5 Strategic Times to Buy a Car for the Best Deals and Discounts

Let’s start with the most obvious answer: the holidays are generally a great time for deals and discounts because of the expected high demand. It’s also the season of spending, since people have either saved or earned a lot by this time.

For car dealerships, this means slashing their prices and throwing in promos for every car purchase to meet their year-end quotas, as well as to welcome the incoming year’s fresh fleet of new car models. In fact, foreign studies reveal the final months of the year as having the highest discount rate for automobiles, at a whopping 6.1%.

Business always booms for car dealerships around the holidays, because of people who want to reward their good efforts with the car they’ve been saving up for or individuals who want to gift a loved one with the wheels of their dreams. Furthermore, the Christmas season lends a lot of free time for potential car buyers, a prerequisite for a more mindful car purchase. Maybe a new car for Christmas will make your holidays truly merry.

Speaking of quotas, car dealers also have to make their monthly or quarterly success measures, so the end of the month or of every quarter should be a good time to shake on a car deal. This means that, aside from the end of the year, March, June, and October are the friendlier months for a car purchase.

But this isn’t as set in stone as during the holiday seasons though. Since dealerships might make their quotas way ahead of schedule, they might be less motivated to give discounts or include incentives since they’ve already received their bonus.

Otherwise, the month’s or quarter’s ending should benefit car buyers. As always, this will entail research too. Drive past high volume dealers who could easily make their targets, and head towards those who seem to be working extra hard to close deals off. Negotiate, inquire about incentives, and you should get yourself a pretty good car deal to cap off your quarter.

This one’s a bit trickier, since weekdays make up most of the year, but there’s a good reason behind buying a car during business hours.

For one, any other time when the majority of the population aren’t too busy – weekends, public holidays, Christmas break – is a time when car dealerships might be brimming to the door. They won’t have time to talk to everyone, which means your plan to haggle will hardly push through. Weekdays aren’t like this, and with most people at work, you’ll have the leisure to let yourselves discuss the deal more, perhaps even have the store all to yourself.

Also, buying on a weekend, preferably on a Monday or Tuesday gives you an extra edge by getting that Monday morning hype to start off the business week right. It might sound ridiculous at first, but for businesses that treat first customers as a blessing, this might translate into giving you better incentives.

This might sound like extreme nitpicking, but the logic doesn’t lie.

Everyone working their nine-to-fives – car dealers included – might be burning to close businesses at the end of a long day. For the eager car buyer, this translates to a relatively easier haggle, where the other party just quickly concedes to your bargain or at least opens themselves up more to your terms.

Try to visit a car dealership just as people are clocking out, maybe around half past four or five. For a salesman who can’t seem to sell a million-peso model, a customer at the end of the day might just look like their bearer of good fortune, their last chance to chalk up a win, so they won’t be too hard to haggle with.

Nonetheless, a bright and friendly disposition when entering the dealership always helps, so that both of you walk out of the shop in a good mood.

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This one is very particular for its own sake. For car buyers who are looking to nab a convertible model, reaching an agreement on a rainy day might bestow better prices and promos. Additionally, deals on four-wheel drives might be better made during downpours.

For convertibles, it’s a matter of demand. These models are barely wanted during the wet season because of their specific features, so they’re sold at a cheaper price around this time. This reason also rolls the other way: searching for a good convertible on summer days might therefore be a pricier endeavor since it’s when demand is up.

On the other hand, it’s a matter of performance when it comes to four-wheel drives. Marketed as an all-terrain vehicle that can withstand any weather conditions, these cars are costlier during the wet season since it’s when they are more often tested. Thus, a better deal might shine through for you when the sun’s out.