Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with haggling

Should I haggle for a new hybrid?

ontic — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 10:30:58 -0800

I've found a new Prius that I might be able to buy before the tax rebate gets chopped in half. Since it's a new, popular car, am I going to be paying full price no matter what or should I try my meager haggling skills? If the latter, what should I aim for and how should I go about it given the "next guy will pay full price" line I'll inevitably encounter? I can't imagine a question like this hasn't been asked before, but searching didn't turn it up. Perhaps I am an incompetent searcher.

How low can you go?

Pocahontas — Sun, 09 Jul 2006 11:37:52 -0800

Furniture store price haggling. I've heard that it's ok to negotiate the listed prices on furniture at independent, mom-and-pop stores. My friend says no, it's not like buying a car from a dealership, where there's the expected offer-counteroffer dance. I know this isn't possible at Ikea or Target, but at my local, one-location only furniture store, is that a possibility?

And, if so, how do I start the conversation? "$400 for this dresser? How about $300?"

How do you (not) haggle when buying a car?

milkrate — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 15:12:20 -0800

I'm going to need to buy a car sometime soon and, from past experiences, I find this to be completely unpleasant. How can I make this easier or less painful? Have you used services that take care of negotiations/haggling? I do pretty exhaustive research before I buy almost anything, so I already know what I'd like to buy and I have a very good idea of how much I ought to/want to (and don't want to) be paying for it.

Over the past week or so, I've attempted to use services that aim to take the butt-puckeringly annoying activity of haggling out of purchasing a car while still getting a fair price, but I've found this to be pretty frustrating as well. Using Costco's program, the dealer quoted me a price that was basically the MSRP + destination charge for the car. Using different services, dealers have told me things that can be verified as either simple deceptions or plain lies.

Have you used a free or paid service, like CarBargains or CarsDirect, to get rid of the negotiating part of buying a car? How did it work out for you? Would you do it again? What other services are there for this? Alternatively, how do you avoid or deal with the haggling aspect of buying a car? Or do you just buy from no-haggle dealers?

Question number 9486

freshgroundpepper — Tue, 17 Aug 2004 13:36:10 -0800

Car buying ethics question: I'm buying a new car that's relatively rare and had set my expectations such that if I were able to get it for < $1,500 over invoice that I'd be ok with the deal. I negotiated one dealer down to $1,300 over invoice and put a $500 deposit down on the car yesterday (it's arriving late this month). [MI]