How To Buy A Used Car?

Susie is with us in Las Vegas. Hi Susie. How are you? Hi, good morning. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can I help? Well, I have a quick question. My husband and I have saved up $30,000 that we know we want to purchase a car with. Yeah, we're looking at a Ford F-150 with that 3.5 six liter EcoBoost. I don't know. It's my husband's thing. If it gets me from point A to point B, it's good. But if it gets him hunting, it's even better. So the question I have is we have that set aside. We are going to start actually going and trying to negotiate. And I'm kind of confused. I've looked up different suggestions online and one site says don't go on a weekend, go on a weekday. Another one will say don't tell them you're paying cash. Negotiate the price first because a lot of times the dealerships feel like they're going to make money on the back end if they think you're going to finance. But I just want to go in, get an honest price and a good deal and leave. So I don't know what's the best deal to get to stretch my dollar the most. I'm sorry. What is your household income? About $100,000. Good. And what is your net worth? About $500,000. Okay. And you're talking about buying a new truck? No, no, no, no, no, no. A one-year-old or two-year-old? We're looking for the certified pre-owned. Okay. All right. Yeah. Well, the thing to do then is pull the data on the truck before you go in and you need to know what the truck is worth. We've done that. It's about $30,000 would be a good deal. Well, but an individual truck might be different because you're looking at a particular truck with miles on it. You're looking at a particular truck with slightly different equipment on it and that kind of a thing. And so you're in the range for sure on that truck and it is a nice truck. So you but you pull up, you find a particular one at a dealership sitting there certified used, right? And you look at the exact miles and the exact equipment and you enter that into kellybluebook.com and maybe look at a couple of the other sites, maybe the Edmonds car guide and, and start to get an idea. Okay. This car has a retail on it of this, and you'd never pay retail period. I don't pay retail period for a car under no circumstances. And, and, you know, and so let's say Kelly blue book on the thing, private sale is kind of middle ground and wholesale is what they pay for the truck. That's what the dealer would pay for the truck. All right. And so you want to be somewhere between private sale and wholesale at the most. And so you go in knowing, let's say private sale is 29 on the truck and wholesale is 27 on the truck. Then you need to be somewhere North of 27 in your mind. And you know, maybe they got 31 on it. I don't know what they got on it, but we walk in there and we go, look guys, I'm, this is cash. This is what I would do. This is cash. I'm going to write you a check and I'm going to drive the truck away. And I'm really not going to stand here all day and dance with you. So if you, if you want to do this, I'm willing to write you a check right now. This is a done deal. It's over, but the D but the price is 27 and five. And it's just start talking to them that way. And, um, I, I, the back, the backend on a used car is not as big as it is on a new car for them. If they sell, if they finance it and sell the paper, they make some spread on it on a new car. They make more on it than they do on the car that selling the paper for payments. So that site's advice would be more applicable to a new car to not tell them you're paying cash. I don't worry about that buying a car. This is what the truck is worth. And, um, boom, I bought a Raptor used, uh, which is a similar, similar truck, a little more expensive, but a similar truck at 19,000 miles on it. It was sitting on a local dealer's lot. I had bought cars from that dealer before, and he knows me. And I walked in and I said, look, Kelly blue book is on it. This you got too much on this truck. And it's not even, it wasn't even a Ford lot that it was sitting on. And, um, I said, look, you want the thing off a lot. I'll take it off a lot today. And that's how we started. And I got, I got a good price on it. I didn't steal the truck. I didn't steal it, but I got a good price on it. Um, especially compared to a brand new one because of how much that thing went down the first year. Cause it was only a year old when I bought it. So, um, but anyway, you just, you just look at it that way. Now, if you want to steal a car, I mean, you want to get something thousands and thousands of dollars under, you're probably looking at buying from an individual or working with some kind of a car broker and buying it, uh, off the line where they're, where it's running down the wholesale line. Let me ask you when we're kind of afraid, that's why we like the certified cars because they've already, I'm not worried about that. If it's, if it's a Ford and it's, and it's one year old, you don't have to worry about that car. It's fine. I