Smart Dealer Incentives - Rebates Saving Buyers Cash - Smart Dealerships

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Smart Dealer Incentives - Rebates

Smart dealerships are not compelled to distribute or even advise you of factory incentives, rebates or financing offered to them by the manufacturer for selling specific vehicles. A little known smart negotiating tool available to the smart new car shopper is the presence of smart dealership incentives and rebates. These incentives, offered to the smart dealership from the manufacturer, can actually help you lower the cost of the car. Many buyers miss out on this negotiating tool because they do not know it exists.
Others miss out because they do not understand how these incentives can benefit them. Some may even miss these discounts because they confuse these incentives with the ones offered upfront to the buyer. When money is tight and you are shopping for a new car, you need all the negotiating help you can get!

Smart Customer Incentives

Smart dealerships are encouraging the sale of vehicles by offering incentives and rebates to their customers. These are perks like cash-back, low-interest financing, or other benefits that buyers receive for buying a car from that particular dealership. These are typically called customer incentives. Dealer incentives are a little different.

What Are Dealer Incentives?

To be specific, dealer incentives and dealer rebates are actually incentives from the factory offered to the dealership to lower the dealer's cost for purchasing the vehicle. Automotive manufacturers who are looking to drum up sales of a particular model will offer these incentives in regions where they feel sales could go well and need some help.

Sometimes, the smarter dealership will pass these savings on to the buyer, at least in part, to encourage you to buy the car. Being aware of the existence of dealer rebates can give you a negotiating tool when you are seeking to lower the asking price for a particular car, but do not expect the dealership to readily advertise these offers.

While that is the technical definition for "dealer incentives," sometimes the incentives and rebates you are offered on the sales floor are labeled in this way. Regardless, they all offer you an opportunity to lower the cost of your car, so learn how to use them.

You can find some national dealer incentives if you look at car buying information online before you go to the dealership. As you are looking, it may seem logical that the incentives will be relegated to slow-selling models, but this is not always the case. Manufacturers provide incentives for a wide range of reasons. Sometimes, they may be trying to help a dealership establish itself as a leader in the region, or other times they may be trying to move a particular car that is moving slowly in that region, but maybe not in the entire country.

However, even though these incentives are offered on a wide range of vehicles for a wide range of reasons, you do need to be realistic. If the vehicle you have your eye on is one of the top national sellers from that manufacturer, you can expect there to be few incentives, either dealership incentives or customer incentives, offered on that vehicle. The manufacturer and dealership do not need to offer incentive on these, because they are selling well without help.

How to Use Incentives

The tricky part of making the most out of dealer incentives is learning how to use them. Remember, knowledge is power. When you see the asking price on the vehicle, know that it is not the lowest the dealership can go. When you get the salesperson to what he says is his lowest possible price, know that there are probably dealer incentives or dealer rebates that you do not know about, so be willing to walk away if the price is not low enough. If the salesperson truly gave you his lowest figure, you can always come back and buy the car. Walking away will help him draw into those deeper discounts.

Remember, salespeople are professionals. When you are negotiating, remember that the salesperson you are talking to is an expert at negotiating. He will know just when to throw the "Oh, and if you buy today, you will get a $3,000 rebate!" into the mix to get you to feel pressured to make a decision on the spot. Do not be swayed by this. If there are dealer rebates there, they are offered from the manufacturer, and they are not going to change if you wait a day or so to make your decision.

Where to Find Dealer Rebates

The good news to today's car buyers is that the Internet is full of information about dealer rebates. By spending a little bit of time online before you start car shopping, you can easily learn about the rebates on certain makes and models. It may be harder to learn the regional information surrounding those rebates, but of it is a national rebate, the information will be easily found. You may even be able to use an online search tool on some websites to search for rebates on the make and model you know you are interested in buying.

Making the Most out of Dealer Incentives and Rebates

When you walk into the dealership, have your homework done ahead of time. Research the different rebates being offered, and know what the lowest possible price is going to be. If you can learn ahead of time about dealer incentives and dealer rebates on a car, you can put your self in a good position for negotiating.

Remember, the rebate on the sign or that you are offered when you first start looking at the car is likely a customer rebate. Smart dealers will heavily advertise these to get you in the door, and they will often make it seem as though this is the best possible deal for you to receive. Dealership rebates are more hidden.

If you know there is a dealership incentive on the vehicle, you have more room for negotiation, even if you already have a cash rebate, extended warranty, and low percentage loan thrown into the mix. Hold your ground, and make the most out of these incentives.

However, you do need to be cautious. You are going to have some room to negotiate, but the smart dealership is not going to give you the entire dealer incentive. They are going to want to keep some as their own profit. By getting to a happy medium between leaving the dealer with no profit and leaving the dealer with the entire rebate or incentive amount, you have likely found the lowest possible price of the car.

Smart dealers seldom make known or notify new car buyers of current factory rebates, incentives or special financing granted by the auto manufacturer for selling particular cars.