If You Know Their Rules ...
You Can Play Their Games

6. Pre-Shopping Preparation

Assessing Needs versus Wants

If you want to see a truly sad situation, picture the buyers who fall in love with a car and agree to hefty monthly payments. A year later, they come back to the dealership having realized that the monthly payment is killing them financially and try to sell the car back. What they discover is that their V-8 beauty has depreciated anywhere from 30 to upward of 50 percent and that they owe more on their loan than the car is worth at wholesale. So they end up giving back the car plus a substantial amount of cash just to get out of the payments.

Being a smart buyer also means being financially prudent. Never buy more car than you can reasonably afford. If you want a hot car, there are any number of new and used cars that can give you the thrill of ownership without the pain of payment poverty. By the way, this is where the used-car and pickup truck market becomes a very real and attractive -alternative.