mean, it's just not going to be a piece of junk. The other thing is, is that my husband's kind of afraid to, cause we were looking through like Carfax and everything when, as when we're looking online at different cars and he was saying that a rental car rental cars that are about a year old rental or a leased cars, a lot of them are those. And he's kind of afraid about a leased car. A rental car would be something that would be tough. I don't want a car that's been on rental unless you're looking for something different, but you know, that's that, that car has been ragged out possibly, but at least cars, just an individual owned it. And they tried, they had it on one year lease and they turned it in. That's like, that seemed like anybody else that was driving it. So just cause it had been leased doesn't scare me, but, uh, and I wouldn't want to buy one that was a rental as a personal driver. And I might buy it for, for something in a fleet or, you know, if I was doing construction work or something, I need a farm truck or something, but this is going to be a nice driver, a nice personal driver. So at least wouldn't be bad. Yeah. Pull the Carfax on it. That's fine. That's fine. One more question. Um, when it comes to, uh, purchasing the, uh, like a vehicle, what are some key phrases, or if I go on to Kelley blue book, can I just go on a Kelley blue book.com and it'll just all pop up. Yeah. Yeah. You just click on, but click on private sale on that and then run the numbers on that particular vehicle. And you begin to get a range on the vehicles you look at and don't just don't get married to the first one you roll up on. Oh, I love that color. Oh, you're screwed. You're going to pay too much. You know, because as soon as you decide you're married to that car, you're getting ready to pay too much for it. Um, it's just a car. It really is a year or a certain time of the month. I wouldn't worry about it. Um, the, the thing is the question is how long they've had it on the lot. Most, most used car dealers will keep a car on the lot only so long. And then they'll roll it through the, uh, they'll run it through the auction and wholesale and get off their lot. They'll turn their money over. And so the last, I bought a Chevy four wheel drive that we've still got here at the office. We still use it as a delivery truck. And I bought it many, many years ago. And I bought it from that guy. And I said, how long you had that thing on the lot? And he said, 90 days. I said, you're getting ready to roll it off at wholesale anyway. So sell it to me. So if they're, if they've been sitting on the truck a while now, if it's a certified, that might not be the case, but if they've been sitting on that truck a while, they may be getting ready to roll it out. Cause they're not going to keep it on there six months. You're going to see the same car sitting on the average dealer's lot six months. They're going to roll it and turn their money. Cause that unit's not, that unit's not moving for them. You follow me? Yes. Yes. Thank you. And one more question. If you, if we choose to kind of look into the wholesale aspect of it, um, how do we even do that? I've never done anything like that before. You'd have to find what's called a car broker that, and there are people out there that will go to the auction for you. And you need to be careful that you find one that is, um, that's got a good reputation and that you can get, that you can check out. So make sure you really do your, your, your due diligence and learn about the person you're working with on that and the service that they're providing and have very, very clear expectations on that. You're, you're buying a little bit blind there and that you might not personally see the car. You may see pictures of it, learn all the details of it. And then it runs down the line and you're authorizing them to bid so much on that car when it goes down the line and there, you know, they may be in a, in a different city, uh, miles and miles away. And then they'll ship it in. I've bought two or three that way over the years. You're probably buying this truck off a lot somewhere. Uh, the thing you just don't want to do is just don't pay too much. I doubt you're going to get it thousands and thousands of dollars under though. Uh, but, but you know, you just don't want to pay too much. You want to get, get your, do your research and know that you've gotten ahold of something that's strong. Don't buy extended warranties either. By the way, this is the Dave Ramsey show. Hey you guys, Rachel Cruz here. I hope you're enjoying the Dave Ramsey show. And did you know that I have my very own YouTube channel? Yes, that's right. It's kind of better than the Dave Ramsey channel. Don't tell him I said that. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. So subscribe. And there's lots of videos about life and money. So while you're at it, if you want to check out a video, then you can check out how to do a monthly budget. It's one of the best videos out there.