How much should I pay?

"BETA-2K" wrote in news:ko6dnSNDfph7mqXYnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:

You're welcome. I'm sure it will help you save much more than the cost of the subscription.

I'm in Camden county a lot, but I live in Mercer, and have no experience in your area with car buying. I can tell you that a friend of mine did very well in Burlington. I don't know the name of that dealer, but it may just be Burlington Hyundai. I have purchased exclusively at Brad Benson Hyundai in South Brunswick (only about 15-20 mins. from me) so far, though I have also shopped at Colonial in Trenton.

Good Luck. Eric

IMHO, Consumer Reports has never been worthwhile or accurate on what they report. They are very biased in their reporting based on who know what. They have rated cars and appliances in the past that I have owned and every one of them was erroneously reported to have defects and deficiencies that I never saw. I wondered what in the world they had been looking at. It was like watching a Cassius Clay boxing match reported by Howard Cossell. You wondered what fight he was watching. Like I said, it's my opinion, but I wouldn't take their magazine to the outhouse. Totally worthless. I sure as heck wouldn't pay them extra to give me price quotes.

Tom

Thanks. It's called City Auto -- Hyundai City. I was there yesterday and I am going back there tomorrow.

The worst appliance we ever owned was rated as Best Buy by Consumer Reports. Bought it on the strength of their report. Never did get more than two months out of it, the loaner fridge was a much better deal.

You may want consider a new (2006) Santa Fe. I see that Hyundai is offering a $3000.00 rebate.Just a thought. Barry/Austin

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"Tom" wrote in news:ztVZg.484$ snipped-for-privacy@bignews4.bellsouth.net:

Tom, you are certainly entitled to your opinion. Although I don't see the bias that you are talking about, I do think that they have a semi-critical flaw. They should purchase about 5 examples of each product they test, possibly from different locations, to get a representative quality sample of the product. I think they refrain from doing that because the average customer can't do that either. But I think it would help with the quality and reliability ratings a bit.

With that said, I personally have never been disappointed by them EXCEPT for their automobile ratings. I do, however, think that their new/used car purchasing guides are very useful. Especially the financial portion.

Eric

After reading the prior posts about the amount of discount off the MSRP that people are getting, that's exactly what I was thinking. I'm signing up for the $39 Consumer Reports deal this morning and will be looking at prices for a new 2006. I started thinking that if I was willing to pay $15,000 for a

2005 with 22,000 miles, that may not be too far from the price for a new 2006. And, while I like the fact that the 2007's have side curtain air bags in the front and back, I am not sure I like the new look of the 2007's.

After you drop the $39 for the 'Consumer Reports deal', let us know how much off of list price they told you you should get. I am geniunely interested to see if it is worthwhile. Compare your price to that shown on

Please let us know if it's a good deal or not.

Thanks,

Tom

I have never used Consumer Reorts car services even though I do subscribe. I have always just gone to

and have never been disappointed. The $39 may be a good idea for some (but I can't come to grips as to why since everything you would ever want to know can be obtained FREE off the Internet) but if you do your research, you'll be able to buy a car for the same or LESS than what Consumer Reports says you should pay. My purchase of my 2007 Limited Sonata is a perfect example as I paid a few hundred less than what Consumer Reports stated I should have paid.

You need to know what questions to ask like:

1. How much in dealer hold-back monies are there?
2. How much is advertising costs torwards dealer invoice?

Each of these are fully negotiable and I had them both given back to me as part of my deal.

The ball is in your court gentlemen but you don't need to spend $39 to get the answers to your questions! Just send it to me:)

Larry

I researched on the net with Yahoo, Edmunds, NADA, and Kelly.

When I was satisfied with what the car was actually worth and knew exactly how much I was willing to pay, I sent an email to 8 Hyundai dealers with my offer.

Four met my terms and I purchased my 2005 Santa Fe from the closest one.

Simple, no hassle car shopping. And yes I feel like I got a great deal.

Norm

I signed up for the $39 3-month unlimited new car pricing and $26 3-month unlimited used car pricing. I'm glad I did it because I wanted to have some idea what would be reasonable for me to pay for either a new 2006 or a used

2005 or 2004.

I looked at he

website and the new car "target" prices seemed similar to what Consumer Reports pricing showed. I just didn't get exactly how the carsdirect.com plan would actually work. But, if I was looking for a new car, that might be a good way to go.

For used cars, the carsdirect.com pricing and ads seemed out of whack -- on the high side and the ads are not very complete at all. What I ended up doing was looking at

, , , and and the using the used car pricing guide through Consumer Reports to get an idea of what a realistic price would be. I ended up buying a 2004 Santa Fe LX 4WD 3.5L engine, leather seats etc., and 22,560 miles for $14,300 which was less than the pricing Consumer Reports said were typical, and which a lot less than the $15,995 asking price on the vehix.com ad for that particular vehicle and dealership.

I bought my Sonata through Carsdirect, and I also had the CR pricing report. The prices were virtually identical for both. My understanding is that the dealer pays Carsdirect what amounts to a finders fee and agrees to offer the no-haggle pricing which still has enough profit in it to keep the dealer happy.

It is not the lowest possible price. If you went in a negotiated for hours, you could probably get a better deal. But the pre-negotiated price saves a lot of time and that happened to matter a _lot_ to me. I had no time to play. My entire time at the dealer from showing up to keys in pocket was around an hour basically.

Downsides: I did have to call and nag my Carsdirect rep repeatedly to get them to tell me OK, come get the car. They never actually said those words. After a week of no action, I ended up just showing up at the dealer and said here I am, where is my car. Bit of a shock to them but they already had ALL my info from Carsdirect and got with the program immediately. No problems.

Right. Noticed the same thing. The used car ads are paid ads placed and priced by the dealer. It's basically just a used car classified service.

By buying new you also get a better warrenty