Planning to buy a car? Here's how to get a good bargain

Dubai: With the auto market down at least 35 per cent this year and 2010 models set to hit showrooms, prospective buyers are in the best position to bargain with dealers.

The road to a sweet deal begins with understanding that vehicles are a commodity and should be treated as such, as well as discerning what you don't know—but should find out—before you hit the showroom.

Scott Painter, CEO of Truecar.com, said consumers should find out exactly what the dealer paid for a vehicle (its true cost); research incentives, and determine how much others are spending on the same vehicle—all before hitting the showroom.

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The availability of that data on the internet adds some much-needed transparency to the auto industry, Painter says, since the price differential between someone who pays more for an SUV than someone else "almost perfectly" correlates with how much information the buyer has.

"Every dealer that we sit down with, when they first hear that we're publishing costs, says, 'What are you guys doing? You're going to kill us! It's a race to the bottom now,'" Painter said.

"Our answer is, 'Actually, it's not. An educated consumer who realizes that there's no more for you to give has a sense of what's fair. A sustainable transaction is what people want--a sustainable, fair deal,'" Painter said.

But be realistic, counsels Jack Nerad, executive editorial director for Kelley Blue Book.

He said that just because some cars, like large sedans, are going for lower-than-normal prices this summer, consumers shouldn't expect "some kind of homerun, once-in-a-lifetime deal. It's not like a half-off kind of thing or a going-out-of-business sale that you might expect."

Instead, arm yourself with sales data that will help to realistically set pricing expectations, he said.

Of course, most experts say the sales trough will have permanently bottomed out by later this year and certainly by 2010. So get those deals while you can.