Yeah, they say the other side of the fence is always greener. you should go check out the greener side and let us know how that goes. Personally, my deal is always set up before I set foot in the dealership.
Exactly. The WORST place to negotiate is the dealer's showroom. You are likely tired, charged up, annoyed, and aggravated, and above all in their territory. I used Edmund's in the past for the G6 and the Sonic and worked everything out via e-mail first. Then I printed that out and walked into the dealership and test drove the car. When it came time to write it up, we were done in a 1/2 hour.
I did negotiate a little further on the Sonic because I was able to determine that the car sat on the dealer's lot for close to 6 months so I told the salesman that I knew that every day it sat on his lot, he was losing money, which of course he agreed with. My father was a car salesman in the 1980s and I gently told the salesman, "I know the ties got narrower and everyone is nicer, but the game hasn't changed all that much in the end. You want to make a profit and I want a good deal......"
We were $100 apart and my mother who was alive at the time said to the salesman, "Look we're $100 apart. You take $50, I'll take $50 and we'll call it a day". He shook our hands and the deal was done. According to Edmund's I paid under their True Market Value (TMV) for my Sonic.
I would do the next car in a heartbeat like that, it made the dealing easy and very pleasant. As an aside, my salesman is still there and he worked for Saturn before this dealership. He was one of the reasons I bought the car, he was a pleasant guy to deal with and he could see that I was an informed consumer without being obnoxious.
