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Ill go and look at it and drive it, I'd probably go $7000 plus tax. There is a Miata that I want to see, but isnt available to show until this weekened. I guess I could just wait it out if I like the car and hope no one else beats me to it?



Don't wait. You'd kick yourself (and me :P ) later.

There's two things you could try.

You could shoot low and spend time looking around the $5000-6000 cars. Test-drive an old Grand Prix or something. Then say it just didn't "feel" right, and walk over to that SVT and ask if you can drive that one. Then he'll know that your price-point is a little lower. Try not to explicitly state a price-point -- he will try to get you to name one. Let him assume one based on what you're looking at.

Or you could start off meandering around but focus on the SVT and pretend to not like the price then go focus on some other $6,000 cars. After a little bit of looking around looking unsatisfied, tell him you want that SVT but you need to find some middle ground between the $6000 cars and the SVT. Again, your not stating a price-point, when you walk away from that Contour you're letting him assume that the $7,800 car you were looking at was too much for you, but the $6,000 aren't good enough and he'll be afraid that you'll walk off buying nothing if he doesn't meet up.

I think you could definitely get $7,000+tax. $6700 is pushing it, as the dealer probably paid at or above $6,000 for it as a trade.

He wants you in that more expensive car, but not at the expense of profit margin. If he knows he can get twice as much profit next week on it, he'll keep it.

One more tip, if you've got something other than the Lightning, drive that. If the salesman knows his cars, and he sees you driving up in an SVT Lightning, he'll know that you know the value of the SVT Contour and it's what you came for.

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