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Background

Hi everyone, I’m back. Lately I’ve had way too many stressful things going on outside of work, and it has slowed down my writing progress quite a bit. In short, the big headache is that my car broke down and needs major repairs. I live in a city that’s neither particularly big nor particularly small, and I also used to live in rural areas. In a place like this, where public transportation is underdeveloped, not having a car is an absolute disaster for quality of life. From deciding to replace the car to actually getting the new one, the whole process took about 2-3 weeks. I wanted to ramble a bit here about what I’ve gone through recently in the hope that it might be helpful to readers, and I also welcome any suggestions. If I sound biased against certain car brands, please bear with me. This whole thing landed on my head and has taken quite a toll on me physically and mentally. I barely slept for two straight weeks, so it’s hard for me to have any illusions left about certain models.

It’s Probably Best to Avoid Nissan CVT Cars

This subtitle may sound a bit absolute, but hear my story first and then decide for yourself. Either way, I personally don’t dare buy a Nissan again. When my partner first came to the US, they bought a brand-new 2012 Nissan Versa (the equivalent model in China should be the Nissan Sunny). Being new to the country, and also not very comfortable negotiating, they basically got led around by the dealer and ended up paying a huge out-the-door price of 15.5k for this Versa SV. And what happened? After 7 and a half years, just after the warranty expired, the transmission developed a major problem, even though the car had only 57,000 miles on it. When we bought it, my partner was probably talked into buying a 2-year extended warranty too; normally the manufacturer powertrain warranty is 5 years. We are not clueless about cars, and we have always kept up with all maintenance strictly according to the manual. The car has had zero accidents. Still, in the past month, the transmission started having serious issues. A major repair would cost about as much as the car itself is worth now (KBB private-party value is about 5,000; this car depreciates pretty fast, after all), so I had no choice but to consider selling it and replacing it. As everyone knows, the two most important parts of a car are the engine and the transmission. If either one has a serious problem, you’re either looking at replacing the car or spending at least four figures on repairs.

At first, we went to a well-reviewed local repair shop with high ratings on both Yelp and Google Reviews. Since our car should still have been in its prime, after hearing the symptoms, the shop suggested changing the transmission fluid twice first: flush it once and then refill it with new fluid. Since the car was also approaching 60,000 miles, maybe the transmission fluid had simply deteriorated. If there was no improvement after the fluid change, then the transmission itself would likely need to be replaced, and we’d have to rethink whether the car was worth saving. The specific symptoms were these: driving on local roads was completely fine, but once we got onto the highway and drove at 60-80 mph, the tachometer would occasionally go crazy and jump to 3,000-5,000 RPM, what’s professionally called an RPM spike. At the same time, there would be jerking, and we could hear a faint high-pitched sound inside the car. It felt like the transmission was slipping. This repair shop is apparently very busy because of its strong reputation in our city, so by the time we finally got in for the fluid change, things became even worse. Now it wasn’t just occasional RPM spikes anymore — the car basically could no longer handle highway driving at all. It struggled to even get up to 60 mph, and the tachometer was going crazy almost the entire time. If I accelerated too hard, the whole car would shake violently and lose power, which is extremely dangerous.

At that point, I started regretting the decision. I shouldn’t have changed the transmission fluid. The fluid change didn’t cause the problem, but it did make the transmission’s underlying failure show itself more quickly. I consulted several repair shops afterward, including a Nissan dealer. About half of the mechanics I spoke with — including Nissan’s own service staff — said this was absolutely not something a fluid change could fix. Cases of major CVT problems showing up right after the warranty period on Nissan’s lower-end models are extremely common, and repair costs typically range from 1,000-5,000 dollars. If you search online for “Nissan CVT problems,” you’ll find user complaints everywhere. There was even one guy who replaced his transmission three times in three years. Not to mention owners whose cars completely lost power on the highway and nearly got their families killed. Nissan itself has also been hit with multiple lawsuits over transmission issues, and those class actions even included their own luxury brand, Infiniti. For Nissan CVT models before 2010, after losing in court, they extended the entire powertrain warranty to 10 years. Unfortunately, I wasn’t that “lucky.” My car is a 2012 model, so it does not qualify for the 10-year warranty, and Nissan doesn’t seem to have made any meaningful improvements to its transmissions even after losing those lawsuits.

