Car Buying Mistakes – The Back End

Car buying mistakes made on the back end?

What is that?

In the vernacular of car dealers the back end part of the deal takes place in the finance manger’s office (F&I).

If you know nothing else about this part of the car buying process, know that the F&I person at the dealership is a sales person. Their job is to sell you products. Their job is to get the highest interest rate on your car loan that they can with sending you running out of their office.

They are responsible for the profitability of their department. If their sales don’t meet management and ownership’s demands and goals, they will eventually be fired.

Again, just so you have no question, the F&I manager is not your friendly financial advisor making sure that your money is most efficiently spent.

The point here is, and this is where many people give back much if not more than what they gained on the front end of the deal, don’t relax at this point in your car negotiations. If you do, it will cost you money. In fact, stay focused and in negotiating mode.

You may even come across salespeople and F&I people that may imply that in order for you to get the deal that you worked hard to negotiate on the front end of the car deal you have to do your financing through the dealership.

This is NOT true.

In fact, as a student of this website, you have already done your financing homework and know exactly what your credit score is and also how much money you qualify for and for what interest rate. And since you have done the aforementioned, you can now hold the dealership’s feet to the fire and let them know you would be happy to finance through them is they can indeed provide you with the best (or better) terms than you already know you can get.

Make sure you read the contract. I know, this sounds way too basic of advice, but you would be surprised how many people don’t do this. Also, make sure that anything that you have negotiated during the front end part of the car deal gets put in writing.

If, for example, you negotiated a year of free car washes or something such that made you feel good about the deal, make sure you have it in writing and signed before you sign any contracts.

In summary, just to be perfectly clear, the F&I office is another opportunity for the dealership to sell you something, and sell you something at a good profit. Anything they try to sell you, including interest rates, has dealer profit and sales commission in it.

Therefore, any of these prices are open for negotiating.

Stay focused, you’re almost done once you hit the F&I department at the car dealership… don’t give all your hard car buying and negotiating work back at this point.