Overhaulin'

What is the best month to get a good deal on a new car?

Historically in which month of the year do car dealerships have the best offers/incentive packages and are most flexible with negotiations?

Public Comments

1. End of the month for most places. They want to have a good quota by selling the most cars themselves.
2. November and December seem to be the best months to buy a car. The dealers know that most people want to save money for the Holidays Christmas and Jan sales etc so they try to make things more tempting for prospective buyers. Also try to buy towards the end of a month, dealers have to make certain amounts each month so again want your money bad if they are struggling one perticular month.Another way to get a good deal, if you dont mind being a little behind, is wait till the model your after is getting updated or 'facelifted' the dealers will still have the older models in stock and will be looking to shift them before the new stuff. Hope this helps
3. November and December are typically the slowest months due to the holidays. Most people would rather spend time with family than sleazy salesmen at a dealership. Go on Thanksgiving or Christmas......
4. Although everyone likes to think November, December will provide the best deals, the best deals don't only refer to the lowest price. The "best deal" is the exact car you want, for what you want to spend, something that is highly unlikely in november, or december. True, they usually are less than the next model year, but they have been sitting around for months, test driven, passed over because of color, trim, wheels, whatever. There is no "best" time to buy a car. Deals change monthly, based on the supply of the manufacturer. In my experience, the "best" deals are in april and august. But again, that will change from year to year.
5. End of month is a great time to BUY your new car, but it is NOT the best time to make your first dealership visit. Salesmen do try harder to make sales at the end of the month, which is about the last five days of the calendar month. In addition to the end of the month, there are better and worse times of the year to buy. Best time of the year to buy is the end of December, in most dealerships. Dealerships try to make specific quotas for end of month AND end of calendar year, and it is not a popular time to buy, so sales can slump seriously and they will try harder to make a sale, which means a better bargain. If you shy away from buying in the winter because of bad weather, think again: bad weather is when you WANT to be in the car, testing it’s foul weather capabilities. Other good times of year to buy are end of August and end of September because the old models are taking up space on the dealership property, and they want to make room for the new models to come in. If your heart is not set on a brand new model, this is an excellent time to buy a perfectly good new car that happens to have been manufactured a few months earlier. There is a very important BUT to this end of month advice: Do NOT make your very first visit to the dealership at the end of the month. Go to the dealership at the beginning or middle of the month, test drive the cars, get some info, then go home and give yourself two to three weeks to get the best financing. THEN go back at month's end armed with full information and a buying plan. Give yourself a day or two extra in case the first dealership doesn't work out and you need to go to another one. This is a big purchase, don't try to do it all in an afternoon!
6. End of December is the best time to walk into a dealership and buy a car. The dealer has a very low volume of sales during the festive month and they will be more than happy if you buy and register the car in December. Also each and every dealer has an yearly target to achieve so its always best for them to do one more sale. It all counts you know.