Tips for buying a brand new car?

[7costanza]

I'm looking at buying a new car for the first time, all my previous cars have been used. I am very good at negotiating prices on used cars, but a little nervous about buying new. Does anybody have any negotiating tips?

We are also considering leasing one, but are very unsure if this is right for us so if anybody has experiences with leasing I would love to hear them!

[lanyac]

Do you have USAA?

[beans]

Here's what we did (using USAA car buying program- but I hear Costco has a good program too). Pit the local dealerships you would be willing to go to against each other.

We got the best USAA price from online and then started calling all the local dealerships to see if they could match or beat that. One gave us a seriously low price, but was kind of far away. (We also did this at the end of the month). We called the local dealership and told them the exact price the farther dealership had quoted us, and asked if they could match it because we didn't want to drive that far away. The manager agreed, but also said if it wasn't the last day of the month he would send us to the other dealership.

So when we actually got to the dealership, we had already done all the negotiating, and all of that had been done over email or the phone.

[zitiqueen]

www.edmunds.com/cars/

[7costanza]

I don't have USAA, I actually tried to sign up a couple months ago since both my dad and moms husband are vets but I didn't qualify. I do have a Costco membership so I will look into that. I can also definitely wait until the end of the month, I've done that with used cars and it's been very helpful. Thank you!!