I ALLOWED MYSELF TO BE QUASI-CHEATED[CAVEAT: Read this only if you want to learn how to get a good deal at a new car lot]Here’s what happened to me…I went to a dealership that advertised a base model SUV for $6,000 off. Full MSRP was $24,500 and this kind of deep discount is almost unheard of on a car at this price point.I went that evening to go check it out. Our salesperson tried to brush me off, saying stuff like “Oh, that’s our ad car…let me show you these other cars” that happen to be more expensive. We played her game for a bit and then left.We get home and I checked the website later in the evening and they had dropped the price another $2,000. They did this before they closed. That’s a total of $8,000 off. So I clicked the button that indicated “get internet price”. Up until then, I’ve never clicked those buttons. So if you’ve ever wanted to know what happens, it just prompts you to fill out your info and they’ll contact you.The next morning, I called as they opened. I found out that the “internet price” is BS but it’s a great way to schedule to meet with someone about a specific car. So I made the appointment and before I hung up I asked “by the way what is the internet price?” Her response “oh we usually take a couple hundred dollars off the advertised price.” What they didn’t know is that I live only one mile away from the dealership and I cleared my schedule for the day.So I showed up early to throw them off a little. I didn’t want them to claim they already sold the car. Even though I have a smart phone, I wrote everything down about the car, including the VIN #. The VIN# is critical because it is the unique identifier of the car. I wrote all of this down just in case their Wi-Fi didn’t work. It turns out that I was glad I took this precaution.So the sales guy had to search for the keys. This took a good 10 minutes. Then we test drove the car. We went back to his desk and I said “just give me the out the door price.” The out the door price is the bottom line overall price. It’s the equivalent of an executive summary of a long article that no one wants to read. It forces them to show their hand for the entire deal. When he showed it to me he broke it out in his notes as he came up with the final price. I noted that the beginning price was $1,000 more than the advertised internet price. I then informed him that I really didn’t want to have to explore the prospect of figuring out “how low can this deal go”, I just wanted the bottom line up front. I already new that the advertised deal was the lowest they would go…I just wanted to know what the fees looked like that they would tack on.Then I mentioned “are you sure this is the same car as the one you have advertised?” He then said “let me check”. Sure enough it was a different car. Then he acted like he didn’t know what I was talking about. It’s at this moment I pulled out my handwritten notes and showed him the VIN#. He then said I’m not familiar with this deal (even though I made an appointment for this car specifically, and it was documented on the computer form I filled out which put a “hold” on the VIN#). At this point I almost walked away. Then he said “let me get the keys”.After another 20 minutes he came back and we hit the lot. Sure enough, after searching for another 20 minutes we found the car the keys went to…it was the wrong car yet again. At this point I figure he wants me to buzz off because someone might have made a mistake on the ad. So I wait for him to find the right keys. Another 10 minutes goes by.He reappears and we start looking. Turns out that it was smack dab in the middle of a sea of cars that was 20 cars long and 3 rows deep. It also had the oldest inspection tag. It was a pain to get it out but we did. We took it for a test drive and I put it through it’s paces. Finally, the right car. The one I came for. It had 700 miles on it and it was on the lot longer than the other cars of the same model. It was still a new car, never been titled, and was most likely used as a dealer car. No big problem for me.So I finally got my car located, identified and test drove. Then he works the numbers. He snuck in the delivery fee and tacked on tag, title, and tax. I challenged him on the delivery fee because it was accounted for on the full MSRP before the $8,000 off. I further pointed out that it was like paying twice for the delivery fee. Another way of looking at it is that the deal was really $7,400 off MSRP instead of $8,000. He wasn’t going to compromise on the delivery fee so I said fine and let him know that I was close to walking out the door.Then he does the loan and runs my credit check. I have great credit, yet he comes back and informs me that the best rate he found was at 6.99% interest with Ford Motor Credit. Yeah…right. However I had a way to roll out of it, by refinancing with State Farm. State Farm Insurance is now in the money loan and banking business. I learned about it recently and had already used it on another purchase. So I played the game of 6.99% but I informed the salesman that he really is wasting his time and my time. Then I pulled out my checkbook and told him that I’ll just write a check, no need for the loan. I didn’t want to do it that way but I just had enough to cover it. He informed me that he can’t accept a check because “we have to make a little money on this deal.” Now at first glance this sounded weird. But he was right. The dealership needs to make a little money. They were giving me a generous $8,000 off MSRP but at the same time they needed to nudge the bottom line by a couple hundred dollars. It’s a true negotiation in which I was saving thousands, and they were charging a few hundred dollars to save me thousands. It’s give and take. All true negotiations are give and take, the trick is to figure out how they are benefiting. It makes sense to spend a few hundred in fees and whatnot so that I can save a significant amount measured in thousands of dollars.They were really hoping I would be lazy and stay in that inflated loan because they would have made over the MSRP over the term of the loan. That was their end game. I ended up rolling out of that ridiculous loan and refinancing at 2.8% with State Farm within a couple of days.My agent at State Farm did a bit of a post mortem analysis on my paperwork and she found that the title fee was $5.00 higher than industry average and that the loan rate was ridiculous, but she acknowledged that I played a smart game because it was a great deal. What made it a great deal is that I was able to refinance. That was key.As it turned out, Ford Motor Company sent me two letters. One was an acknowledgement that they overcharged for the title fee and gave me a five dollar refund check. Then they sent a letter informing me that my interest rate was quoted in error. It should be 6.9% instead of 6.99%…seriously.So in summary, the tactics that the salesman used was somewhat deceptive and borderline unethical. But I saw it coming and at every step of the way I had a counter tactic to use and I could account for what he was doing. I’ll negotiate a few hundred dollars away to save thousands up front on a deal. The important thing is that I had the long game figured out, or I would have walked away. In the final analysis, I got a brand new car for what an average used car costs.