Edmonds.com vehicle guide helps you save thousands of dollars by allowing dealers to compete for your business. Having been in the used car business, I have learned many secrets when it comes to getting the best deal. The bottom line is the more informed you are the less money you will leave on the table.

Edmonds.com has some great tools to help you make the most informed decisions that will ultimately help you negotiate the best deal. One of the best features is the FREE Price Quote. It allows you to select the vehicle you are interested in and have multiple dealers start bidding for your business before you even step foot in a dealership. I actually purchased my last car over the phone instead of spending hours and hours in the showroom negotiating.

The following is a step by step guide with some useful terminology:

1. Enter the Make and Model on the landing page
2. The national base price will be displayed which gives you your first benchmark. Be sure to take note of both the MSRP & Invoice price.
3. Next, you can add the options & color you are considering to get a better feel for pricing that suits your style and needs.
4. Next you will see the TMV or True Market Value. This value is very important because it is calculated based on what others have paid for similar cars in the region you selected.
5. The Final and most important step is Getting Dealer Quotes. This allows the dealerships to compete for your business even before you step foot in the dealership. You can always begin negotiating over email or the phone. It sure beats sitting in a dealership for a full day.

So head on over to Edmonds.com & get started. Good luck and happy hunting. Tune in for more car buying tips to come in a latter post.

This past Friday, I used the edmonds.com service to price out a new Mercedes C350. I have to say that the deal i was being offered at one of the dealerships was pretty impressive. The MSRP was lowered by $3,500 based on a special incentive, and it ended up making more sense to buy than to lease an 09 because of the incentives on the 2008. We all know you usually get good deals on leases on next years models and good deals when buying on this year’s models. All in all i was happy about the edmonds.com service.

What happened next? We’ll i got a pretty bad salesperson calling me about visiting him at the other dealership. His sleaze sales tacktics completely insulted my intelligence and I will NEVER purchase from that person and have hesitations about buying from that dealership (Mercedes North Houston) because of the people they hire. The good thing about edmonds is that you have the ability to walk away over the phone and not answer the persons call. Imagine being stuck with “Alex” (the sleeze) at the dealership and not being able to escape for hours. So my advise — Always get headway over the phone before visiting a dealer.