7 Tips for Purchasing a Vehicle

Buying a car or truck can cause a lot of stress and anxiety. Past experiences may have you on high alert when buying your next vehicle. At John Elway Chevrolet we hope to change your perception of buying a car and make it an enjoyable experience for you. After all, you are buying a new car and that is pretty exciting.

Aside from our upfront discounted prices and commission free sales professionals, we want to provide you with a 7 tips for purchasing your next vehicle.

There are typically 2 reasons why consumers have problems when buying a vehicle:

1. Poor communication between the dealers and customers
2. A misunderstanding of the consumer's obligations (down payment, warranty coverage, etc)

It is important to think through your purchase decision and be comfortable with the terms and conditions. These tips will help prepare you for your purchase.

1. Determine the type of vehicle you want, need, and is within your budget. Often times consumers feel mislead or tricked because they choose a vehicle outside their budget. Find a monthly payment that works for you and work backwards to find a vehicle price range. Use our payment calculator for help.
2. Get all the facts you need to make a good decision. Consider the cost of insurance, maintenance expense, financing, etc. Reach out to your insurance company for an estimate, and do some research of cost of ownership for the vehicle you are interested in. 
3. Decide how you want to pay for the vehicle. Look at purchasing versus leasing. Leasing payments tend to be lower and the risk to the consumer tends to be lower because the vehicles residual value is predetermined at the time of sale. What are you willing to put down as a down payment? Down payment and the term (# of months) of your deal have the most effect on the monthly payment whereas, the interest rate has very little influence on your monthly payment. 
4. Federal law requires that new cars and trucks display a label showing the MSRP. Some dealerships will add their fees and add-ons to the MSRP and wait for you to negotiate the price back down. At John Elway Chevrolet, we discount our vehicles upfront. Every new car is marked with the MSRP and our Elway Discount.
5. If you are trading in your vehicle you can use several "Trade-In" programs that will give you what we call a "book" value for your vehicle. The important thing to understand is that these are still estimations and are only as accurate as the information you provide. Be realistic as to the condition of the vehicle to avoid any disappointment.
6. Get everything in writing. If the dealership does not want to provide you with copies of your contract you need to be wary. Likewise, make sure anything promised after delivery, such as repairs and accessories, are in writing. 
7. All of our new vehicles are covered by the manufacturer's warranty. It is important that you save a copy of that warranty and understand that you are responsible for the maintenance to keep the coverage in effect. If you ever question if making a modification may void your manufacturer warranty, please give our service department a call and they can help guide you.  

If you ever have questions you may contact any of our sales consultants. As non-commissioned sales representatives, their only goal is to answer your questions and give you a world class car buying experience. We hope these tips help relieve some of the stress and anxiety of buying a car. When you are in the market we hope you visit John Elway Chevrolet in Englewood, CO.