I went going exactly what car I wanted and I imagine that if you don’t know that much it’ll be easier for a dealership to screw you over when you get there by feeding you misinformation about a car, manipulating you into buying a more expensive model, and etc.

I had already done all my research online so I knew what I wanted. Down to the color. (Green is my favorite color!)

So boyfriend and I went (I followed Tumblr’s advice about bringing a man lol). And I test drove the car and loved it just like I knew I would. And THEN the real dealership experience began.

The bottomline is that I knew my credit score and so I knew what kind of interest rate (APR) I should expect. I also knew the manufacturer price of the car (MSRP) and I knew how much they were selling for on average in my area ($3k less than MSRP).

So I knew what I was going to pay and I had already decided on that in my head.

So dealer #1 (a white guy–this is relevant to mention lol) brings back the first set of numbers. He cushions it with making small talk and flattering me on starting my PhD in August. He also chats up boyfriend.

The numbers were bad. I could tell looking at it. Although they didn’t say the APR, I knew that my monthly rate shouldn’t be that high based on the number of months I’d be paying it. Also they only gave me $2k off MSRP.

I noted that the sticker price was too high because I can go to another dealer and get it cheaper and they knocked off another $1k.

And then I asked him what the APR was. He was very evasive and kept telling me to look at the monthly payments because that’s what “really matters.” No, what really matters is what I’m paying for the car overall which is the sticker price + state fees (unavoidable) + interest rate.

Dealer #1 finally told me the APR and it was 3x the rate I knew I was eligible for. I told him that’s not gonna work. He turned aggressive and said that I’m a first time buyer and I can’t expect better and that I’m being unrealistic to expect a lower rate and etc etc.

So I said that my bank quoted me a rate half that much and I’ll just go through them and buy later (at a different dealer). Because I want the car but there’s 2 other places I can go to get it in my area.

Then all of a sudden dealer #1 could get me a better APR. His next offer was 2x what I wanted to pay. I said nah that good enough.

Then they brought out dealer #2, who was a Black guy. He didn’t sit down and instantly start talking about the price. He said a bunch of small talk and said some stuff about being Black lol. Tryna be chummy chummy and connect with us on a racial level.

Then he tried to push the same numbers as dealer #1. I said I know I’m young and I don’t have a math background but you’re charging me way too much for this car and I’m not going to buy it at that price. Period. I said: get the APR down and I’ll buy the car. He kept telling me it wasn’t possible and I said okay…I won’t buy it.

But then he was like wait…lemme run the numbers. And ta da! He came back with the right APR. Also zero down. And payments lower than my target.

This whole process took 5 hours.

Moral of the story:

The car I currently have, I wasn’t even involved in the negotiations - I needed a car relatively quickly, but didn’t really have time to look for one, and had no idea what I was doing to boot because it’s my first car, so my dad offered to do the searching for me (he actually offered the moment I mentioned getting a car. He likes cars). So he texted me when I was at work one day to say he’d found a car that fit my criteria, had negotiated it down to a price I could afford (and got them to include new breaks and break pads), and he’d pick me up right after work so I could test drive it (it was a cash-only deal and supposedly there was “someone else” interested in the car but we’re both like, 90% certain that this was just a sales tactic)

So I loved the car, decided to go for it, and then, even though the price and the new breaks etc. had already been negotiated and verbally agreed upon and my dad had even put up a nominal “down payment” to hold the car until I got there, it took three tries and at least a couple of hours and the dealer “talking to his supervisor” twice before the paperwork finally matched what had been agreed upon. And it’s worth it to note that the paperwork seemed deliberately confusing and obfuscated, and we would not have caught the discrepancies if we hadn’t actually added up the numbers.

gotta be the equivalent to this

Here’s the ones I came up with so far

“You ever just eat a well balanced diet and exercise daily to flex on heart disease?”

“You ever just boil chilies to flex on your eyes?”

“You ever just be cool to flex on your kids?”

“You ever just use sanitizer to flex on 99.9% of all bacteria and viruses?”

“You ever just turn all the lights and up the heater to flex on Dad?”

Catholic edition:

“You ever just like receive the sacraments frequently to flex on Satan?”