<prompt> Human: My friend is on the market for a new car. I wrote this to help her out, and she recommended i posted it here. Hope it helps! 1. Establish monthly budget. To establish a monthly budget you will need: a. Your income 2. Get your credit score. Use free the services provided online 3. Research APRs for auto loans online a. Go to a few websites from big banks and a few smaller banks and research. You will be able to see the advertised APRs for new cars and used cars. These APRs tend to be for people with great credit and your APR might be higher or lower, but it will give you a general idea of what banks are offering at the moment. If you have great 730 credit, then they will be pretty accurate. 4. Use online car payment calculator to calculate what price range you can afford. For the online car payment calculator, you will typically need the price of the car, down payment, tax, APR, length of the loan. a. Price of the car: Use the advertised MSRP, its a good estimate for now b. Down payment: You know this number c. Tax: you know this number d. APR: you can estimate very well this number because you did the research in step 2. e. Length of the loan: its up to you to decide. Usually between 36 and 72 monthsAt this point, you have a great nearly perfect idea of the price of the car you can afford. 5. Call several insurance companies and get quotes for the car models that you are considering at this point. Remember that the insurance may vary and it should be part of your monthly car budget. 6. Apply for auto loans online, or at the bank and get approved for a loan amount that fits your budget. You can apply and get approved at several banks, as far as I know there is no penalty if you get accepted for a loan and never use it because you got a better APR somewhere else. At this point, you can go back to step 4 and get a nearly perfect idea of what car you can actually buy. 7. Find the exact car, model and trim that fit your budget. The goal here is to figure out what car you want and not let a salesman tell you what you want. Since you have figured out your budget, the pool of cars should be small less than 15. You test drive some cars, do online research and ask around. Keep in mind that good dealerships will let you test drive without any pressure to buy. 8. Once you KNOW what car, trim and options you likecan afford. Email all the dealerships in your area that have the car. Let them know exactly what you are looking for and that you have financing already. Make sure you get a response in which they explicitly states the OUT THE DOOR price of the car. Ask them to include ALL fees in the price they are giving you. They will typically give you an exact number plus tag they cant tell you this number, but it wont be more than 300 dollars.Note: when I did this, I emailed all the dealerships in my half of the state. Why? Because I was willing to drive if the price justified the drive and because I wanted more prices to negotiate a lower out the door price. 9. Since you have emailed several dealerships and received written OUT THE DOOR prices. You can email them back and negotiate a better price, just pick the top three and let them know you have better offer. Continue to negotiate until they tell you that they cant go any lower. You will notice that the top 3 prices from the top 3 dealers will be within a few hundred dollars of each other and that is how you will know they are giving you the car for the lowest price. 10. At this point, you know exactly how much your monthly payment will be and the cost of you insurance. 11. Now you have the out the car, the out the door price and your APR from the bank. All that is left to do is to go to the dealership, make sure they honor the out the door price the quoted via email, and sign some papers. Make sure you go in the morning because you might have to call the bank to get the check, you might have to call the insurance to get coverage and a few other things. The dealer might realize youre very well prepared and they might try to convince you to use their finance company This happened to me and I took their finance because it was LOWER than the one I already had 12. Make sure the terms of the sale are exactly as you expected in step 10. There should be no surprises and if the dealer backs out from the offer or tries to upsell you something you didnt want, just walk away and go to the dealership with the second best price. 13. Congratulations, you have just bought a car with minimal negotiations, minimal human contact and you have the BEST possible price! Edit: changed stablish to establish. Hope you guys are setisfied! Edit 2: Wow. im very surprised at how well this post has been received. If you are interested, i can add a bit more detail on how to deal, with trade-ins and buying a used a car. For now, i will add that if the dealer does not want to respond to any of your requestsinquiries, politely ignore them and move on to the next dealer. You must have the final say in all deals. Its your moneycreditloan.  <response>: I was employed as a car salesperson here in the great land of Oz for 10 years, the guide is very comprehensive but I tend to think its a little optimistic. In my experience, email is among the least respected forms of enquiry in a vehicle sales showroom, why? Because the prospective buyer hasnt really given you anything in terms of contact details or commitment, it takes a lot of control away from the salesperson and in general, they dont like that. I still work very closely with automotive dealers and the approach of selling the appointment really hasnt changed, its all about getting the person in your front door and if that wont or cant happen, move on to the next one. Of the dealers that did choose to respond, Id be surprised if you received a better price than what was being advertised publicly, because an email doesnt really say give off the impression of being a serious buyer. Over here, you have a far greater chance of negotiating a low price on a vehicle if you buy in the later part of the month, a dealer that is 1 or 2 units away from target is usually happy to do a couple of skinny deals to cross that line and receive their monthly bonus. Your ability to negotiate a lower price will also be affected by the following factors - 1. The number of dealers in the local area offering the same product - ie: youll generally see more movement on a Toyota than a VW because there are more dealerships out there competing for your business. 2. The availability of the vehicle youre looking for - If youre looking for a model of vehicle that everybody has in stock, theyll probably chop it up without much convincing, but if youre looking for a top-of-the-line model or a colour combination thats in short supply theyll be less inclined to move on price. My general rule for buying a new vehicle is to take the MSRP of the vehicle not including any dealer charges and subtract 12 - 15, thats my first and last offer. I generally go in low and aggressive, maybe its easier having been on the salesperson side of this equation, but it tends to work, especially if youve got a cash deposit on hand when you make the offer. 