Auto industry is a buyers’ market

The auto makers’ difficulties might benefit you at the local dealership.

With a lot of uncertainty surrounding the big three, people are hesitant to buy a car, but a slumping economy and slow auto sales mean people looking to for a new ride could be in the fast lane by the end of the year.

Red tag event, end of year sale, the best time to buy; you’ve heard car companies say it for years. But now it might actually be true.

Car companies traditionally give their largest discounts at the end of the year to try and make yearly quotas. Add to that the difficulty many dealers are having moving cars off their lots and it equals big sales for the consumer.

Danny Farthing has owned fifteen corvettes in his life and says he’s amazed by the current discounts. “I’ve never seen them marked down. Like that Z06 is close to $19,000 off the sticker marked down. That’s unheard of, well for me it is. I’ve never heard of it.

The discounts apply to both new and used cars. Jeff Gordon Chevrolet is offering rebates on cars they don’t usually discount, and offering larger than normal rebates on other cars.

Sales manager Don Dwulet said, “On certain models the rebates are the highest that I’ve seen in the time I’ve been here.”

Bruce Cavenaugh said with the lower prices on new models, prices on 2 and 3 year old cars are also down about twenty-five percent across the board. “There is no one brand or anything that is a better buy than anything else right now.”

While SUV’s have the biggest discounts, they aren’t the only cars on sale. There are plenty of discounts available on fuel efficient cars, but you’re still going to have to pay near full price for hybrid vehicles.

But good news could be on the way for those trying to get an auto loan. The FED says it will establish a $200 billion plan which will help provide more secure auto-loans.