Considering we all know that the product itself is coming from the same source, new car pricing is sort of a game. A dealer can offer you a good price, good service, or hopefully both. Since I live in a large metro area I have about 5 dealers to choose from, so I tend to choose best price for the purchase and then convenience for service (I have one dealer a few miles from home, and one within a mile of work). I probably would even drive 150 miles to save $1000 off a car if it was exactly what I was looking for. I also tend to ignore sales gimmicks like 0 money down or first payment free, but I can say from past experience that a "loaner for life" is a totally worthwhile benefit if you can get it, especially if that includes a loaner even for your routine visits like oil changes.
Just a suggestion, but even if you do have a trade-in keep the discussion of its value entirely separate from the negotiation over the price of your new car. As you know from looking at KBB values, dealers make decent money off of trade-ins, and it allows them to play games with a sliding scale that allows them to offer you a good trade-in value, but then increase the price on the new car to compensate for paying more for the trade-in. Or vice versa. So keep that trade-in discussion separate. My experience is also that you will almost always get a better price for your trade-in if you take it to places like CarMax, or even other local used car lots. Obviously you'll also get even more for it, if you're willing to sell it yourself.
Buying when you don't "need" to buy, and when you're not in a hurry will allow you to get the best price. Since I wasn't 100% sure I wanted to buy (at that particular moment anyway) it took over a month between 1st contact and when a local dealer decided they were willing to sell me the vehicle I was interested in, for the price I wanted to pay. I did my homework, and went for an amount that was at the very bottom end of what TrueCar said others were able to buy for nationally (which was lower than Edmunds, nada, kbb, etc. prices), and then stuck to that number. It was a couple % lower than invoice price, and honestly invoice price is the most I'd ever consider paying for a car given the holdbacks and incentives that dealers get off that price.
With the exception of a dealership visit to test drive and finalize what options I wanted, I did everything by email. Almost all dealers have internet pricing at this point, and somehow it seems to come in lower than what they'll sell you the same car for off the show room floor? No idea why? Just for grins, when I got home from my test drive I requested an internet price for the vehicle I had test driven, and their "no haggle" internet price was about $800 less than the lowest price they were willing to let me walk out of the show room over? Go figure? I didn't want that car anyway, since it had options I didn't want to pay extra for.
My simple directive to the dealers was: don't give me a price you're not willing to put down in writing and make sure you include all fees, etc. so I know what the bottom line total is. They probably hated this, but with the exception of one dealership (who I stopped negotiating with) they were respectful and polite about it. And yes.. I did use the fact that one dealer offered me a better price as a way to get other dealers to beat it, since I wasn't sure if I was ever going to reach my target price. I did all this via email, so it wasn't very labor intensive, it just took a while wall clock time.
At first I was told my target price had too little profit for too popular a car, but like I said eventually one of the dealers agreed. I have no idea if they did this to meet some end of the month sales quota or what? But I don't think that mattered from my perspective. I was actually pleased that it was the dealer who had provided the most informative, best sales service who met my price, but like I said, at that point I had already decided what specifically I wanted on the car and since it was probably going to be a factory order or dealer transfer anyway it didn't particularly matter which dealer was willing to sell it to me.
My wife also just bought a new Beamer (expecting delivery in a few weeks), and FWIW I was able to use much of the above approach to save her some serious money also. She's not very patient person though, and it was a struggle to ensure that she didn't walk out of the first dealership we visited with a car that wasn't exactly what she wanted, for a price that was 100's over dealer invoice. Despite knowing she could do better, sales droids can be very persuasive. It was then really hard for her to be patient while we waited for the dealers to come back with prices via email, so this approach isn't for everybody. But in the end she was happy with the result. I wasn't sure if the hoity toity BMW dealers would respond in the same way as Ford dealers did, but in the end I think she got an even better deal than I did. Her price was below the bottom end of what TrueCar said others were paying, over $1500 under invoice (not sure what that implies about BWM's?). She is soo buying me dinner at some fancy schmancy restaurant with the money she saved!
Some other parting thoughts are. Maybe the above approach might not work for you. YMMV. It's possible that I was just lucky on these buys. Some of the dealers I contacted just didn't want to lower their prices, and I might have been forced to decide if I was willing to pay more than my target price. Another thing to consider though are that "time is money" and many people don't want to put in the time to save a few $$. Nor do they necessarily think that what $$ you save is going to be worth that effort, and that's totally o.k. IMO, if you get the car you want for a price you're willing to pay, then you should be happy. Also, FWIW I don't recommend buying the service plan warranty when you buy the car. Avoid the upsell if you can, and just tell them you're not interested at that time. If you plan to keep the car for a while having the Ford ESP is good piece of mind, but you can always buy the service plans later at no penalty (I think so long as you're still under bumper to bumper factory warranty). The price is likely to be lower later from the same dealer, so long as you don't wait till the last minute, and according to some nice folks on here they say you can buy the Ford ESP online from places that have much better prices than your local dealer will give you. Lastly, all of the above relates to purchases. I did a lot less research on leasing, but from what I know if you're planning to keep the vehicle for less than 5 years, since most of the value depreciation is up front, leasing is almost always going to be a better deal for you than buying (unless you can sell it privately for top $$).
Hopefully this post doesn't come across as all superior, high and mighty, or sound like I specifically know what I'm doing. I don't buy cars often enough to necessarily be good at it, I just tend too overthink things and sometimes that can actually work as a benefit. I'm just sharing what I did when we bought on the off chance it helps someone else. Good luck.