Right when I was feeling especially frustrated, I received a letter informing me that owners of the following models are plaintiffs in a new class-action lawsuit:

  • 2012 - 2017 Nissan Versa
  • 2014 - 2017 Nissan Versa Notes
  • 2013 - 2017 Nissan Sentra (the equivalent model in China is called the Sylphy)
  • 2013 - 2016 Nissan Altima (the equivalent model in China is called the Teana)
  • 2013 - 2017 Nissan Juke

For details, owners with a stake in this can read the following report:

But after reading the details, I felt even more depressed. The current proposed “settlement” in this class action is to extend the warranty for all of the above models to 84 months/84,000 miles, whichever comes first, and reimburse covered transmission repairs during that new warranty period. Alternatively, former owners of the above models may receive a 1,000 dollar voucher toward the future purchase of a Nissan or Infiniti vehicle. Honestly, that part is almost laughable — there is no way I would ever buy a Nissan again. The problem is that my car was purchased exactly 90 months ago, so I don’t qualify for any compensation at all. This class action seems to have been going on for more than a year. It was not approved at first because many plaintiffs felt the proposed remedy was far too favorable to Nissan. And now I’m joining the opposition to this settlement as well. I can’t afford to hire a lawyer, but for now I plan to at least write a letter before the due date to state my objection, and also file a report with the US Department of Transportation. They have a department specifically responsible for consumer reports about vehicle design defects that create safety issues. I don’t know whether these complaints are truly effective, but I do plan to keep fighting. If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to share them. This car was only driven for 7 and a half years, had low mileage, and is now practically scrap metal. It has cost me a huge amount of time, energy, and money — even the front brake rotors and pads I just replaced were basically wasted — and turned me into a half-baked amateur mechanic. Just swallowing this loss in silence feels pretty pathetic.

Let me also talk about Nissan’s so-called “$1,000 transmission fix.” Generally speaking, if a transmission fails, the dealer’s solution is to replace it outright. CVTs are expensive to begin with, so you’re usually looking at at least $3,000-$5,000. But because Nissan knows it is somewhat at fault, after receiving a large number of consumer complaints, it came up with what feels almost like a charity-style solution.

The process is roughly this: you report your car’s issue to Nissan USA, they open a case, and then tell you to go to a Nissan dealer for a diagnostic. I asked about the cost, and it is about 1-2 labor hours, or around $260 total ($130 per hour), paid out of pocket. You then send the diagnostic results back to Nissan USA headquarters, and they review your case before deciding whether to reimburse part of the repair cost.

There is another scenario, which I heard from the owner of a local independent repair shop; his wife’s Altima had the same problem. Nissan may ask you to buy a specific major component yourself—I’m guessing something like a valve body—and then they install it for you. The part costs about $1,000, and labor is another $1,000, so you still cannot avoid spending that $2,000. It only saves you from the fate of paying $5,000 to replace the entire transmission, and even then you are still depending on Nissan’s goodwill. And after going through all that, nobody can say for sure how much life the transmission has left. In the end, after doing a lot of research, I could only accept that replacing the car was the best decision.

Replacement car options: new car, 2-3-year-old lightly used car, or a 5-6-year-old used car?

I’m not a car expert by any means, and only have a basic understanding of different models across manufacturers. Since I wanted something low-hassle, I limited my search to the four legendary mainstream models in North America: Corolla, Camry, Civic, and Accord. When I first came to the U.S., I bought a 2008 Corolla with 50,000 miles. After getting married, I kept my spouse’s 2012 Versa and sold the Corolla—a decision I practically regret for life. According to a friend, that old Corolla is now 11 years old and the only thing that has failed is the in-dash CD player. So naturally, my first choice was to buy another little Corolla.

