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Vehicle shopping is getting more challenging than ever. The Internet is both a source of information and confusion. There are many so called “experts” sharing tips with consumers but rather than inform they often only serve to scare the public rather than educate them about the auto buying process.

In a car-buying transaction the salesman and the customer have mutual goals. The customer wants to buy a vehicle and the salesman wants to sell a vehicle. It’s important for both of you to work together towards your mutual goals. Do not mistake a low price for the best value. There are other aspects of the sale to consider in addition to price. Do your homework on vehicle pricing but look at the total transaction. Prices for vehicles vary based on many factors and of course the law of supply and demand will impact pricing too.

When you shop for a vehicle there are certain things you expect. You should be treated with respect, obtain honest and candid answers to your questions, and have things explained to you which you might not understand. Additionally you should be given various options throughout the buying process. Consumers buy cars once every three to five years and salespeople sell cars every day; so do not hesitate to ask “a dumb question.”

If at any time you feel you are not being treated properly I suggest you leave and visit another dealership. You also have the right to ask for another salesperson to help you, if you feel your original sales person is not meeting your needs. Sometimes people just don’t click, so speak with a manager and politely ask to work with another team member. If the salesperson did something specific to offend you, inform the manager of that too, so they can address the issue.

1. Let the salesman know if you love the car
Why pretend you could care less about a vehicle if you really want the vehicle. The fact that you like the vehicle is a good thing. If there are functionality issues the salesperson can provide information that can validate your love of the vehicle or point out potential issues and steer you to a better solution. You might love a little two door coupe, but you shared you are getting married in three months and that may mean a family is coming soon. The salesman can point you to some sporty sedans that are fun to drive but have more room for car seats. To think they will boost the price of a vehicle just because you like it is silly. Most dealerships mark the price on the vehicles. Don’t be afraid to ask the price and how it compares to the market values.

Whether you like, dislike or love a vehicle will not change its price. If you want to buy an unloved car there are often odd colors and cars that have been sitting on the dealers lot for awhile; and dealers will be happy to show you them and provide more aggressive pricing.

2. Tell them if you need a car by tomorrow
Often you’ll hear, “never thell them you need a car immediately.” Let’s bust this myth right now. Just because you need to buy a car right away doesn’t mean a consumer will pay ridiculous money for the vehicle. If you need a car quickly let the salesperson know so they can make sure title work and all the purchase documents can be prepared in your time frame. If financing has to be arranged the dealership can expedite that too. Consumers still need to be aware of vehicle values, budgets and their credit standing. If a consumer feels they are being rushed or pressured into a purchase, they can always leave the dealership, rent or borrow a vehicle for a few days, and look for other alternatives.

Believe it or not dealers can be sensitive to your timeframe and some dealers even have return policies which let you select another vehicle if you feel the first one you chose is not the right vehicle for you. Ask about their policies upfront.

3. Share your monthly budget
Uninformed consumers fear if they share the monthly payment that is acceptable they will be oversold a vehicle for an extended loan term and the dealer will make a fat profit. For as long as I can remember customers have been asking for a payment of $250 a month. Today $250 a month will finance a $10,000 car for 48 months at a 9% interest rate. Not a realistic payment if you are looking for a new car selling for $18,000 and you have no money down.

Before going to the dealership, consumers should use online loan calculators and figure out the most they can finance, and remember to include the down payment (and/or trade in equity) and taxes in your calculations. You can also call any bank branch or credit union and they will quickly calculate loan payments for you. Your sales person at the Dealership can also provide generic payment information from their managers to keep focused on vehicles within your budget.

4. Talk about your trade-in up front
So called experts often mis-advise people and say, never tell the salesman you have a trade. This is a big mistake and also makes you a liar. You don’t want to start any relationship by lying. If you have a trade-in and still have a balance due to the bank or credit union, you need to call them and get a payoff quote. You need to know whether you have equity in your trade-in or negative equity. Negative equity means you owe the bank more than the vehicle is worth in the market. Obviously this is not good unless you have lots of cash around to make up for the negative equity.

