How can I get a decent price for a new car?

@philosopher
Check with your HR department at work, some companies have agreements with car manufacturers. Or Credit Union / Bank. Also if you are a member of AAA you can get a discount.
Use website like KBB.com or Edmunds.com to get the invoice price ( which is NOT the dealers final cost ) and negotiate from there.

Costco members also get special discounted pricing. But if you’re on your own, you have to do your homework, put on your gameface and have to do a song and dance number once out in the dealer showroom. . . . and don’t settle for one showroom wheeling and dealing. Pit those dealers against each other’s offers.

@njnyjobs
My Husband is good at this.
LOL we can still use all the help we can get.
Last time we bought a car the Nissan dealership here in SI. attempted to intimate my Husband. All the idiot sales people surrounded him saying his price can not be correct. LOL he is over 6 ft tall. He laughed in their faces and walked out. We bought in Brooklyn.
We laugh at bullshit Artists. They are so transparent to anyone with a brain.

buy a Toyota….they have some unreal deals now with all the “bad press” lately! Still a great car…just having a few bad days lately.

Settle on a model with the options you want before you set foot in a showroom. Then start calling dealers for quotes on that model. Don’t leave your name and number for someone to get back to you. Don’t mention a trade-in until you get them talking price. And don’t take their first offer. Walk out of the dealership and let them sweat a little.

You have some leverage right now because the market is abysmal. Find a dealership with a lot of cars on the lot, and you’ll do better if you shop near the end of the month.

We did all our research online, and compared prices on the model we chose at several different dealers. We then went in with that information, including the location and ID number of the different cars. We told them what we would pay for it, and that’s that. We have successfully purchased three cars over the last few years that way.

Once the dealer tried to get us to pay for the upgrades on the model he had on the lot, an extra for the leather seats, extra for this or that, but we said no, we don’t need the extras, we’ll just go to the other dealer and buy only what we want. We walked out with the ‘loaded’ car for the price we wanted and extras ‘free’.

Always eat before you go, and even carry a nutrition bar or bag of nuts with you. They will try to wear you down when you are hungry.

Just a note, you seem to be asking two questions at a time; “How do I get a decent price on a new car?” and “What are some good mid-sized ‘cars’?”, the latter of which I don’t understand because there are multiple mid-sized things; mid-sized sedans, mid-sized SUVs, etc. For getting a good price, get a Consumer Reports New Car Price Report . As for which car to choose, it’s all down to preference and bias. If you give me a more specific genre of car to choose from, I can offer a few suggestions.

@YARNLADY lmao… They will try to wear you down when you are hungry. True true!!!

Thank you everyone.
ANOTHER QUESTION!!!
What should the price difference be between a leather entire and cloth?
My Husband was given a price for a cloth entire Hyundai. I clean the cars and I am use to leather. It cleans easier.
We are getting a Costco discount.
I really appreciate all the help.
I basically trust no sales people and have walked out many times in the past @YARNLADY . I am delighted to know someone like me.

@philosopher did you read Yardlady’s comment. Would try that P! Oh, see that you did…with the present market, the buyer has the advantage.

@BoBo1946
My Husband is good at this stuff.
LOL he use to be tougher on these guys. Now I will have to be the bitch.
BoBo sadly this is what life taught me.
I want to have friends but theses clowns are my enemies.
I told my Husband it is a buyers market.

@philosopher they will rape you and laugh at you….vultures..most, not all. We have a used car dealership here that is great. Good cars for a fair price. They speak the truth and they have customers running “out their ears!”

@philosopher , it doesn’t cost the manufacturer any more to make a car with leather seats than it does to make one with cloth. For that matter, it doesn’t cost, say, Toyota very much more to make a Lexus LS than it costs them to make a Scion xD. The more fluff they pack into the car, the greater the profit margin for them. That also leaves you some room to negotiate. The thing to do is ask for one with cloth seats and let them offer you one with leather “at a discount.”

@IchtheosaurusRex
How exactly would you do that?
LOL I can be manipulative but that sounds difficult.

@philosopher They claim it adds between $1500 to $2000 to the base price of the car. Like I said, what we did was insist we would go to the other dealer where we already had a description of the car he had on his lot, with cloth seats, and would not pay for the ‘extras’ of the dealer we were talking to.

Find the car you want, check the available cars in your area. If one at Dealer A has leather and Dealer B doesn’t – do the deal with A. Don’t accept “How about split the difference, and pay ½” They tried that on us, and we said no, and got up to leave. Keep saying, I can get the cloth at the price I want at B.

See also this article about cloth vs leather.

@philosopher , there are lots of ways to do research on a car you want. The Consumer Reports annual auto issue is on sale right now, I think. You can also research them at motortrend.com or autos.aol.com. Edmunds is too pushy with their advertising, but you can look there, too. You can also go to the dealership on Sundays when they’re closed to look over the cars more closely.

You would still want to drive the car, I’m sure, but you can usually narrow your choices down before you start calling around. I’m very particular about what I want in a car, so that limits my choices by quite a bit (I hate automatic transmissions, so that eliminates 90% of the cars for sale right there).