[One Outer]

Last year I took some time off from college and spent 9 months selling cars at a Ford dealership, so I know a thing or two about buying a new car. Here's some useful information.

The best way to get the best price on a new car is not really to play dealers off each other but to simply get up and leave the dealership if you think they're not doing their best for you. If they can do better they'll do it to keep you from leaving. And if you do get out to the car and they haven't chased you down yet, the price they gave you was the best and you should probably go back inside and buy the frackin' car. The dealers all pay the same price for the new cars and there isn't any real money in the new cars for the salesman so they just give them away. At invoice, more often than not, and sometimes they even dig into the holdback if they really want something off the lot. Of course, this is for domestics.

With a Toyota, lol at thinking that you'll pay anything significantly below sticker. I'll caution that this might have been just the Twin Cities, but Toyota dealerships don't give anything away. And we have a saturated dealer market with insane competition. They simply don't have to. Hell, last year Toyota was actually trying to buy back Camrys from people that had bought them in the last six months because the dealers could sell them for sticker all over again even with the miles on them. They don't cut anybody any deals because the next person through the door will give them sticker if you won't.

I will say, though, that the Matrix might be the lone exception because they compete directly with the Vibe for sales. If you want to save money on a Matrix just go buy a Pontiac Vibe. It's literally the exact same car and GM will just give stuff away.