I then spent 3-4 days researching what my next car should be. Since I live apart for work, I mostly drive alone. Also, because there may be major changes to where I work in 4-5 years and I may end up selling the car then, my goal for these next few years was not just grocery runs and basic commuting (otherwise I could just buy a beater under $3,000 and drive it into the ground). I narrowed it down to 3 options:

  1. A new Corolla or Civic, priced around $18,000-$20,000;
  2. A 2-3-year-old lightly used car with low mileage, priced around $12,000-$14,000;
  3. A 5-6-year-old used car sold by a private party on Craigslist, priced around $10,000.

My goal was to find the most cost-effective option over a 5-year period. So I did not care much about how much the car cost today; what mattered was the price difference when I sold it 5 years later, plus how much I would need to spend on maintenance. My conclusion was that a new car fit me best. The key is that if you choose option 2 or 3, you have to account for the fact that around 60,000 miles, a car will likely need a major round of maintenance (varies by model, so check the manual): brake pads and rotors (all four wheels together are about $700; the front wears fastest, and one set is about $300-$350, while the rear tends to last longer), fluids other than engine oil such as brake fluid (roughly $100-$300 from what I remember), transmission fluid changes (about $200-$400), plus a new set of tires ($250-$300 if you wait for a Sam’s or Costco deal). Conservatively, that comes to about $1,500.

After driving a new car for 4-5 years (40,000-50,000 miles), it may depreciate by about $6,000-$7,000, but if you take good care of it, you might not even need to replace the tires once during that period. (My Versa did not get its full set of new tires until 50,000 miles.) For options 2 and 3, after driving 50,000 miles over 5 years, depreciation is roughly $4,000-$5,000 based on estimates from kbb. But once you add the extra maintenance costs, your 5-year total cost is also about $5,000-$6,000—assuming you do not end up with a lemon. One major repair and the whole calculation falls apart.

Insurance is not really a factor here because all of these options were relatively cheap to insure, so I ignored the difference. My insurance data point for the new car was about $370 for 6 months of full coverage, with a $500 deductible on my own car, and liability coverage of $300,000 person/$300,000 occurrence (bodily injury), and $100,000 (property damage). The area where I live is fairly safe, so rates are relatively low. A friend also mentioned in the comments that some states charge personal property tax on cars titled in your name. Depending on your situation, you can use this guide to estimate it. Because a new car has a higher assessed value, the tax is higher at first, and then decreases over time as the car depreciates. I was lucky—my state does not charge this property tax.

Also, for the 2-3-year-old lightly used option, there were very few listings on Craigslist, and any good one disappeared immediately. That left buying a newer but slightly higher-mileage used car from Hertz Car Sales as the main alternative (see this site). But when you eventually try to sell that kind of car, the next buyer may pick it apart, since rental cars are often driven hard with rapid acceleration and braking, making them somewhat harder to resell. So I gave up on that option too. Option 3 looks economical, but it takes too much time and energy, and I was honestly afraid of ending up back in repair shops. On top of that, car technology has advanced quickly over the past 5 years, with all kinds of driver-assistance features coming out. So even if it meant spending at most another $1,000, enjoying a new car felt worth it. Besides, I ultimately got what I considered a bargain price on a new Corolla, and within 1 week I turned a bad situation into a good one. For now, the outcome seems pretty decent.

The image below shows the pricing I checked through kbb to estimate what my car might be worth after 4-5 years and 50,000 miles of driving. I looked up a 2016 Corolla with the same configuration, and the estimated value range was $10,700-$12,000. Some people say kbb tends to overvalue Japanese cars, but I think these four mainstream models never have trouble finding buyers. As long as the price is reasonable, someone will buy them.

