Don’t Get Taken Every Time : The Ultimate Guide to Buying or Leasing a Car in the Showroom or on the Internet For fifteen years, automotive consumer expert and former auto dealer Remar Sutton has helped hundreds of thousands of car buyers to get the best deal in town. This completely new edition protects car buyers from the dealers’ latest secret weapon-the Internet. Even the smallest bit of information entered on a Web site can give dealers what they need to take unfair advantage of their customers. From shopping and negotiating to financing, Sutton exposes car dealers’ scams and gives you step-by-step instructions on how to get the best deal. With vital information about Internet shopping, privacy issues and how to use the Internet safely, and taking on the dealers, Sutton’s guide is a must-read before stepping into a real or virtual showroom.
Customer Review: Good info, but the online stuff is overblown …
This book provides some good information on buying cars, and many of the tips suggested are spot on. But when it comes to the role of computers and the Internet in this equation, the author really needs to do more research for the next edition of this book. I work for one of the bigger online car-buying sites as well as providing support for car dealerships in getting their inventory online, and I thought it important to clear the air about a few things.
First of all, the way the author presents things, you would think that if you were to visit autotrader.com (or a similar site) with cookies turned on, suddenly every dealer in town knows your life history. But I’m here to tell you that these sites aren’t nearly that sophisticated, and neither are the dealers. In fact, some dealers still keep their car inventory on Excel spreadsheets! And for the ones that do have some sort of server for managing inventory and sales, many of them don’t even know how to use them beyond the basic essentials. In fact, I myself know more about these systems than do most dealers, and I’ve never personally worked with any of them. Trust me when I say that, contrary to what this book will tell you, dealers (or at least none of the ones I’ve seen) don’t have some elaberate network of supercomputers to track your every move online. Heck, most of them could barely manage a Google search on their own 
In fact, as far as the web is concerned, dealers won’t pay attention to you unless you actually go online and fill out a form requesting a price quote or further information about a car, and then they only have as much data as you give them. Once you fill out the form, your request for information goes into a ‘lead management tool’ (one of these I also provide support for), which is little more than an Outlook-style web interface where dealers can track their dealings with you. For example, they can log any email, phone, or personal meetings, etc that they have with you, along with reminders of appointments to test drive a car and other important events. But my question to you is, since you have obviously expressed an interest in one or more of their vehicles, why WOULDN’T they want to keep a log of their correspondance with you? It’s not like they’re going to sell the information. In fact, as soon as the correspondance ends (either in you buying a car or doing business somewhere else), they’ll either mark you as ‘sold’ or ‘dead’ respectively and that’s pretty much the end of it, untl/unless you write them again. In fact, the worst that can happen is you may get occassional spam from the dealer (something I’m not particularly happy that dealers do) about sales events and such, and you can even opt out of those.
All that being said, even with the advent of car-buying websies, the best way to get a good deal on a car is still to go to the dealership and haggle (and this book will show you how to do that). If you do buy a car online without ever having visited a dealership, you’re going to pay way more than you should 99% of the time. I have the luxury of seeing both the sticker and invoice prices on cars for many dealerships and it’s not uncommon to see them differ by thousands of dollars. A tip I’d like to share with you (and I don’t think this is in the book) is that if you find a particular option or color on a car that the dealership doesn’t have, even if you’re willing to live without that option or color, tell the dealer that you MUST have said item and tell them it’s a deal-breaker if you can’t get it. You’d be amazed at how fast the price comes down Oh, and if you want to get the extended warranty, NEVER do so at the price they quote you. I was able to get $800 knocked off the price without even expending any effort.
In short, though most of these websites may be crap, don’t let this book scare you into looking around if you wish. This is especially true for auto manufacturer websites, as looking on these sites will give you a lot of useful information about the car, such as what options come with various model packages. The only thing you need to concern yourself with is that I would STRONLY advise NOT using Internet Explorer as your primary web browser (try Firefox or Opera if you are on Windows). The reason why is not because of anything specifically to do with looking for cars online; it’s just that IE is a very insecure browser and you’re potentially putting yourself at risk every time you use it. See here for more info:
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Customer Review: 20 yrs since I first read this, and it still works
I first read this book back in 1985 when I bought a Mazda 626. Got it for exactly 3% over the dealer’s invoice, and this was before the day when they’d share that very readily. I’ve bought several cars over the years with the knowledge I’ve gained from this book and I’ve NEVER felt taken. The sources of data are even better now than they were in 1985, so you can make sure you’re not taken ever. What I’ve found is that as soon as the dealers know you know their cost and what’s a fair price, you get a great deal fast. It’s also one of the most entertaining books I’ve ever read that was teaching me something. Some of the best money you’ll ever spend because it will pay you back 100 fold.
