The Most Important Questions to Ask When Buying a Car

Buying a car is not the same as buying most other things because there are many details and aspects of the purchase that many car buyers never realize until it is too late. Before you make the wrong choices and regret your transaction for years to come there are specific and important questions to ask when buying a car. These questions that I am referring to have to do with the legal and contractual obligations you make when you purchase and finance an automobile.

Let's start out making one thing perfectly clear and that is the fact the car dealership, your car salesman and the finance manager are rarely advising you according to your best interests. They are there to make money by selling you a car and the money they make will come from your pocket if you are not getting the answers to the questions to ask when buying a car. Whether you are buying your first car or you have bought many cars over the years, you are not as familiar with the process of buying an automobile and the highly trained sales people that sell cars for a living.

Protect Yourself with Questions to Ask When Buying a Car

During the process of buying a car a large portion of the time spent is selecting and test driving cars until you find the vehicle that you want to buy. Once the car salesman has landed you on a car (slang for picking the car for you to buy) the next step is to sit down and work out the numbers and or negotiate. Most people finance their car purchase and therefore the car salesman starts to present the numbers to you as monthly car payments. You may try to talk price, but the car sales person is trained to keep your focus on the monthly car payment. You will have questions to ask when buying a car, but they will do their best to talk about the monthly car payments.

You and your car sales person can talk about the features of the new car, how nice it drives, price of the car, the trade-in value of your old car and any numbers of things, but when it comes down to it, most people will make a car buying decision based on the monthly car payment. Now that you agree to buy the car for the specific monthly payment you assume that all is done and all that is left is signing the paperwork. This is the point when you must go over the questions to ask when buying a car.

These car buying questions are a must before you go into the finance or business office and start signing paperwork. The questions to ask when buying a car consist of the following;

What price am I paying for the car?
What is the Interest Rate that I am being charged?
What is the term (number of months or years) of the car financing agreement?
What is allowance for my Trade In car?
Does the finance agreement have a balloon payment at the end?
If you owe money on your trade in car will the dealer be paying off the balance?

You may think that these questions to ask when buying a car are obvious, but you might be surprised how many people don't know the answers to these questions until it's too late and you have already driven away in your new car. At that point there is no going back. You signed a legal contract and regardless of what was said by your salesman, all that matters is what is written on the paperwork. Besides asking the questions for buying a car you must see them on the paperwork before signing. I am sure you have heard the saying that verbal agreements don't stand up in court. The signed car buying documents are all that matter.

Buying a car can be an overwhelming and intimidating process and the car dealership and the salesman count on that to make more money when they sell you a car. Be sure you know the answers to the questions to ask when buying a car before you sign any paperwork. The people that sell and finance cars are trained to keep your focus where they want you to focus rather than where you should be focusing.

Many people sign all the paperwork for buying an automobile without going over the questions to ask when buying a car only to find out after they got home and read all the documents that they overpaid for the car, were allowed less than discussed for their trade-in and will be making payments for a year longer than they thought. Protect yourself by getting the answers to all the car buying questions before making the purchase because it's too late after you take delivery.

Sometimes it happens because the process is overwhelming, sometimes you are excited about getting a new car and overlook the numbers and sometimes the personnel at the car dealership are very good at avoiding your questions and turning your attention to something else. Whichever it may be, you need to protect yourself by knowing the answers to the questions to ask when buying a car.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/James_Klark/697688