Best Time of the Year to Buy a Car

In the old days, buying a car meant waiting for the right season and the right day of the month to close a deal. With today’s national and even global market, buying cars no longer has a specific season even if you are buying an SUV in the middle of winter or a sports car in the middle of summer. The reality is that there are only a handful of reasons in which time plays a significant role in the discount you will receive on a car. Make sure to refer to our case study on how timing saved us $20K on our Aston Martin DBS.

The end of the month is no longer relevant to dealerships, but it is relevant to the people working there. Many sales managers are evaluated on how many units they move, finance, etc, so they are much more likely to make a deal on the last day of the month if they haven’t met their quota. Therefore, this will be hit or miss depending on which dealer you approach, and how well they performed. Nonetheless, the deals will get more aggressive because you are standing between them and a bonus, which holds more value than the single commission made on one car alone.

Inventory jams in the wrong season are also a huge reason why a dealer would get rid of cars on the lot much cheaper. Keep in mind that most businesses have what you call floor plans, meaning that they are financing or have money tied into cars just sitting there and not selling. If a dealer in NY is stuck with five convertibles and winter is right around the corner, it is in his best interest to get rid of those cars to make room for more cars he can turn over and profit from. This gives you the opportunity to buy cars at a much lower price than usual (especially when negotiating with our tactics), because the dealer is willing to not make money on units that will become harder to sell for 4-5 consecutive months coming up.

End of year special bonuses are no different than monthly bonuses, so in our experience, buying cars in November and December is very beneficial for many reasons; one of them being the big year-end bonus. The other one is the reality that next year models typically enter dealerships around September of the previous year, so there is additional inventory on the market and more incoming from leases becoming due. It makes sense to turnover cars faster to make a small amount rather than lose any amount.

Hope this helps you understand how our strategies can save you thousands on your next car, especially as our vast knowledge of dealers and their margins helps you make sure you don’t get ripped off.

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