The challenge comes when trying to figure out what your vehicle is worth. Well it’s worth exactly what someone will pay you for it. Also, please don’t tell the dealer that the book says your car is worth $$$$. Books do not buy cars. That’s why they are called guides. Do not expect a dealer to pay you the retail book value for your trade-in. If they pay you retail how can they mark it up and sell it on their lot for more than retail?

There are certain realities in the marketplace and that means some vehicle depreciate more than others. Do not be insulted by the value a dealer puts on your trade-in. You can certainly negotiate, but if you have a vehicle with a V8 engine or large SUV be prepared to deal with a valuation below market value as these units are not desirable at this time. Remember if you don’t like the deal you can always shop elsewhere or take your trade-in out of the transaction and sell it privately. By being realistic about your trade-in value and the monthly payment you can afford, dealers can try to help you reach your goal of buying a new or quality pre-owned vehicle.

5. Ask whether you should consider leasing
Leasing is a great option for some consumers. First off understand a lease is nothing more than a long term rental. You agree to lease (rent) the car for a specific term, not exceed the allowable mileage and return it in good condition. Ask yourself these three questions to see if you are a good lease prospect.

Do you like to trade in your vehicles every four years or less?
Do you take very good care of your vehicles?
Do you drive less than 18,000 miles a year?
If you answered yes to these three questions and have very good credit, you are a good lease prospect and should inquire about lease programs on the vehicles you are considering buying.

6. Discuss your credit situation up front
While some people underestimate their own credit rating, dealers work with a number of lenders to help shoppers with varying degrees of past credit problems. Here is another case of doing some preliminary work to understand your credit score and to calculate a debt ratio. Lenders look at your past credit, your ability to pay based on your current obligations and the amount of equity you have in the vehicle.

If you put no money down the lender is taking a greater risk on the loan and this may impact the loan term or interest rate tier. Most finance and lease ads from dealers or vehicle manufacturers always indicate the loan payment shown in the ad is reserved for those that qualify, meaning they have good credit.

You may want to call your local bank or credit union and ask what their current loan rates are for new and used vehicles and take that info with you. Dealerships work with a variety of lenders and can usually match or provide a lower loan rate than what you may have been quoted.

Mark R. Dubis is a writer and auto retail expert with over 25 years working in the automotive and financial arenas. He was a vice president for the automotive finance divisions of KeyBank USA and National City Bank in Cleveland, Ohio.

6 Things to Always Tell a Car Salesman by Mark R. Dubis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

They are everywhere. Any major website – banners follow you, get a Gmail with  ”car” in the subject – they are on Gmail, they are even on TV – Vehix commercials. VWdealersecrets.com, whypaysticker.com, carbargainsweekly.com, prettymuchanythingrelatedtocars.org. Anything to make you go to their website, pick a car, any car, and give them your email address. In exchange – you are going to get that super-secret deal that suckers don’t know about, and you will get that extra hard-to-get car for nothing. The truth? – If it is too good to be true – it isn’t, that is just the law of the universe. So why do they do it, and what is in it for them? Money of course, and you are going to pay, there is no free lunch. It looks free to the consumer, but if the dealer pays for it – you will pay for it in the end.

Let’s play with some statistics and numbers: the closing ratio for Internet Sales varies from 3% to 15%, depending on a dealer and a method of measuring. Let’s say the nation average is 6%. This means that out of 100 Internet inquiries that a dealer gets – he will sell 6 vehicles. The going rate for third party lead is $20, so to sell 6 cars – a dealer will spend $2,000, or $333 per vehicle. Now what kind of pricing a shopper will expect going to a whypaysticker.com? I am going to guess that he is not expecting to pay $2,000 dealer mark-up, and more likely – he/she is going for that super-secrect below invoice insider deal. So who is going to pay the $333? Anybody? The answer is simple – we do. You and I. The cost has to be added to the price of the car or service, and passed along to the buyer, there is no other way to get it. At least auto brokers are honest about it, and they charge you upfront (Cartelligent.com charges you $500 per car, without even telling you what is the price of the car is going to be)

