Buying a new car is no small expense, but how can you be sure you're getting the best possible deal out there?
There are a couple of online services that help take the guess work out of how much that new cost really costs.
One is carcostcanada.com. For a fee of $39.95, you can get to up to 10 wholesale price reports, or what it claims is the price dealers pay the manufacturers for new cars.
“You can save anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000,” says Ben Spatafora, National Director for carcostcanada.com. “It puts you on a level playing ground with the dealer."
Since 1999, carcostcanada.com has signed up 200,000 members. The service also gives members information about factory incentives and financing rates.
But, it's not the only online service out there.
Launched in 2011, unhaggle.com lets you in on what a dealer would pay for a new vehicle for free.
If you decide on a car, you pay $99 dollars and the will contact dealerships and do the haggling on your behalf.
Andrew Tai, unhaggle.com’s CEO and co-founder says the service is best suited in bigger cities with more dealership to choose from.
“There need to be multiple dealerships. In an area like Winnipeg, for certain brands, there might be only one dealership in the city," he says.
The head of the Manitoba Motor Dealers Association, Kent Ledingham, says anything that arms consumers with more information is a good thing, but in reality the mark up on new vehicles is usually only about two per cent.
“Typically customers are really surprised at how small the mark-up is from what the dealer pays to the [Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price].
For example, a 2013 manual transmission Hyundai Elantra with a MSRP price of $15,949 has a dealer cost of $15,201 on unhaggle.com, a difference of only $748 or one per cent.
“You should really deal with a dealership you’re comfortable with and [one where] you have a good rapport and their sales people and have a good relationship with in the long term," says Ledingham.
To find out more about the online services mentioned in the story, visit:
