When is the best time to buy used cars

Keep in mind that it’s a highly seasonal business. Prices, supply, and demand vary from season to season. 

Usually, the tax season is one busting used car prices to maximum levels. People get their tax money back and want to spend it right away. So the prices are going up 4-7% from the winter season because of so much demand and limited supply. It’s the worst time to buy a used car.

Late fall and winter are the best time of the year to buy a used car. It’s a slow time, so you’ll get more attention from a sales representative. Especially when it’s freezing outside and there is not a single customer spotted at the dealer's lot through the falling snow.

Some car categories like sports cars, roadsters, and convertibles get especially deep price cuts during the winter season. And on the contrary, these cars’ prices max out from April through July, so it’s not a good idea to shop for them in the summer season.

Dealerships’ managers and owners often have quarterly goals and incentives they want to meet in order to get their bonuses. Therefore, the end of the month in March, June, September, and December is a kind of magical time when not only salespeople hustle around customers to hit their monthly sales numbers but also their superiors are trying to pay special attention to every person calling or walking in and engineer attractive deals for them. Out of these four, December is really the king and the best month to buy a used car. Surely lots of dreams of buying a perfect used car or truck will come true at the end of the quarter.

The slowest days of the week are Monday and Tuesday, especially Monday mornings. So, unlike Garfield, the cat who doesn’t do mornings, the best time in the week to shop for used cars is Monday morning. The worst - is the busy Saturday afternoon. Try to go to a dealership when salespeople and managers are not as busy so they have the opportunity to take a breath and can treat your preferences by showing an individual approach. 

There are “superpowered” magic days like Monday or Tuesday which are at the same time standing at the end of the month, end of the quarter, and end of the year! In 2021 it’s going to be December, 27 and 28th. During these days, all the prices cut, discount, and sales incentive forces are compounding their powers, really driving prices down, which could make your wildest used car or truck dreams come into reality.

Get yourself a merry discounted used car for Christmas! Indeed the average discount off dealer’s sticker price gets up to 11,5-14% at the end of  December, right after Christmas day. It’s the highest average discount for the entire year. Change of year is perceived as losing value in the customers’ eyes with the year number changing to new but the car year model getting older. Therefore the dealerships are trying their best to maximize car sales and get rid of excess inventory. 

Black Friday

Black Friday in 2021 is on November 26th. It could really get huge with special incentives, gifts, and cashbacks, car dealerships offer to people who want to buy a vehicle on the spot and drive it off the lot the same day. The average discount used car dealerships would make for the Thanksgiving season is around 9,5-10% off the sticker price. But for Black Friday, they could give you some extra! So, be attentive to information releases on our website, Facebook and Instagram.

In general, used truck sales discounts and incentives are following those for cars. But the trends are more volatile, with prices going way up in summertime during high construction and agricultural season and coming back down in winter. A lot of people buy pickup trucks to use for work in construction, farming, and other types of a seasonal business.

Due to microchip, rubber, and special plastics shortages, truck prices for high season 2021 went up all-time high above MRP. Truck manufacturers are storing partially-assembled trucks out in the fields under open skies since they ran out of storing space. So, probably now it’s the best time to buy a used truck manufactured in quiet pre-covid times because nobody knows how much longer new trucks pre-manufactured January through June 2021 will have to spend out in the field before they will be finally equipped with a microchip, rubber and whatever else parts they miss now. The quality of those trucks will hurt big time with a “lot rust”, flat spots on tires, and water leak damages.

There are two major sources CPO cars are coming from: 

• certified pre-owned cars from private owners who purchased them new and serviced them at the same dealership
• formerly leased vehicles turned back into a dealer and certified to be sold as CPO

If we take a look at the timing of this all going on, the volume of trade-ins either of pre-owned or formerly leased vehicles is growing towards the end of the year, August through December. It takes anywhere from 2 to 5 weeks to get a vehicle into the repair shop, inspect, fix and tune it up. That means the quantity of CPO vehicles for sale is minimum during the spring and early summer months and maxing out January through February (since many lease contracts end December 31th). So, it’s the best time to shop for CPO cars. You’ll get maximum variety to choose from and the lowest prices since these months are slow.

Pay attention to “the lot time”. This is an exposure time for a vehicle from the moment it was first introduced for sale to the present. Keep in mind that the first couple of weeks of the lot time, all car dealers want to take the cream of the crop moneywise so that car may be marked up $2500-4000 higher than an average fair price. After 90 days of the lot exposure, things are starting to get better for you as the dealer wants to keep just a wholesale margin on it. From 90 to 180 days, the price is going way south from averages. Yeah, it’s cheap, but there’s a question why nobody wants to buy it. Every extra day on the dealer’s lot is extra money out of the dealer’s pocket. So depending on how long is the lot time for the vehicle you may ask for an extra price off. But how to find out the actual “lot time”? The simplest and classic way is just to spot a few vehicles you like on a dealer’s lot and see if any of them are still there after 14, 90, or 180 days. Another option is to track selected vehicles through a dealer’s website. You may also write down the VIN number and check the car history.