When to buy a car can make a difference for several reasons. The car dealer thinks NOW is the best time to buy a car, but we are talking about your hard earned money here. The car dealers, car salesmen and even the manufacturers operate on a monthly schedule. The books are closed every month and the numbers are tallied in order to compensate the entire sales staff at the car dealership.
The numbers will dictate the pay, commissions and bonuses of the sales manager, sales people and the finance managers. A good sales staff is motivated to sell a car at all times and they will usually give you reason why you should buy now, but there are some times that are better than others of when to buy a car.
Why When to Buy a Car Matters
Most car dealers structure their pay plans on levels or percentages for every member of the sales team and there are times that one more car can make a difference on the pay checks of the sales managers and salesmen. This critical time of when to buy a car is usually at the end of the month. I am not talking about the last week of the month, I am talking about the last day or two of the month.
On the last couple days of the month the car salesman and sales managers know where they stand so far in the month and have a very good idea how many more cars they need to reach the next bonus level or pay level. For that very reason the car sales people and the sales managers are typically very motivated to sell some extra cars. The extra cars that they need to sell do not always need to make a handsome profit, but rather the unit count is often more important. Therefore they very often pull out all the stops to sell some extra cars and that is why it is the best time to buy a car.
I have sold and seen people buy cars with zero profit in them in order to get the car salesman and or sales manager to the next bonus level. This next level could mean an extra thousand dollars to the car sales person, so you can better understand their motivation. So you can see that when to buy a car can make a difference in the price you pay.
When to Buy a Car Exceptions
Because car salesmen and sales managers have learned to work the system the car makers will sometimes run contests and promotions that ran past the end of the month and end sometime during the month. These contests or sales events may offer the dealership owner or general manager more incentive than the sales people. However during some of these promotions the specific dealer may ran an in house program for their sales people to motivate them to sell more cars during a period that is traditionally slower than the end of the month. Those in-house programs don’t offer nearly the amount of incentives that the end of the month offers. So overall when you ask when to buy a car the short answer is to buy a new car on the last couple days of the month.
Whether you need to buy a car now or you can wait until the end of the month the most important thing you can do is your homework. When to buy a car can make a difference, but if you follow the steps in how to buy a new car you can get a great deal at anytime.