The vehicle buyer that negotiates payment will lose almost every time. The only possibility of holding one’s own is knowing all the variables (most don’t) and working on them one at a time. When switched to a payment the deal is moved from the facts to an unknown set of variables over which the buyer has no control, unless the buyer knows the facts (most don’t)! Here’s why; the person handing out figures for the dealership will present a packed payment which will include an inflated interest rate, “extras” like insurance, polish and protection package, an alarm system, and anything else that can be added for an inflated price, plus a few dollars just because. The problem for the buyer is working from a set of unknowns-all the “stuff” packed into the payment, and all stuff that has not been disclosed to the buyer. The purpose of the packed payment is to cause the customer to work backward from the payment presented to a more affordable and acceptable monthly figure. Original deal numbers are not being negotiated, only the packed payment. As the payment is whittled down and is becoming more acceptable to the buyer, only the fat is being whittled out and the original deal still has not changed. Then some profit is removed from the items being sold with the payment and the payment is dropped more. This process repeats itself until the buyer says yes to a payment that only means something to the dealership person creating it or when that person really does run out of dollars to whittle out of the deal, which is rare, as the customer typically lands on a payment that is affordable, likeable, or some combination of both. The end result is that the dealer person has whatever you originally agreed to or didn’t agree to plus a payment amount for some determined months. These pieces are then calculated out to determine how much money is actually available to cover the main variable-the profit in the vehicle being sold after everything else is accounted for. Once that is accomplished any extra money is plowed back into the profit in some form and the buyer pays more money. From the dealership perspective this form of negotiating is the most profitable and generally the simplest format for creating profit in the car deal. The buyer never knows the true figures and only negotiates out a payment that is acceptable. The only true way around this is to obtain financing prior to negotiating a deal and within that realm know how much it will cost you monthly per $1000.00 financed, or if you have an idea what your total amount to finance will be, say $30,000.00, get a payment for that amount and then know what each $1000.00 increment will add to your payment. Remember always, it’s your money-protect it! Chuck Norlin/America’s Car Guy 30 years/thousands of car deals http://www.thebestdealofyourlife.com