If you could pay someone to negotiate your car deal for you...?

Question

what would you be willing to pay? What would your expectations be?

I ask this because I am attempting to run a part time business mainly off of referals from associates. I've already negotiated numerous deals for people for free, because I know them... and my past car sales experience helps me with obtaining great deals. So now I turn to you guys and gals... Here is my thought.
I would remove the annoying car salesman and Finance people from the situation. You arrange for financing, or I can through the dealership. You get to sit at home and relax, or sit at work and take care of more important things. For a reasonable fee (I'm still working on it), I would be willing to find the specified car (or one that meets your requirements), negotiate the best possible price (obviously it has to be good, or I'm simply wasting my time if you turn it down), and then bring the paperwork to you (at work, home, at the kids little league game?) for you to sign. Then you take delivery. Cost?!

Answer 1

I would suggest basing your fees on the MSRP of the vehicle or the amount of money saved even though it would seem to be a bit subjective as to how much was really saved because many dealers will sell their cars for less than the sticker price unless some moron comes along with more money than common sense.

The only way that I could see this as being useful is on the larger vehicle purchases costing upwards of $55,000+ in order to allow for some haggling room. If you can save me $10,000 on a $80,000 vehicle, I would have no problem with paying you $1500 to $2000 for your efforts. But on a vehicle costing much less, say, $15,000 to $20,000 I am not so sure that I could be as fair. I dont know if $50 would be a fair price for you to negotiate the price on my new Scion XA. And I dont know that I would feel like I accomplished something by paying $11,500 for what would have been a $12,000 car. That $500 savings will probably be hidden in some other fee or cost.

What I take into consideration is that for every 5 people that you represent, maybe 2 or 3 of them are really serious about buying the car and then maybe 1 or 2 will actually go through with the deal. My uncle who happens to be considerably wealthy has a personal assistant who does his shopping for him for cars, furniture and other high ticket items, however, he does not buy everything that he has the assistant seek for him.

So your fees would have to be sufficient enough to cover the time spent for all of those clients who have you work but then decide not to buy anything. But at the same time there are people who will not believe in paying you for your services if they ended up having to walk away from the deal because they didn't get the car that they wanted at the price they wanted.

Also, the last time I negotiated for a new car, I knew what options I wanted but in order to get the price that I wanted I had to decide what I was willing to do without.

Answer 2

The service, on the face of it, seems like an interesting and useful one, but the problem I think you might run into is from the more cynical people out there.

How do they know that you aren't going to be making money on the back end as well? For instance, let's say you go in and establish a relationship with XYZ dealership where you tell them you are negotiating deals for your clients...the dealer says "Great...if you steer them to us we'll cut you in on our end"...so for example, let's say they have $1200 wiggle room on the price of the car your client likes. They tell you to tell the client you can save him $1000, and the other $200 is yours on the back end as a "referral fee"... plus you are getting paid by the client too. See what I mean? And the thing is, there are dealers that will do that. Anything to sell the car.

So I guess what I'm saying is that you would have to put together some kind of contract that would state in writing that you will not have any conflict of interest and would be working solely in the interests of the buyer only.

Answer 3

I wish you were around last week when I bought my car.

One of the things I hate most is "bartering". I always give people their asking price when it comes to buying things from furniture to cars. Even when it's used and advertised as "obo".

I WISH people would just ask what they really want, rather than marking it up several hundred dollars so they have room to negotiate. Bugs me to the nth degree. If I was selling something, I'd just ask a fair price. I always feel like I'd be insulting the person if I offer less and I don't have the intestinal fortitude to do it.

I could have used your expertise last week. Drat.
I paid the asking price on the car I just bought.

I LOVE the idea above about taking a percentage of savings.
That creates a trust with the buyer that you are truly working to bring the price down. The less money they pay for the car, the more money you earn. If you were just taking a standard "cut", most people might attempt to negotiate on their own.

Answer 4

There is a service like this in my hometown. The guy has relationships with many dealers covering a WIDE area (a hundred miles in all directions). He also negotiates the trade-in value.

I'm not sure how he got started, but it's how he makes his living. He charges a flat rate depending on the value and popularity of the car. More popular cars are easier to deal because he does a lot of them. For example, he already knows who has the best deal on a 2007 Honda Civic EX.

It's a win-win situation. He makes a few phone calls, and gets a lot of money for the time he has invested, and the buyer saves often thousands on their new car.

Good luck!

Answer 5

On the surface, it sounds like a service that has value. However, you're talking about providing a service that is only needed because of the poor quality of the actual salesmen. This service would be worthless, if the salesmen exercised a little common sense. Personally, if the salesmen makes my car buying experience more difficult, then I don't buy from him. His job is to make it easier, not harder. If he can't do that then he loses the sale. I drive a Saturn currently and I am going to buy a new car in the next few months.

Answer 6

I've been in the business for 23 years, and there are some very big legal wholes in your plan.

1st of all you cannot negotiate financing for someone else, due to privacy laws, truth in lending laws & the Patriot act.

You are not authorized to 'bring the paperwok' to somebodies home or office to have them sign.

If you do what you say , then each & every one of your customers will have 72 hours to back out of the deal (buyers remorse ) & you will forfiet your 'fee'.

And who is going to guarantee or warrantee the vehicles that you sell.
And if you are driving the proposed vehicle or the trade-ins, who is insuring that vehicle while you are driving it?

Regardless of how much you might charge I think you might be setting yourself up for financial ruin with all the legalities you will encounter.

Good Luck!

Answer 7

half my savings versus the dealership price

Answer 8

id do it as a percentage of savings.

best solution: Dont buy from a dealer.

Answer 9

There are to many other people that do this already.
Costco, Bj's, beepbeep.com etc.