Of course Whypaysticker.com is an extreme example (even though a real website), but let’s look at a more respectable website, like Zag.com. Punch in 2011 GTI 4-door DSG Autobahn, and in a second it tells you: MSRP is $31.475, and your price is $30,652. But wait! There is more: there is a link to Truecar.com, which will tell you that good price is between $29,838 and $30,773, but GREAT price is below $29,838! Hold on, you think, what is going on? I don’t want to pay good price when there is great price, how do I get it? Piece of cake, says Zag.com, just click “locate your dealer”. You do, and it tells you – these three are our Highly Rated Certified Dealers, that will offer you specific numbers off MSRP, plus “dealer perks” such as test-drives (Wow!) All you have to do is give away your name, email, phone, address, and the madness begins. Some dealers will start calling you, other dealers send you screaming emails with unbelievable prices and promises to beat any price. Did I mention that this model IS NOT EVEN ON DEALER’S LOTS YET?!?

They make it so easy, that button is everywhere, teasing you to click, and you don’t even know that your phone will explode 2 minutes later. They have two goals: on the website side – to get as many people to request quotes, and on dealer side – to get as many dealers as possible to pay for your information. As a result, some websites send your info not to the dealers you requested, but to all the dealers that pay (they usually forget to mention that to you, letting you think that a specific dealer is simply ignoring you). Other websites go further: if you express interest in a Cadillac – they will say, oh good, you want a luxury car. Let’s sell your information to Cadillac, Audi, BMX, Lexus,  and Huindai (they do have a luxury model, after all). So I get a lead: John Smith is interested in Audi A8, I call him, and he yells at me that he doesn’t even know what Audi is. Awesome, $20 and 5 minutes I will never get back.

Some websites want to differentiate themselves: supposedly they work only with “certified dealers”,  price is guaranteed, and the service is exlusive. Example – Costco buying service. Let’s review: the service is exlusive to the billion people that have a Costco card and anyone they know, because I can give you my card number, and boom – you get the same service. The price is guaranteed – but not the LOWEST guaranteed, there are exceptions and when it comes to incentives and financing -all bets are off. Certified dealers: from experience – to be a certified dealer you have to pay to Costco $1,500 a month, and you have to agree to their terms. Customer satisfaction, inventory, sales techniques – all that doesn’t matter, as long the check is good. Same with Zag.com – you are certified if you are willing to pay per lead, and if you are willing to pay more – you move to the top of the list.

So, for every lead they get and transfer to a dealer – they get $20 on average. By very conservative estimates -there are 16,000 dealers in USA, let’s say 100 leads per month on average  - this is $32 million per month industry! With all that money they can afford TV commercials, but mainly – flooding the Internet with banners, pop-ups and search engine optimization.

Now, what does it do to the way dealers work? A dealer has to sell cars, but they also have to make some profit, and you cannot make profit if every dealer promises to beat any price, because there is alway a point when a deal becomes a loser – if you fight for price with another dealer. So the name of the game is to get you in at any cost, and deal with consequences later. Here are some of the techniques:

• Lie. That is the most common and there are ways to do it legally. A dealer will send you a quote, and when you come in – they tell you that they had a car at this price, but it was sold. Impossible to prove it wrong, even when you ask for a VIN number – they can give you one for that car they just sold.
• Withhold information. Price will not include destination charge, will be subject to financing, require military rebate, a quote will specify only the general model, but not the trim level.
• Make it up on something else. “Steal” your trade, bump up financing, add fees, etc. People get stuck on the lowest price, and get screwed on other items.

In general – Internet Sales for these dealers is business as usual. They used to do screamer ads in newspapers for cars that didn’t exist, or if they did exist – pressure you to buy another car or grind you until you agree to something you don’t even understand, and pull your hair at home once you read the contract. Now they use the Internet to get people in the door, and then they will hold you hostage and pressure you until you give in.

So how do you shop for a car? Should you even go on line to get prices? Absolutely, it is a great way to compare pricing, get information, and gauge dealer’s service, responsiveness and clarity, but there is no reason to go through another party to do that. Manufacturer site is always the best place to start, dealer website is the second best. If you want quotes from multiple dealers – it might be not as fast as Edmunds.com, but you will get better results: you will get priority with the dealer as a more serious buyer, and you know for sure that your inquiry will go through.