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Comment by hnburnsy | Hacker News Reader

>GET YOUR FINANCING THROUGH THE CREDIT UNION BEFORE YOU EVEN STEP ON THE LOT.

There is poor advice going on here, once you tell them you have financing they will have less flexibiltiy on the price of the car because the dealerships makes money on the financing.

Better advice is to play dumb and keep your financing in your back pocket for when you meet with the finance guy. Even initially indicate a willingness to use their financing. When with the finance guy ask them to beat your financing terms or offer to go with their financing if they kickback some if the benefit. Even if their terms are lousy, you can immediatly refinance, but still capture the lower cost if the car.

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Don’t tell them. Get the price of the car done then finance it elsewhere after it’s all in writing.

What stops them from just increasing the price when you refuse to finance through them?

probably fear of sunk cost on the deal, giving up a sure deal with 80% of the profit you expected instead of 100% is still making a profit.

This might work for used cars, but probably won't for new cars. Dealers frequently lose money on the sale price of new vehicles, but make up for it on finance/insurance and profit from selling any trade-ins.

Certified pre-owned vehicles will often have a better warranty than a new car anyway and you don’t lose half the value driving it off the lot. Win-win.

> Don’t tell them. Get the price of the car done then finance it elsewhere after it’s all in writing.

Let’s assume that they will offee you their lowest price that they can offer (it’s actually possible to get very close to this).

Lowest price with no dealer financing will be higher than lowest price with dealer financing.

I always do this (and have always done), but then again, I don’t take out loans of any kind; I rather have no car. I play dumb until we have a price and then pay cash; some want to renegotiate at that point, and so I walk away; there are enough dealers.

Even if you get financing from the credit union, in my experience you don't have to use it, you can still go with the dealership if you want to

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