Negotiating with the dealer

Do your homework first

After living in the U.S. for more than 7 years, this was actually my first time buying a new car, so I had to start by reading up online about how to negotiate with a dealer. I had long heard how ruthless dealers could be—and how good they are at acting. (My spouse got burned exactly that way.) As someone who has spent years working in academia, I was not very confident dealing with people from that other world. But I did have one ultimate move: go in with the attitude of take it or leave it. I planned to wait until the end of the year, when they get desperate to hit sales targets, and use that to my advantage. And if Toyota would not sell to me, I would consider Honda. If Honda acted too aloof, I would look at Subaru. After all, in the snowy Midwest, AWD is a safer bet anyway. And if all of them wanted to act precious, I could just go to Hertz and buy a lightly used car at a fixed price.

One important note: all the prices below are out-the-door prices (out the door price, abbreviated OTD). When buying a car, there are all kinds of fees, so do not get distracted by MSRP or invoice price. The only number that matters is the OTD price—the total all-in cost.

How to contact dealers

For my first round, I found a price-quote template online and sent it in bulk to about a dozen Toyota dealers within a 3-4-hour driving radius, using each dealer’s own website, as shown below. Yes, some dealers require a phone number, which is annoying, but you can leave a Google Voice number so they do not harass you by phone.

Inquiry template and replies

Dear XXX,

I plan to buy a 2019/2020 Corolla L/LE. I'm getting pricing from several local dealers and will go with whoever offers me the best deal since I don't need the car immediately, I have a 7-yr old Nissan Versa and thinking of an upgrade.【Be specific about which car you want to buy, and mention the car you currently have so they see you are a real buyer, not just wasting their time.】

To make it a fair comparison, please quote the amount above or below invoice at which you're willing to sell this vehicle. If I buy from you, I assume I will be shown a copy of the factory invoice and the equipment on the car. I can choose from any vehicle of this particular trim you have on your lot. I'm flexible on options and colors. [Just being polite here—shop rationally: pick the car first, then look at color and options.]

Please provide the following in your bid: [This is very important. Whatever the dealer sends back should be clearly spelled out, and the most important thing is the OTD number. The more eager dealers will usually prepare this carefully, which also helps filter out the less responsive ones.]

  • Price relative to factory invoice
  • List any additional fees I will have to pay that are not listed on the invoice (example: doc fee, dealer prep, etc.)
  • Are there any dealer add-ons I will be required to pay for (pinstripes, etc.)
  • List any rebates or incentives currently offered on this vehicle, including loyalty and conquest bonuses (do not include this in the bid price)
  • List the OTD (Out-the-Door) price including taxes, incentives, and all fees

Thank you for your time. I look forward to your response.

In reality, dealers receive tons of templates like this every day, so they're very used to them. For example, below is a standard reply.

Big-City Dealers vs. Small-City Dealers

Then I realized I had been operating under a major misconception when car shopping: I thought big cities had more dealers and fiercer competition, so it should be easier to get a better price. But it turned out to be completely wrong!!!

The two biggest cities near me (both with populations over 1.6 million) were incredibly aloof. Their quotes for a 2020 Corolla LE were all $19,000+, while the two dealers in our mid-sized city both quoted a little over $18,000, and even provided detailed quote breakdowns. I took those $18,000-and-change quote emails and asked the two big-city dealers if they could beat them. They either ignored me, dodged the question and kept asking when I could come into the store, said flat-out they couldn't do that price and I should just buy from the other dealer, or claimed the price was obviously bait and switch.

So I narrowed my focus to the two Toyota dealers in my city and planned to go in, test-drive, and negotiate. If I could get the price down to $17xxx, I'd be happy to buy. But then an unexpected incident last Friday completely derailed my plan—and ended up triggering a full-on price war and suicidal discounting between the two local dealers, leaving me to reap the benefits... The two dealers are on the east and west sides of town, respectively, so I'll call them dealer E and dealer W. I live on the west side; that's the background.

The biggest drama

On Friday I went to dealer W first, mainly because it was closer, and also because they seemed relatively more sincere. They never played those tired old tricks like "this price is only good today" or "this price is only good right now." After the graduate student rebate, the out-the-door price was around $174xx.

