The key to a good used car buying experience is to understand that most salesmen are sleaze and to deal with them anyway. Allow me to relate my experience in buying my car. I wanted a '99-up Miata with low miles, ABS, 6-speed, sport suspension (which includes LSD) and the factory body kit if possible. 10th Anniversary Miatas also just so happen to have all the features I was looking for with the exception that ABS was optional, and a rare option at that.

First I found an '01 that had all the things I wanted, but it got sold out from under me. I wasn't quite ready to buy at that point. I then went searching on Autotrader for cars that had all the features I wanted. Found a few 10AEs but they didn't have ABS. Once the search started to narrow, I got preapproved for financing.

Each time I went to look at the car, I made an appointment with a salesman. This is good because you're not a random walk-in getting sniffed at by sharks. You show up, and you say, "I have an appointment with so and so," and the sharks back off. The salesman is then already relaxed because you came there to see him.

In my case, I went to look at a 10AE which as far as I knew didn't have ABS. But I popped the hood, and there it was. Took it for a drive, it was in good condition with a few little issues, and overall seemed worth it. So I start pointing out these little issues to the salesman, he brings the manager out, and they're both lookin at these things with me. I knew what I should have been paying for the car, as opposed to what they were advertising it for. There was a gulf of a few grand. So the manager starts writing down the things saying they'll fix em as part of the deal, they start shuffling me off to write up the deal, and I just went along because I knew I was ready to buy if the circumstance allowed it. No point trying to make it harder on the sharks, that would have just made for more wrangling over numbers.

So I already knew that the price I was willing to pay for the car was $12.4k. The ad was like $15.8k. I said to them, okay, I like the car, and you guys are going to fix the couple of issues with it, so let's deal. The sticker on the window says 15.8k, your ad on the internet is 1000 less than that, but I'm still thinkin a bunch less. Let's say like 11k. Salesman did the usual song and dance about how that's such a low price, blah blah blah. I told him to check the price with the manager anyway. So again the manager comes out and is like, you're tryin to wreck me here, more of the usual sharky crap. There's this back and forth going on where I let them bump me up a few hundred then they try for a bit more. This went on for another half an hour or so, but I kept my cool because I know all the shit they were doing was just part of the act.

Finally we get to a number which is what I was trying for in the first place, we finish up the paperwork, I didn't have to bother with the finance guy because I had my own financing, and that was that. I left the car with them so they could fix the couple things they said they would (the dealer was not exactly close and I didn't want to take the car home only to drive it back there a whole bunch of times) and I left. Next morning I called up my bank, closed the paperwork on the loan, had them mail the check, and once the work was done on the car I drove down to the dealership with a friend and picked up the car.

There are two reasons I can see for why you're having so much trouble getting this car bought. Either you're trying to get a car for a price that is totally unheard of, or you're just not working the process sufficiently. I think it's probably a bit more the latter than the former. It just means that you need to realize that the initial posture of any car dealer, especially in used cars where they're far more haggle oriented, is going to be that the price is what the price is advertised at. Used cars are lower volume and they're tryin to make their money on high individual grosses. The only way you're going to do a good deal like you want is to really sit down and wrangle out a deal. Remember, at the end of the day the car dealers are tryin to sell cars. But if you expect everything to happen right away and don't present yourself as a customer that's worth wrangling with, you're never gonna get to that point.