Here at CarEdge we get a lot of emails from car buyers like you looking for advice on how to get the best car deal possible. The question “should I pay cash for a car?” Comes into our inbox daily. If you’ve managed to save up enough cash to buy a car, kudos to you. Now, it’s time to be strategic about how you use it to get the best car deal possible.
Most people assume that telling a car dealer that you’re paying in cash is a negotiating tactic and will get you a better price. Here’s the truth: it doesn’t. Saying that you’re paying with cash kills your negotiating power.
If you’re wondering, “should I pay cash for a car?” The answer is complicated. Yes, pay the full amount as soon as possible. But don’t walk in with a briefcase of cash and slam it on the salesperson’s desk.
To understand the answer to the burning question, “should I pay cash for a car,” we need to begin by looking at how dealerships make their money.
Contents hide
1 How Car Dealerships Make Their Money
2 Take Out A Loan Instead
3 Pay Off Your New Loan
4 Assess Your Financial Situation
5 Not Directly or Not at All
How Car Dealerships Make Their Money
Car dealerships make about a quarter of their profit off car sales, yet vehicle sales make up about half of their revenue. That’s because of the slim front-end margins on most car deals (especially for new cars, used cars are a bit of a different story.)
You’ve heard me say it before, and you’ll hear me say it again—selling cars is merely a means to sell other products like finance options, insurance products, service, and parts.
Car dealerships make most of their money in the service department, but when it comes to vehicle sales, dealerships make their money in the Finance and Insurance (F&I) office. The F&I office is referred to as the “back-end” of a car deal. The “front-end” is what you spend time negotiating with the salesperson. The irony is that dealers are incentivized to sell as many cars as possible (frequently at a loss) simply to make money on the back-end (and from manufacturer incentives).
If you’ve ever bought a car before you’ve heard a salesperson ask you “do you plan to finance the vehicle?” This is because if they know you plan to finance (and especially if you intend to finance through the dealership) they know the dealership can make money on the back-end of the car deal. Every car dealership out there will ask you to fill out a credit application so they can secure financing options for you. When they do this (and present the options to you) they bake profit into the numbers. This practice is a significant source of profit for a car dealership.
So, if you walk in and say you’re paying with cash, you’re telling the salesperson that you’re going to eliminate the dealership’s primary source of profit.
What do you do? You take out a loan.
Take Out A Loan Instead
Let’s say you have all this cash, and you want to buy your car at the best possible price. It should be as simple as buying a meal at a restaurant, right? Unfortunately, that’s not the case.
You’ll pay far more for your car if you ask to pay for it all upfront with cash. That’s because the dealership will not be willing to negotiate as much on the front-end of the car deal since you will not become a sales opportunity for the back-end of the deal (aka in the F&I office).
So what should you do? Take out a loan through the dealership and pay it off immediately (or refinance it). Doing this will get you a much lower price than paying with cash at the dealership.
Like we discuss in depth in Deal School, you want to negotiate the out the door price of the vehicle with the salesperson. By informing them of your interest in financing your purchase through the dealership, you’ll find that the salesperson will be more likely to negotiate on the front-end of the deal.
One rule of thumb is that if a fee can be taxed, you can negotiate that fee to have it removed or reduced. If a fee is not taxed, you can’t negotiate it down or away. It’s important to know exactly what you can negotiate.
Here’s the essential part of the entire process: make sure the loan does not have a prepayment penalty. If it does, walk away or ask for a different lending option. Fortunately, most loans do not have a prepayment penalty. Typically only exclusive financing options from captive lenders (the manufacturer’s lending institution) have these clauses.
It’s advisable not to tell the dealer that you plan to pay off or refinance the loan immediately. Dealerships incur “chargebacks” when this happens, so let this strategy be our little secret, and not something you blurt out to the F&I manager.
When you’re in the F&I office, decide if you want any of the ancillary products like an extended warranty, and then go through with the rest of the paperwork with the F&I manager. Once you’re happy with all the numbers, pay your down payment, sign the paperwork, and drive away.
Pay Off Your New Loan
You’ve got a brand-new car and a brand-new loan. It typically takes a lender about a week to put a new loan on the books once they receive it from the dealership. Wait a week to ten days, then call your lender and ask for the payoff amount. They’ll tell you exactly how much you have to pay to end your loan. Send them a check or wire transfer, and you’re done.
If you don’t have enough cash to pay off your loan immediately look to refinance the existing loan. Remember that credit checks within a 30 days period for an auto-loan are grouped into one “hit” on your credit, so you don’t have to be too concerned about getting your credit run once again to find refinance opportunities.
You may have done it by way of a loan, but this is the best way to use your cash to buy a car. If you skip the loan and pay for the car entirely in cash, you’ll end up paying far more than if you take out a loan and pay it off early.
Assess Your Financial Situation
Now that we’ve unveiled our master plan for how to use your cash most effectively to buy a car, we should take a step back and ask if it’s a good idea in the first place.
If you’re asking “should I pay cash for a car,” we’re assuming you have a hefty savings account and financial portfolio. However, if paying cash for a vehicle will drain your savings completely, it might make more sense to finance the loan and put a large amount down for your down payment.
It’s also worth shopping around for different financing offers. No matter what, we always recommend having a pre-approval from an outside financial institution before you go to the dealership so that you have leverage when you are in the F&I office. In some cases captive lenders offer special financing offers (like 0% APR) that no outside lender can beat. In those cases, financing through the dealership is the only logical option.
Not Directly or Not at All
Since you now know paying for a car with cash won’t get you a better deal, you might want to reconsider the entire idea. Is this the best use of your cash? If you still think it is, make sure you take out a loan and immediately pay it off instead of showing up with your briefcase full of Benjamins.
It’s vital that you don’t tell the salesperson, sales manager, or F&I manager that you’re going to pay off the loan immediately. They really don’t want to incur the chargeback.
Instead, go through the motions of taking out a loan and simply pay it off a week later. With this strategy you’ll get the best car deal possible.
