On buying new cars, I spent probably longer than any one person really should on researching just that. I won’t go into the motives, but it has paid off.

First in addition to price over dealer cost, in almost all cases the dealer gets a kick back per sale from the manufacture. Second, they also have incentives to make certain numbers of sales independent of their profit margin. So if a dealer is able to take their current sales and add to it an extra 100 sales at dealer cost or even at dealer cost minus their kick backs, it will be good for them and they know it.

So to get the best possible price, first forget the concierge services or the Costco auto program. They are garbage and the price I got on my own was thousands less than they were able to get. Second, get a disposable e-mail address. Everybody swears to a no spam policy but in short order you will get spammed. Turn off any spam filtering so that you don’t miss the good emails you will be getting. Run a search for every dealership for the car you want within ~80 miles of your location. Then go on their websites (I’ve yet to find a new car dealer that didn’t have a website) and find the contact method for the “Internet / Fleet” Department. Request a quote for the car you want. Repeat for each dealer. Soon you will have a collection of quotes. Take the lowest and try to get a local dealer to bid against it. Get counter bids in writing. Take the counter bid to another one of the lowest dealers and try to get them to counter bid. When that process results in “sorry I can match that, but I just can’t beat it” you know where the price floor is. Get a local dealer to match it and possibly throw in an accessory package or service perk in exchange for not beating the last deal.

It is a bit of work, but it can all be done from a desk with internet access and a phone line. Also it is filler work that can be spread over time. My 2007 Civic retailed for $22K with included accessories, and I paid $18K. For a couple years after I was getting buy back offers for more than I paid for it.

may i suggest the dillon 550 progessive press. I use one for my competition loads and it works great. I can crank out about 500 rds in an hour. I usually go thru about 1500 to 2000 rounds in a weekend of competition.

Enjoyed the Tim Ferris story– I’ve read the 4 Hour Work Week and while I’m not really fond of the idea of outsourcing to workers in other countries, I appreciated the brilliant logic in his money-making concepts.. and loved his explanation for calculating how much it would really cost to achieve the lifestyle you want. Talk about thinking out of the box! He’s quite a character.. 🙂