When Is The Best Time To Buy A Car (The Only Guide You Need)

The absolute best time of year to buy a car is December.

To understand why December is the absolute best time to buy a car, you need to first understand the process and mentality of the humble car salesmen.

Like any other salespeople, they have quotas. They often come in the shape of monthly, quarterly, and yearly goals for the number of cars they have to hit.

This means that your car purchase could determine the difference between their dealership hitting their sales goal and the salesperson receiving a nice annual bonus or…well, not doing those things.

That’s why December (more specifically, the last week of the month) is the best time of year to buy a car. According to Cars.comthe final days of December see the highest amount of incentive spending. Sometimes this even extends to the first day or two of January, depending on what day the end of the year falls.

get the absolute best deal on a car, you should see if you can negotiate a car deal on December 31st, New Year’s Eve.

According to TrueCar, you can end up saving up to 8.3% off the price of a new car if you visit the dealership on New Year’s Eve instead of any other day. This is because this is the last day a dealer has in order to make both their quarterly AND yearly goals. As such, they have a fat bonus on the line so they want to get the cars out the door as soon as possible.

Let’s say you were looking at a nice used car going for about $20,000. If you went in on New Year’s Eve, you stand to slash $1,660 just because you went in on that day alone. Imagine what you could earn if you compounded it with great negotiation tactics.

Bonus: Getting an amazing deal on a car is a great first step to improving your finances. But there are a lot of other steps you can take (and some of them are even easier). Check out my Ultimate Guide to Personal Finance to learn more.