Like a new born baby, its arrived! Finally, its over. I got my new car today. Now maybe I can relax just for a little while until I start making my payments. First of all, I would like to thank EACH AND EVERYONE ONE OF YOU who gave me advice throughout this whole process. I tried to follow each thing that everyone mentioned on this forum and it worked! Oh my gosh. I can't thank you all enough! To summarize, I went in with a loan from Cap One of 9.34 (which I too am grateful and thankful to them as well). Found the car that I wanted, a new one at that, was nervous the whole time and was thinking of every single possibility on why I should and shouldn't do this and preparing myself mentally when something bad was going to happen. Well, the whole process went so smooth. Thank the Lord. Thank God and you all. Well, as I whipped out my Cap One check to sign for the car (hands a little shaking of course, heart racing, and by this time I am beginning to feel Excedrin headache number 1 come on), the finance manager comes out to me and ask the usual questions of what kind of rate, how much, yadda yadda yadda. They wanted to know if I would be interested in leasing which i was opposed to. The beginning of the end I can see it coming. Well I told him no to leasing, and i remember what everyone said on here about don't negotiate on the payments, think or stick to the price of the car. Don't pay MSRP and have all your researched which I pulled out (in a huge folder I might add which contained, every invoice price and "what others said I should pay"- from Edumunds from my research on the net). I explained my price point which included all my fees, taxes and I wanted the invoice price which was about 900 less than what the dealer was offering - invoice not msrp. hmm, well he went back did some maneuvering and talking. The other good thing I had going for me besides my huge folder of research, was that I had met the gm on several occasions and we talked a few times and developed a pretty good rapport. we also communicated through emails a lot so that kind of helped. bottom line is he knew where i was coming from. oh also, i remembered everyone on here saying about don't just shop for a car, shop for a dealership and be up front about it. well i told them that i was still in the "interviewing" stage (which has been going on for well over 2 months checking out all the various dealerships and all) even told them the dealership where i was going to "interview" next whipping out their rivals brochure and what i was going to ask them for as proof of being up front when i was leaving there to go see them. well the gm and finance guy sat down and said let us look into see if we can get the financing for you. well, they came back with a rate of 7.9 beating Cap Ones 9.3. Hmm..To me something smelled fishy. I went over in my head with everything you all had said. Double checked it mentally. then whipped out my folder and went through every possibility I had research on the internet and price point. I looked over my spreadsheets which I created, what options i wanted at what price, all the research from the net on price options with the car, taxes and tags, the works. everything was there. Needless to say they couldn't believe the size of the folder and all the research. Then I started asking a ton of questions to see if anything was hidden. Nothing. they even brought up Gap insurance, which lucky for me I had saw a post on that up here a day or two early and remembered it. So I was prepared there. Still I kept grilling over and over to make sure nothing was hidden. Finally I was satisfied and I signed. I let out a huge sigh as they did too. So the moral of the story, as everyone on here said, DO YOUR RESEARCH (ESPECIALLY WITH INFO FROM EVERYONE ON HERE). GO IN ARMED WITH ALL YOUR POSSIBILITIES. STICK TO YOUR PRICE POINT NO MATTER WHAT. "INTERVIEW" THE DEALERSHIPS BEFORE YOU EVEN BEGIN TO DISCUSS CARS. ASK ABOUT THE SERVICE DEPT. DURING THAT INTERVIEW STAGE (WALK IN AND LOOK AROUND LOOK AT THE CARS, ASK FOR A BROCHURE) and walk away move on to the next one. but this is critical, before you walk away ask about the service dept, go look at it see how they work in terms of how they treat customers, sat hours if available loaner car policy, etc. ask about incentives, (in terms of after purchase items, etc). This is all during the interview process. Then walk away. trust me, they will give you their card and want your email address.. Do most of your talking through email. its so much easier and makes them work harder and less stress on you. as everyone said, buy at the end of the month. the last week preferably. close the deal then. again, they work harder for you as it gets closer to that time frame and if they have a lot of cars just sitting there on their lot looking pretty and no where to go. finally, and i can't stress this enough, PRAY. say what you want, but hey it works. look nothing is perfect i know. and i am sure somewhere along the way after i look back on it, i know i missed something or got taken on something. but overall, again through everyones help as a resource, and most importantly a lot lot lot lot of praying thank God. It turned out ok better than I had hoped. Thank God and thank you all again. OH and one final thing. i know i know i keep saying this, but i promise this is the absolute last thing With the rate, my credit score went up big points on EXperian (673 - 695) WOO HOO.. They didn't even pull my credit report for the new rate (so they said but i checked it later and no new inquiries were made against or showed up recently and trust me i have signed up with every monitoring system out there. so if it happened or would have happened i would know about it by now). So thats another plus..EXperian 695, Transunion and Equifax both at 676..THANKS AGAIN as you can see I am grateful and take care everyone.
Starting Score: 690
