Car Shopping

Aspire’s Member Showroom by TrueCar is a great place to get started your car shopping! When you find a car you like, do your research. Go to: CarFax, Kelly Blue Book, and review sites. You should also look at reliability reports and safety ratings.

Avoid letting your emotions take the wheel when going for a test drive. Car salesmen will first try to make you feel like you already own the car by telling you to adjust seats, mirrors, radio stations, etc. to appeal to your excitement. Being aware of this tactic allows you to not let your excitement build too much.

Once you’ve picked a vehicle and are ready for a test drive, take this checklist with you to ensure everything
looks good.

Financing

Before you talk seriously with a salesperson, you need to figure out what you can afford. Edmunds offers a calculator to help you determine how much car you can afford.

You’ll also need to decide if you’re going to do anything with your old car.

PROs for Selling Your Old Car Yourself:

• Selling it yourself is going to get you the most money. (There’s a big enough difference between the two numbers that you’ll even have to choose the option of a trade-in value vs. private sale on Kelly Blue Book’s car value estimator.)
• More cash from a private sale means you can put more on your down payment. This will allow you to save even more on interest in the long run.
• You’ll have more negotiating power if you have the cash to put down and only one vehicle to discuss.

CONs for Selling Your Old Car Yourself:

You’ll need to spend time getting your car ready, posting ads and fielding phone calls.

• You don’t know how many test drives and back-and-forth conversations you’ll have before making the sale.
• After the sale, you may face an angry buyer if something goes wrong with the car shortly after the sale. Even if you do all the paperwork right, your contact information is known and they could harass you. Trading in at the dealership makes it their liability.

After you decide what to do with your car, you should:

• Find out what your credit score is so you know what kind of rates to expect
• Research interest rates at various institutions
• Apply for pre-approval so you have more power going into negotiations
• Figure out your total down payment

When you have all that together, you’re ready to talk to a salesperson