Car buying is an interesting experience.
Been at the same dealership the last few days to talk about getting either a Mazda6 for my dad or a Mazdaspeed3 for my bro. They never got really far with my dad as he's worked in the banking industry for god knows how long so when they talked numbers to him, all he kept asking was "what's your interest rate?" and the dealership would never respond saying something along the lines that the finance manager can find that out or that they can match or even lower what my dad currently has. That actually was the major factor with my dad and made him walk out of there without buying a car lol.
My bro on the other hand, he was already filling out the financial paperwork after some long ass negotiating where the salesperson came back with a paper saying "I will buy the car now at $565 per month at 72 months..." Now most of y'all know this was a mistake as negotiating by the monthly payment is never a good thing, and that "other fees" might show up when talking to the finance manager. But my dad calls my bro and basically screws the pooch lol. Tells him to stop everything and walk out there coz the numbers don't seem right, so we did and are now supposed to be back on Monday with my dad to continue the negotiations if you will.
Now the MS3 was valued at $32k with gap insurance, taxes and other fees. But playing around with that Edmunds.com monthly loan payment calculator thing and my dad is probably right. At $32k, $0 down, to get up to $565 per month in 72 months, the interest rate would have to be at least 8.5% but I'm not entirely sure if their math is right though.
The plan right now is to get a pre-approved loan from our bank so we can get an interest rate before heading back this Monday, that way we can get a better picture and use that as leverage if the dealership still isn't willing to reveal their interest rate when we go back and use our bank if they won't match or go lower than what our bank offers.
Anyway, it's an interesting experience. It's amazing to see how minutes before you're just sitting in the car going along the test drive, next you know you're actually about to buy a car. Also, having somebody who's knows finance really well is crucial to the car buying experience. I'm kinda glad I went along with this, as I now have an idea of what to do before buying a car.