Your hope of getting rid of the negotiation part of car purchases is not going to happen. As price tags increase, negotiations become more common. You don’t often negotiate for a $10 book, but it wouldn’t be bizarre for someone to try to get a deal on a washer and dryer. And as you increase in price to boats and cars, the negotiating becomes even more aggressive. Once you get to prices on the order of houses, sticker price means hardly anything at all. At that point, all you care about is for how much comparables have sold and how much you are willing to pay.

To suggest that consumers be willing to drop $20,000 on something without even attempting to pay the price they desire is just as absurd as suggesting that dealers sell $20,000 cars for razor thin margins without trying to make as much profit as the market will allow. As a car sales manager, I would think you’d be on the side of negotiating as car salesmen are professional negotiators and thus have a distinct advantage over the consumers.

The only way vehicles will get sold without negotiation is if the prices of vehicles drop significantly. Unfortunately, without a miraculous industrial revolution level of evolution in vehicle manufacturing (not to mention the uncovering a infinitely more easily accessible raw materials), this isn’t likely to happen. Alas, we are stuck with vehicles that cost tens of thousands of dollars and negotiations to determine how many of those tens of thousands of dollars.

If ever you can sell your car yourself then do so. You might be able to get away in getting more for it or not. Just make sure to protect yourself in any scam etc… Selling your car to a dealership saves you time and aggravation in dealing with issues.

I agree don’t give the dealer your target price. However, you can still know what your target price is, then give your dealer a target that is 30 to 40% lower. Hopefully, your target price is where you’ll end up.

You asked a question that perplexes me: You asked, “Why would you ever buy a car on credit”.

It is because cars lose their value that you SHOULD buy a car on credit, especially when you can get 0% interest deals for up to 60 months. Let someone else risk their money. Keep your cash in the bank. Cars depreciate, which is why it makes sense to finance them. Paying cash for a depreciating asset is the riskiest way to buy a car. Cash is king, so why give your hard earned money to someone else when you can use someone else s money for little or no interest?

0% New Car Deals

Basically, you use credit card balance transfers to pay off the loan, then sell the car, then use the proceeds to buy another one.

In fact, it may be a better idea for those who can attain low percentage financing to do so instead of paying cash, even if they have it. If you could get 1.9% financing on a 20,000 car and you have 20k in hand, you could invest that money certainly somewhere and safely receive a return higher than 1.9%.

Just my take.

There are plenty of options