs them very little to give it to you. Don't let the salesman talk you into a higher price if they throw in a maintenance plan. You can often get these thrown in for 'free'.

3. Buying at the end of the month is better than going at the beginning of the month. Salesman always want more sales. If you find one that hasn't sold many vehicles that month they're going to be more helpful and friendly so that they can make a sale. The best experience I had was calling up a dealership on the 20th of the month and asking them if I could trade in my truck and not take a huge loss. The salesman I talked to bent over backwards to get me into a new truck that I liked and I only took a 1k loss on the one I traded in. Overall, my payments stayed exactly the same and I was in a new truck that I liked more.

4. If the dealership doesn't have your truck they can get one from another dealership. Don't let the buying impulse put you into a corner when looking for a new vehicle. If the dealership that has the truck you want isn't dealing, go to another dealership that is more friendly. They can get the vehicle you want at no extra cost.

5. If you're willing to wait, order the vehicle. A dealership is more likely to be friendly if they can order your vehicle. Yes, they want to sell everything that's on their lot, but if they can order a vehicle that won't sit on their lot it's even better. Chrysler makes every dealer order a certain number of each vehicle, if the dealership can order one that won't be sitting on their lot it's better for them. They also don't have to pay lot insurance, make payments on it (they don't own it outright), and anything else that goes with having the vehicle sit on their lot for months while they try to sell it. As an added bonus, if your order spans across a couple months the dealership SHOULD give the better set of incentives. That means that if you ordered your Ram in July when there was 3k cash back, but it didn't come until August when there is only 2500 cash back the dealership would give you the July incentive since that month had the better incentive.

6. Make dealerships work against each other. It's not hard to call up a number of dealerships and tell them what you want and what price you want it for. It's easier to do this at the end of the month.

7. Build your vehicle online so you know exactly what you want before you go to the lot. When you know all of the features and options of the vehicle that you want it's a lot harder for the salesman to talk you into an impulse buy. Remember, if they don't have it on the lot you can order it straight from the factory or they can look for it at other dealerships.

8. Go to edmunds.com or kbb.com and look up the invoice price of the vehicle that you built online. It may surprise you to know that these sites are extremely accurate when it comes to invoice pricing. Knowing the invoice price before you go to the lot gives you information. Information is power against these guys.

9. nada.com, edmunds.com, and kbb.com are good sites to go and find out what the trade in value of your vehicle will be. Unless you hit a deer and didn't get the damage fixed don't settle for anything less than independent sale value. The dealerships bank on the idea that you don't want your vehicle anymore and will take less than it's worth to get into a new vehicle. The later in the month you go to buy a new vehicle the easier it will be to talk up the value of your trade in.

10. As a general rule, it will cost you $20/month for every 1k borrowed against a vehicle. Meaning if you borrow 20k your payment will be around $400/month. Know this figure ahead of time. Many manufacturer websites have a finance calculator built in when pricing out your vehicle, use it. Knowing how much your new vehicle should cost you ahead of time every month is just one more piece of information you have to use against the dealers.