I tried this when I bought a new car last summer.

It was worthless.  I was looking for a 6 speed and no one had them.
I also found that all of the dealer's online inventories were
incomplete, outdated, or didn't have enough information.  You will
also be added to all of their mailing lists and you will get junk
mail forever.

I might try this again if looking for a more common vehicle, but the
best tactic I found was to show up with cash or your financing
already in place and play hardball.  I test drove the car, and made a
really low offer.  I was turned down, but the next day the salesman
called and offered another deal.  I agreed to a "bottom line price"
and asked him to fax their offer.

The offer came in with $200 paperwork fees, and was $200 more than
our agreed price.  I declined.  He called back later and told me the
owner made a one time exception and waved the fees.  Actually, he
lowered the price of the car $200 and kept the paperwork fee on the
invoice.

  Steve
SKL Enterprises Inc.
http://EuroCampers.com

888-797-5994 - orders
636-337-7700 - customer service

On Mar 20, 2009, at 6:21 PM, pickle vanagon wrote:

> Go to the dealer to look and decide what you want, not to buy.
> Then get
> prices from dealers by email.  Each dealer has an "internet sales
> rep".
> Call and get their email.  This person will give you a lowish price
> without
> any negotiating via email after you've told them exactly what
> you're looking
> for (doing this in an email is probably best).  Get these email
> quotes from
> the 10 dealers closest to you.  Take the lowest quote, and email it
> around
> to the rest giving them a chance to beat it.  Repeat until all the
> reponses
> are that you have a killer price and they can't beat it.