After we had agreed on the OTD price, I said I also had an old car I could trade in and asked them to appraise it. To my complete surprise, that's when the biggest drama happened!!!

The older guy who took the test drive somehow caused my Versa to lose power on the road and become undriveable, and then blamed me for not telling them in advance that the transmission had issues. My head basically exploded. When I had asked Carmax and a Nissan dealer for trade-in quotes, I hadn't mentioned the transmission either, and they still identified the major transmission problem without destroying my car. Just 3 days earlier, I had even managed to drive it on a long-ish trip to pick up my mom. The car was definitely junky, but I knew its temperament: as long as you didn't accelerate aggressively, it could still drive around town just fine.

My guess is that he accelerated too hard, and when the car started shaking violently, instead of letting off the gas, he kept pressing it. That completely killed its ability to shift into gear. Then they immediately threw out an insulting trade-in offer of $300. Come on—even if I sold it for scrap, it should still be worth several hundred bucks. I turned around and walked out without another word and asked the salesperson to take me back to my broken car. He was clearly a little panicked and said that whatever price dealer E offered, they could match it. When I got back to my dead car, my heart just sank. It was already dark, several degrees below freezing, and I had never seen my Versa in that condition before. When I stepped on the gas, there was almost no resistance at all. The tachometer and speedometer didn't respond, and the car could only creep forward at idle speed. At that moment I fell into endless regret again: why hadn't I just dumped this car on Carmax for the $2,000 offer the day before? Now it had been stomped into a $300 heap of scrap. I couldn't entirely blame them, because my car already had issues to begin with—who knows whether this was just the final straw that made it completely collapse.

With no other option, I had to ask the salesperson at dealer W for help again. He found someone to drive us back to the dealership, left the Versa in a parking lot on the roadside, and lent me a 2019 Corolla for free as a loaner. That whole night I was incredibly depressed and only slept about 3 hours. I regretted changing the transmission fluid a little over a week earlier and maybe causing the car to die faster. I regretted not just letting Carmax take it the day before. Maybe I'm just getting older and mentally less resilient, but why did all this nonsense have to land on me?!

Things take a turn

The old car comes back to life

On Saturday, I still wasn't ready to give up on the Versa. I went back to the temporary parking lot where I'd abandoned it the day before, figuring that at worst I'd call a tow truck and have it taken to the Nissan dealer. Even if I had to spend hundreds or thousands more on diagnostics and repairs, I wanted to get to the bottom of this. How had the car become this broken?! I was determined to take this up with Nissan!!!

And then, after a random guy by the roadside helped us push the car a little, it suddenly came back to life like a miracle!!! Unbelievable. The night before, I had spent a cumulative hour creeping around the parking lot at idle and couldn't revive it, but after resting overnight, it could suddenly shift into gear again!!! It still felt a little weak, but I drove it for another 30 minutes or so afterward and it showed no sign of dying again. Unfortunately, I had still overestimated the Nissan salesperson's goodwill. When I found the person who had appraised it the day before, he said, "Well, I can only take your trade if you buy a car from me. Otherwise, if I give you $1,500 for this car, I'll lose money. I know you're a good person, so you wouldn't rip me off, right?" I guess he could tell there was no way I'd ever buy another Nissan, huh. Fine—then I didn't want to see him again either.

Then I drove to Carmax. This time it went relatively smoothly. Carmax reinspected the car and honored the quote from two days earlier, buying it for $2,000. (Yes, the Carmax report specifically said that the transmission issue was the biggest factor affecting the car's value.) Carmax probably still didn't lose money. I checked their listings for similar-mileage Versas of the same model, and they were priced at around $10k. With that spread, they could probably replace the transmission twice and still come out ahead... But if I fixed the transmission myself—which could cost $1,000-5,000—and then sold it privately, I'd probably only get $5,000-6,000 at most. I just didn't have those kinds of resources, so dealing with car resellers was my only realistic option.

