Thursday, April 12, 2007

Information Gathering, Part III:

Through this research portion of the auto-buying process I've shown you what site to go to, www.kbb.com, and why. I walked you step-by-step to obtain the Trade-In Value of your vehicle. Now, what you'll want to do is go back to the kbb.com main page. Only this time you'll want to input your data to obtain the Retail Value of your vehicle. This is accomplished by following the same steps in Research, Part II (the previous post) only instead of clicking on the "Trade-In Value" link you'll click on the "Suggested Retail Value" link at the bottom. Following this, you'll input the same data you did for the trade-in value prompts. Once completed, you'll establish the figure a dealership will reasonably price your vehicle at on their lot. Take note that when you do this kbb.com rates your vehicle in "Excellent" condition for the suggested retail value. It is assumed the dealership will take care of all repairs and cosmetic blemishes to get the automobile into tip-top retail condition.

THE SUGGESTED RETAIL VALUE AND THE TRADE-IN VALUE BECOME YOUR NEGOTIATING TOOLS! Can you see how having this knowledge up-front could help you in the auto-buying process? Without these two figures you go into the beginning of the negotiating process like a deer in the headlights. Many potential customers have made many salespeople truckloads of cash because they didn't know these two simple figures which are easy to obtain in about 10 minutes. That 10 minutes alone could save you thousands and thousands on your next purchase along with future purchases.

An example I used for my own research purposes showed the trade-in value of my automobile to be $7,930 and the suggested retail value of the same automobile to be nearly $14,000. That's about $6,000 of "room" for the dealership to negotiate with on this particular transaction. Of course, the dealership is in a position to try to make as much money as possible while you, the consumer, are looking to pay as little as possible. You're looking for the "best deal" you can possibly get. Without the two figures of suggested retail value and trade-in value you will never get that "best deal."

Knowing what your vehicle is worth and knowing what the dealership will potentially re-sell it for is pivotal in your research. This will save you much time later in the negotiating step. Next post I'll discuss what you need to know about YOURSELF in the auto-buying, information gathering, process.