3 Car Buying Services To Avoid

You will be confronted with many car buying services when you look to purchase a car. While a car buying service can save you money and take the hassle out of shopping for what you need, many of these are just a waste of time and money. Here are a few that you should steer clear of.

1. Dealership Kickbacks

There are plenty of legitimate car buying services out there. Unfortunately there are just as many that don’t have your best interest in mind. When you are looking at a service and they keep pointing you to one or two dealerships, chances are these services are really another division of that dealership. It’s not illegal for a dealership to offer kickbacks to these services to get your money. This may not be the worst thing to encounter, but you won’t find fair comparisons if they only work with one or two dealerships.

2. Watch for the Term “Pre-Negotiated”

This may sound great, but it’s really nothing more than the sticker price. A service that offers pre-negotiated rates with certain dealers or lenders are really only taking a small amount off the car, if anything at all. A hundred dollar discount on a new car won’t make a difference in the long run on a $30,000 car. You want a service that will work with the dealer to negotiate a fair price at the time of purchase, not before you become a customer.

3. Services That Pressure

A car buying service should be working for you, not selling to you. If you are in the market for a car on a certain budget, don’t allow the service to push the prices up. In some cases if you are being unrealistic with what you want, they may tell you this. But if you start to feel like you’re being pressured then there is no point in working with that service. The car buying service should be helping you avoid high pressure sales tactics, not pushing you into one.

Car buying services can be a great asset to anyone in the market for a car. As long as you watch what you’re getting in to and keep an eye out for the above tactics, you will be able to choose a car service that will work best for you.