If you have decided to purchase a vehicle, whether it be a new or a used one, there are some preliminary decisions that you must make now. The most obvious one deals with the venue where you will go to obtain your car. Given how the rise of internet-based businesses is at an all-time high, there are now countless ways to purchase practically everything. In terms of cars, the days when you could only rely on dealerships are long behind us. Nowadays, these providers are forced to compete with online and private sellers.
In reality, however, there are still countless reasons why you should always consider going to a dealership to find your new vehicle. After all, there is a reason why their business model remains successful even in the e-commerce era. So, what are some of the greatest benefits of choosing to buy your car from a dealership and not a private or online seller?
Knowledgeable Salespeople
Although most sellers will be fairly knowledgeable about the item that they are trying to sell, dealership salesmen and women are unmatched in this area. Simply consider the fact that their entire job revolves around getting to know different types of cars. When you are transacting with a private seller, you will most likely be able to get answers to all of the questions about the car in question. If you veer off and ask some comparison-based questions, though, there is a good chance that the seller will lack the necessary knowledge.
Dealership representatives, on the other hand, are generally trained to know the most significant characteristics of practically every vehicle that is on their lot. Even when they do not, they can momentarily find accurate information by communicating with one of their associates. Thus, failing to go to a car dealership means that you are foregoing an experience where most, if not all, of your questions will be answered.
Help with Financing
According to a seasoned car expert who knows all the ins and outs of the car buying process, Doug Ross Barrie, the main advantage of dealerships relates to financing. Since Americans owe over $1 trillion on vehicles, it is impossible to argue that car loans are not amongst the most common types of lending in the nation.
If you are attempting to get a favorable rate, you may find yourself in a situation where private or online sellers are quite futile. The reason why is that most of these parties will not be able to do much in terms of helping you qualify for a loan. Even the online sellers that have in-house financing will take a backseat to traditional dealerships as getting the entire process taken care of without ever seeing someone face-to-face is still quite challenging.
With old-fashioned dealerships, however, obtaining the right financing is incomparably easier. Since these businesses have relationships with many large lenders, they are often able to facilitate the entire borrowing process. The way that they do so is by placing a single inquiry on your credit and using the information as many times as necessary to get you approved for the desired terms. If you try to go through multiple banks on your own, you will end up with a credit inquiry for every single institution that you apply through. Doing so is certainly going to be the worse out of the two since each credit inquiry drops your credit score and snowballing them will result in issues that could take months or years to fix.
More Variety
Doug Ross Barrie further reminds that car dealerships will have a lot more variety available to you at all times. Private sellers cannot even compare here as they are just selling one car. And even though you could make a case for online companies, you will still seldom have the ability to go and see the car that you are interested in whenever you can. Hence why dealerships continue to maintain their competitive advantage over all opponents in this category. Just think about the fact that dealers are constantly turning over the cars that they have on their lot, thus, making room for the new ones.
Moreover, if you are undecided on the specific vehicle that you will buy, a dealership will almost always have a few options to choose from. This is perfect for individuals who have figured out the type and category, but not the exact make and model of their future car. For instance, if someone wants to obtain a mid-size truck, a dealership will usually be able to showcase everything from a GMC Canyon or a Chevy Colorado to a Toyota Tacoma or a Ford Ranger. Trying to find all four of those options via private seller is borderline impossible and doing it over the internet means that you will not get a chance to try any of the four alternatives.
You Can Find Respected Dealers
The last thing that you should keep in mind is that buying from a dealership gives you the ability to start the process on a high note. The way that you would do so is by only focusing on dealers that have an impeccable reputation. In translation, you would do some preliminary research and find the providers that have the highest average ratings and the highest rates of customer satisfaction. Once again, doing something like this with private sellers is impossible because they are not in the business of flipping vehicles, which means that you can rarely verify their track record. Additionally, online sellers are nowhere near as experienced since nearly all of them have been around for less than a decade.
Therefore, it is imperative that you at least give dealerships some consideration. Even if that is not who you end up with, completely leaving them out of the equation would be an enormous mistake that could cost you a lot of money in the long run.
