Buying a Car in 2022-Ep 2
In the last episode, we discussed the market situation, supply chain, car buying process, and our fears of walking into a dealership in the previous episode. During this period the month has ended and the situation has not improved at all rather Feds decided to increase the interest rate by another 0.75%
During this period the inflation has actually dropped to 8.26% from an all-time high of 9.0% vs. A long-term average of 3.26%. The situation may be improving slowly but it will take long before we could even get closer to the average inflation rate. Car sales have been hit hard by lower production, slow supplies, and control of inventory by OEMs. As a consumer, we have developed a habit of increasing negotiating the prices of cars to somewhat unacceptable levels.
We have been providing unreliable data from a lot of websites that claim to be consumer advocates, but actually sell their data in the form of leads to dealers. These websites don't charge anything to consumers but actually take advantage of the disparity in the pricing due to various factors in the market created through incentives. TrueCar claims to provide consumers the lowest possible price based on various factors like actual sale data, average price customers paid in a zip code, and pre-negotiated deals through various banks, credit unions, insurance companies, and millions of other organizations. According to their qualifications, a consumer can qualify for discounts for unlimited reasons. All the OEMs offer Student discounts, customer cash, Owner's Loyalty, Military Appreciation, and Veterans Appreciation that drive traffic to the dealerships.
All these companies are basically data banks and they buy the lists of the buyers through various sources and manipulate the data to their advantage by marketing it to industries like credit cards, banks, credit unions, retail stores, airlines, movie theaters, automotive dealers, insurance companies and housing market.
In the coming episodes, we will discuss the most accurate ways of buying a car in 2022 and discuss types of consumers, types of dealerships, the process of selecting the right car, financing, aftermarket products, maintenance, vehicle service contracts, Gap contracts, Tire and Wheel protections, FAB and Paint Protections and lots of products offered by dealerships.