When you need to get another car,

[kristopher]

48. I (nearly) always buy a 2 year old vehicle with <24000 miles.

I shop around 2-3 weeks looking at *new* cars to see what is available that suits my needs. I negotiate a couple of deals to get a feel for how financing is going and how business is for the dealers. For example, I've long known that dealers always finance their inventory and I'd become accustomed to them being motivated by the wish to save money on interest. Therefore I would look for used cars they'd had in stock for a while. When we bought last year, however, that wasn't true because the interest rates were so low the dealers that it simply didn't matter to them. I found that out while talking to a new car salesman about how business was for him.

If you can get a wholesale book it is good to study it to get an idea of how much a car depreciates with time and miles. For me the best spot is as I wrote above - a lot of 2 year old cars from a rental fleets will depreciate about 40-50% and have less than 24000 miles, meaning they have at least 1 year and 12000 miles of factory warranty left. I never buy a dealer warranty.

after I find a specific model, I go out in the evening and scour the lots of reputable dealers looking for what they have that matches the model and condition. I don't worry about color or options very much since that limits the choices far too much.

After I locate at least 3 I go to kelly blue book (kbb.com) and pull up "dealer trade in" for that vehicle. Any car with that many miles is never rated at the highest condition rating so I use the next highest as my benchmark.

Once I have the approximate number I think the dealer *should* have paid for the auto, I go talk to the sales people.

I drive the vehicles at least 20 miles.

If it is their brand of product (chevy at at chevy store etc) I get them to run report on the maintenance history of the auto.

I push them to offer a discount. When they make their opening offer I counter with the wholesale value plus $400 or so. If they take it I buy the vehicle, but I usually leave at that point even though I'm willing to go to $1000 over wholesale. Once I've visited and driven all 3 vehicles then I call back on the one I liked best and ask to come in for a sit down. In person with a checkbook in front of me I offer an additional $200. We usually close the deal around $800 over the wholesale number.

If not, go to the other dealers.

It is a lot of work, but if I drive them until I don't feel confident in their reliability anymore (130000-150000 miles) I feel I get the most value for my money in the long run.

Finally, I always have (3 or 4 year) financing arranged at a credit union. If the dealer can do a better rate, fine. But I go in knowing the maximum payment for the amount I'm willing to spend.

Summary:
Wholesale + $1000 max
Only manufacturer's warranty
No dealer financing above credit union rates (and no insurance of any kind from dealer)