After I sold the old car, I honestly felt a huge sense of relief. At that point, my attitude toward everything that followed was basically, whatever happens, happens.

The two dealers go to war

To keep my promise and also shop around, I went to dealer E. The test drive, negotiation, and everything else went smoothly, and they also gave me an out-the-door price of $174xx. Then I picked up the phone and called dealer W. I said, "I'm at dealer E right now. Their price is the same as yours, and considering yesterday's drama, I'm just going to buy here." The salesperson at dealer W immediately blew up and said, "We lent you a car for free, and you drove that car to dealer E and now you're going to buy from them? That's really ungrateful."

This is the moment when you absolutely cannot panic. It's a common dealer tactic: they push hard, or act angry in all kinds of ways. I said, "Can you imagine how desperate I felt last night? I'm really grateful that you lent me the car, and I don't want to owe you anything, so I'll pay you for the rental. The reason I'm not buying from you is because of yesterday's test-drive drama. Also, my car started working again today, and I've already sold it to Carmax for far more than what you offered. I'm not saying you broke my car, but that whole incident yesterday was just too overwhelming. So I'm sorry, but I'm not buying from you—unless you can beat dealer E's price."After waiting a while, the manager at dealer W actually called me. He still sounded annoyed with me at first, but after I explained that my old car had somehow been revived again under my “tuning” that day, his tone immediately softened. He said, how about we knock off another 500? He then had the older salesman send over a new quote. At that point, the out-the-door price was 168xx, which had already exceeded my expectations. When dealer E saw that if the prices were the same I would definitely buy from him, he immediately matched the 168xx price.

So I called dealer W again to report what happened. The salesman still sounded unhappy, but then the manager grabbed the phone and said, I just don’t like the feeling of losing a customer. I’ll cut another 1,000, but this time I’m not sending you the quote sheet—you have to come back to the dealership to see it. Are you coming back? I’m including an example of what the quote sheet looks like because it’s very important: it’s direct evidence you can use to get another dealer to match or beat the offer. The image below is not my final quote sheet. 9,900+7,500=17,400 was the out-the-door price at that time. The 9,900 was what I had to pay that day, and the 7,500 was the loan amount, because financing was the only way to get the 500 student rebate.

***You had to be a current student or a graduate of a US school within the past 2 years. Student loan rates are usually somewhat higher, but Toyota allowed you to pay the entire loan off in about 30 days with no prepayment penalty, so in the end you only had to pay roughly 30 days of interest—about a little over ten dollars.

At that point the out-the-door price became 158xx, and I was completely stunned. What kind of strategy was this? I had never seen anything like it. Were they crazy? Were they even making money? Even for a new Corolla a few years ago, this would have been a very good price, let alone after accounting for inflation. Throughout the process, dealer E hadn’t exactly been friendly either—basically giving off the vibe of, what kind of customer are you, we’ve never seen someone bargain back and forth like this. (Don’t panic—you have to be thick-skinned. These are standard dealer tactics, and comparison shopping is absolutely your right.) At that point dealer E also sent in a manager to talk to me. He said, we can’t do that price. If you want to leave, there’s nothing we can do. But if you walk out that door, the 168xx price is gone. If you come back before closing today, we can only do 174xx. Be careful—they’re pricing it too low, so watch out for tricks. But I still drove straight back to dealer W without hesitation. A 1,000 price difference was worth the risk. Worst case, I just wouldn’t buy the car. I could survive on rental cars for a while anyway.

Result: 15,800 OTD!

The rest of the story went pretty smoothly. Dealer W’s manager really did give me the 158xx out-the-door price. No tricks, no pushing me to buy extra insurance or any other nonsense. I bought the car for more than 2,000 less than I had expected, which basically made up for the losses caused by the Versa. It took an incredible amount of energy, but how many times in life do you get to buy a brand-new car? Besides, I absolutely loved my new little Corolla. It was an amazing value, with all kinds of new tech and features—pre-collision system, radar adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning, full-speed following, traffic sign recognition, automatic high beams, brake hold, electronic parking brake, and active braking, all of which improved safety, plus upgraded in-car entertainment like CarPlay. At that point I practically wanted to sleep hugging my little Corolla, haha.

