Just a personal suggestion. I've bought and have dealt with dealerships for the last 15 years and here are some lessons I've learned..
1. Any mass produced vehicle is not worth more than MSRP. (Manufac. Suggested, Retail, Price) The manufacturer has setup factories that will mass produce this vehicles and from the time of introduction to the public to saturation of the first set of orders, this usually occurs within 6 months to a year after the first intro model. In short, wait 6 mo then buy. If you've got money to burn and want to be the first in the neighborhood to have the first model, have at it. Don't be surprised to hear that your neighbor bought his car for half of what you paid for 6 months ago! Most invoice prices,(the actual amount the dealership bought the car for, from the manufacturer) can be found on the internet.
2. All cars off the assembly line are mostly prewired and set up with all the options. It is the dealers that install these options that mark up the price of each option. Dealerships thus order their cars stripped in order to assess additional cost to the consumers. True factory installed options are far less expensive than dealership installed options.
3. Sales people lie! Their bottom line is to move merchandise and make a commission. Not to do you a favor, nor give you a good deal.
4. The best time to buy a car is durring the end of the month or end of the quarter. This is the time the dealerships assess the effectiveness of each sales person. If you are unable to meet the quota, your often fired! The same goes for the dealerships. If they are uable to move these cars, this reflects back to the manufacturer and will affect any future allocations to the dealerships. Therefore, buy your next car from the "desperate" sales person. He is more apt to deal with you by reducing his commission, if not, totally omit his commission to bump up his sales numbers so that he could keep his job for another day and try and con the next buyer. The same goes with the dealerships. If their numbers are low, the dealerships begin to add incentives to sell and move the car. Also, durring this period, both sales person and dealerships are willing to deal with you and get you a fair price with the hopes of selling you the car for a meager profit, in the hopes that the next "victim" or nieve consumer they see, will pay the higher premium. Trust me, there are far more of them than the enlightened ones.
5. With a mass produced car, with several dealerships, have the dealerships compete for your money. It is your money after all! I always start by making phone calls and inquiries about a specific model. If the model is available at multiple dealerships, I them say " dealership A, has the model I want and is willing to sell me the car today for this amount, can you beat it?" Keep doing this until you get the lowest price posible. Deal with as many sales people as you want. Sales people always demand that you have some loyalty towards them, I say bull-sh*t ! Where is the loyalty when you sell the vehicle someone had put a deposit on, to the next highest bidder? More often than not, sales people offer different prices. They control their own commission.
4. Whenever possible, use a outside lender. Or at least get a loan approval from an outside source. Once you know that you are qualified for the loan, you could then approach the dealership and say, "well, I've been approved for so and so interest at bank X, can you do any better and if so, I'll finance the car with you"
Note: Just a personal opinion of a guy who has been duped by dealerships in the past and have learned his lesson. I now have dealerships and sales people lending me their new vehicles to test drive for a day up to a week at a time. They try their hardest to sell me their cars. I have never bought a mass produced car for my family and friends, for $50 over invoice, not MSRP.
Good luck! Anyone with added ideas please do so....