[trader220]

There is no mystery in the price of a used car these days unless its something obscure. A late model Japanese import is far from obscure. Spend 30 minutes on the internet and you can know roughly what its worth. I ran the used car department for a group that owned 4 Audi dealerships and 1 Porsche dealership and then I was the GSM at a different Porsche dealership for a couple years. I can tell you this... dealers are not making 2 to 3 times their investment on used cars with one exception. The cheapo cars they take in trade for $500 to $1500 at times can be flipped for 2 or more times their trade in price.

Think about it, if you were going to trader your 3 year old Highlander would you let it go for 50% or less of its retail value? It might take you 10 minutes on the internet to figure out its retail value. No one gives their trades away.

As mentioned there are up to three parts to every deal... Price of the car sold, price of the trade, cost of the loan / aftermarket products. Spend a little time getting an idea of what your current car is worth, what the car you're buying is worth and what a loan should cost. Many times the dealer can save you a bit in the loan cost and still make money on that loan. That's a good thing. I never understood people who paid more for a loan rather than take the dealer brokered loan just because the dealer made a little money on it.

I got out of the business because I got tired of the kinds of people who were buying $75 to 200k dollar cars and still needed to hammer away for that last 200 bucks or complained endlessly over 4 bucks on a lease payment of $1340 a month.

The stories I could tell you would make you laugh your face off.

Find the car you want. Be a reasonably knowledgeable consumer, and a reasonable consumer, make a fair deal. Simple as that. They're not making $5000 bucks on a $15k dollar car.