Some great advice on this thread, thanks all.
My two cents (some already covered here, sorry for repetition):
When buying a new car, do your research.
This is very important. Going into any negotiating situation not knowing what you want is a sure sign of failure. The car dealer negotiates day in day out and can sniff a weak negotiator out straight away.
Once you know EXACTLY the make, model colour that you want, only then start to look for prices.
Go onto
www.carzone.ie and see what the same spec of car is going for one year later. Get an idea of depriciation then. You can also use this to your advantage when negotiating.
How?
When discussing price on a new car mention the resell value of the car as being rather low - hence your low offer...
Anyway getting back on track.
So you have all your information to hand.
Now go visit your car dealer.
State the make and model of car you want, and take it for a test drive.
Do not under any circumstances let them know why you want the car... If you say your old one broke down and you want a new one, the sales person will know you are a strong candidate as someone looking to buy a car - desperately. You are less likely to get a good deal when being emotionally involved in a negotiation. Car sales people can see this in you.
So when driving it the sales person may ask
"So is this for you?"
Doing this has done a couple of things.
The sales person has now got you to state your position. Saying its for you means to the sales person that they dont need to convince anyone else other than you.
You therefore can make the buying decisions.
So it's best to say it's for someone else, who is out of the country.
Saying it's for your dad and the salesperson may say, "well when can we get him down here to look at it? Is he local? We can drive over to him."
Be careful what you tell them.
So Using a Higher Reference (i.e your brother who is out of the country) you have indicated that you are buying the car for your brother and that you have been given a price to work with.
The sales person may say
"what is the price you can buy the car for?"
Careful here too... don't get pinned down.
Say something like
"Well I have rang around several garages and feel that 36,650 is a fair price to pay for the car"
The car might be worth 45,000 but you have indicated flexibility in your words.
The sales person will say
"I cant possibly let that go for that sort of money... I will get fired."
So in turn you say "Well what is your very best price you can let this go for?"
See what he says. he might say 42,000
Ok, so we are getting somewhere.
You are still 5,000 apart you say. (You would be happy to buy the car for 40,000 but 36,650 was your wish price).
"We are 5 thousand apart here, sales person. What can we do now and secure the purchase?"
What you are doing here is trying to get him to split the difference... He may very well say
"OK let's make it 40,000 and I can't go any lower than that"
Just a few words I hope will help shed some light in negotiating situations.
I hope it helps!
Kevin