Looking back: analysis and a few tips

Looking back, dealer W’s manager was actually pretty brilliant. His seemingly suicidal price-cutting strategy left me stunned at the time, but on reflection, he really knew what he was doing. First, dealer E’s salespeople were still relying on the usual old-school sales tactic: “This price is only good today—if you don’t buy now, you’ll miss out.” Dealer W was in a very unfavorable position that day because I was physically at dealer E, and I had already had an unpleasant experience with dealer W before, so they needed a major price cut to pull me back. If they had only reduced the price by a hundred or two each time, dealer E would have kept matching, and after a few rounds I probably would have given up and just bought from dealer E. For a normal person, going toe-to-toe with dealers like this is mentally exhausting. Also, they knew I lived very close to dealer W. A lot of people continue doing maintenance at the dealership where they buy the car, so the profit they could make from me wasn’t limited to just this one sale.

About trading in your old car:

Before doing a trade-in at a dealer, you can first take your car to Carmax for a free appraisal. They may offer more than the dealer, since used cars are their specialty and, in my experience, their pricing is relatively fair. Then when you negotiate your trade-in with the dealer, you can ask them to match Carmax’s offer. Of course, make sure you negotiate the out-the-door price first, and only then discuss the trade-in, or the dealer may find another way to take money from you. The trade-in value you get from the dealer can also reduce the sales tax you owe on the transaction.

For example, say you’ve negotiated a pre-tax new-car price of 10,000, and your local sales tax is 10%, so your out-the-door price would be 11,000. But if you bring in a car worth 5,000 for trade-in, then your out-the-door price becomes （10,000-5,000）*1.1 = 5,500, which means you effectively save 500 in tax. And if you can’t reach an agreement with the dealer on the trade-in value, that’s fine too. After Carmax gives you an appraisal, the offer is valid for 7 days, and you can just sell the car to Carmax instead. The Carmax appraisal process was pretty fast overall—I only waited about 40 minutes at the store. I had booked an appointment online, but something came up and I couldn’t make it that day. I called them and found out you can just walk in anytime. The image below shows the Carmax online appointment form:

Comparing prices online:

Some websites you can use to check car prices include:

There are already plenty of guides covering this in detail, so I won’t repeat all of that here. In my purchase, truecar played the biggest role. After entering the model I wanted, I used different ZIP codes to check average quotes in cities, suburbs, and small towns around me. In the two huge cities about 3 hours away, 2020 Corolla LE quotes were all 19,000+, which explains why dealers there acted like they couldn’t care less. They probably had strong sales and no shortage of customers. Also, manufacturer incentives vary by region, so the rebate a dealer can get from the automaker may differ as well. In my mid-sized city, the average quote was instead 18,000+, which explains why I was able to get an 18,000 out-the-door quote just by sending a few emails. After that, the rest depends on how well you negotiate in person. Once you’ve entered the trim and options, you can change your own ZIP code and nearby city ZIP codes at the top to see where prices are lower.

What’s useful about Truecar is that it helps you find the cheapest place to buy within a radius of N miles, along with various rebates you may qualify for. As shown below,

Best timing to buy a car:

The last few days of the year and the last few days of the month really are good times to buy a car. Compared with the large bonuses tied to hitting targets, it can still be worth it for dealers to sell a few cars at little to no profit in order to meet quota. Also, where I live gets a lot of snow and winters are extremely cold. Honestly, small front-wheel-drive cars probably don’t sell especially well in this season. This also confirmed a rule I had seen online before: May-June is a good time to buy an SUV, while the end of the year is a good time to buy a small sedan.

US Car-Buying Guide Collection