Dog friendly vehicles

Tell him sure, you'll finance it, for 21K. Then let him do his fancy numbers game to make up the difference and instead of a 3 or 4 year, let him stretch it out to 6 and really make up some interest. Let him do all that paperwork, then walk in with your own check and buy it for 21K

I really, really want a CX-5, but I can't afford to buy a vehicle, so I'll just keep driving my POS early 90's vehicles. I have a Toyota car, and a GM truck, my 2 least favorite makes. :lol-sign: In general, I prefer American makes, but the CX-5 is so perfectly what I want in a vehicle, that I forgive it for being a Mazda.

I have a wariness about the Ford Escapes, because I know someone who had one, and the engine exploded in her driveway. Yes, really. Admittedly, her mechanic thought it was really weird and unusual, so maybe they don't really explode all the time, but I just can't get past that.

Oooh, that's brilliant. That's definitely worth a try! All the financing offers I've seen allow you to pay it off after 3-6 months anyway (and my bank will purchase/refinance the loan at a lower rate anyway, if necessary).

Volkswagen Jetta sportwagen. How's my passengers are you planning to take? If you fold one side of the seats down (so 3 ppl fit including the driver, you can put 2 crates in.

If you're interested I can measure my car for you and see exactly what fits..

That's basically what we did with our last 2 vehicles. I researched the price I wanted for the car we wanted. Walked in and told them what I wanted and what I was willing to pay. Not outlandish, but something I thought was reasonable. Of course I let them do their fancy financing and they both put the loans out to 5 and 6 years.

I made sure there was no prepayment penalty and I also had financing available from the bank before hand. Went in, signed the paper work, a month later, called the financing company asked for a payoff balance to confirm and sent them a check.

Then just paid off our bank loan. Saved quite a bit, I think we paid off almost 2 years earlier and the interest was over 2 points lower as well.

I have nothing to add to the vehicle side, I hate ford escapes, and mazdas, LOL, that said I also hate the way the new Grand Cherokees look as well.

But I will add a second nod to the Husky Liners, they will last forever, I am waiting for mine for the jeep to come in, we have them for our F-250 and they are fantastic!

We work closely with the nearby Ford dealership to put their customers in rental cars. We EASILY put 2-3 customers a day in a rental car that the dealership has to pay for, because that person's brand-new or under warranty Ford product crapped out on them.

So we are renting 60-90 cars a month to people who are dealing with mechanical issues with their Ford products. And we are a 200 car fleet.

If you get a low enough interest rate you can make a bit cash off it. Promotional 0 or .9 financing then invest in something that makes a better rate with the rest of the cash.

Its not going to make up the difference though unless you know what to pick and take some risk.

I pit dealers against each other via email (so it's in writing) and then take the top 3 and visit - saves a LOT of drive time! They come back with a higher number, well "so and so has it for _____ out the door (all inclusive), can you beat that?" If not, "thanks but I'm going with someone else" often works. I got my used RAV for about $2000 less than many dealers were selling the same model/year for.

I like the idea of telling them you're a math teacher up front, too. LOL

That's a great strategy too. They may not like the fact that someone isn't coming in the door so they can try and sell them something, but at the same time, nobody is coming and wasting time either.

It's this is what I want, this is what I want to pay, will you sell it for that price. you're not having to drive all over spending hours at a dealership, they don't have to spend 3 hours on one customer. Gone are the days of "I need your keys so our staff can check it out for trade in value" and then they play the game where they sit you in an office and keep you there for hours till you get pissed and demand your keys back NOW! I learned that lesson the hard way