In addition, by following these tips, you will find that the less scrupulous dealers, many times, will have automatically been eliminated from your list of dealerships before you come to the negotiation portion of a transaction.

First, you must determine a fair price to pay for the car that you want. You must procure the invoice pricing for the vehicle you're interested in purchasing in order to determine a fair price. Look around online to locate a service that sells invoice pricing data. These pricing data packages offer valuable information such as current dealer inventories, as well as information about the deals that other buyers have secured. It is worth spending thirty or forty dollars for this information that can easily save you thousands on your next car purchase.

Secondly, do take advantage of not just one, but several of the car prices quoting services that are available on the internet. You will then be in contact with several dealerships. Use competition to your advantage. Talk with the dealerships that contact you. Ask them for a bottom line car price that includes all the dealership's fees. If necessary, tell them that you are not interested in talking about financing, you are interested only in the bottom-line price of the car. Don't be pulled into discussion about monthly payments. We will discus this later on.

Next, be sure to shop around for car financing. The dealership is certainly not the only place with which to get your new car financed! Find out what your FICO credit score is, as this will primarily dictate what interest rate you will be paying on the loan for your new car. Then it's time to apply to several different lenders and see which one offers the best rates. There are many reputable online lenders that will finance even those with lower credit ratings.

If you will be trading in your used car, you should figure the trade-in and resale value of the car you are interested in selling. Basically, you will get more for your used car by selling it yourself, but trading in is simpler and easier. Another advantage to trading in your used car is that trade-in values lower the taxable amount of your new car. You will have to explore the numbers of your particular situation to determine which approach is best for you.

Last, but certainly not least, comes the negotiation portion of the car buying experience. In order to form a meaningful picture of a dealer's offer, you should request a drive-away, cash car price that excludes the value trade-in vehicles, incentives and/or rebates. This simplifies matters, as many car dealers like to play around with these figures in order to confuse buyers and inflate their own profit.

Once you determine the starting car price from several dealers, it's a simple matter of taking the lowest quoted car price and proceeding to inquire with the other dealers that you're in contact with as to whether or not they can beat the price. Repeat this process until the dealers quotes stop getting lower.

Then it is time for negotiating the value of your trade-in car and decide whether or not to use dealer financing. Generally, you can find better rates through a third party lender, but if a dealer has a better rate, by all means, go with that. Be careful about dealing with dealers that don't want you to finance your car purchase with another lender.

When it comes to handling dealer add-ons and fees, check over the paperwork and make sure the amounts match the figures you were quoted. In dealing with suspicious fees, don't be afraid to stop negotiations long enough to do research on the individual fees.

Follow these steps and you're sure to find satisfaction with your new car purchase.