Photo by ryantxr
Ever wonder why it takes so long to buy a car - especially when you know what you want?
Jalopnik (via a reader, presumably a car dealer) explains:
Most of the larger transactions I make with my commercial customers take less than 30 minutes. They're usually 10-20 times higher than a "car deal". Typically if it takes that long it's because someone is being a moron. Here's the price, here's the paperwork. Shake my hand and let's go.
It's the process of this - We didn't make much on the vehicle. What we'll do next is send the customer through the meat grinder. Turn them over to the "aftermarket guy" hopefully he'll sell them some bullshit product. Then while he's working his deal the finance department is busy shopping your rate so they can either make a couple of points on the interest and then squeeze a warranty upsell into that $450-$495 payment you reluctantly agreed on that is actually $425 a month at a lower term than what you agreed to. This way it looks like a great value when they show you that for just a little more you can have all these products that you really don't need. It does take time to finish paperwork, there's a lot of data to be entered into the loan application and at times you have to call the lender to work them for a lower rate. Most banks have what they call a rate matrix based off of where your FICO score falls. Based on your score the dealership can actually do what they call a "spot delivery" where they don't even send the info to the bank until the next day. If you're below about a 675 FICO they may have issues doing this. If you're paying cash, the process should take no longer than 45 minutes.
