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Sounds great.

FYI - Never, ever simply walk into a dealership for anything but a test drive. You can avoid a lot of the car buying bullshit by getting your own financing and dealing strictly with an "Internet Sales" department.

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I wish it was so easy. You still have to invest significant time into an "internet sale" and even then they can pull a bait-and-switch on you. It still requires hardball negotiation tactics, like bringing in a cashiers check and being prepared to walk out (even if you had to drive 1.5 hours, take time off work, etc.). The whole thing is a freakin' mess.

"Being prepared to walk" (or at least looking that way) isn't exactly a hardball negotiation tactic, it's more a prerequisite for being able to negotiate at all.

Mind posting a link to a place with an 'Internet Sales' department?

Every dealership that I've talked to for the past 5 years or so has had one (albeit, typically the "department" is one person at the dealers around here).

https://bankofamerica.truecar.com/main.html

This. you can price, including out of state, etc. for in-demand models w/ price markups or inventory issues, this can be an eye opener. they e-mail you an invoice. that locks in a price. the prices are pretty decent, and benchmarked to invoice.

That link isn't working for me - "The Bank of America page you are trying to reach is not available. We apologize for the inconvenience..." Have another link?

http://www.bankofamerica.com/carbuyingcenter

That site will require that you are a Bank of America customer, though the link is unfortunately broken. If you are an AMEX, USAA, PenFed, or Consumer Reports customer instead, check out their respective car buying sites. They are variations on the same program.

Alternatively, https://www.truecar.com/ can be used by anyone, is mostly using the same data and dealer network, but the prices might be slightly higher.

(Disclaimer: I'm a TrueCar employee.)

All the dealers in my county have websites with an email address or web form to contact them. After doing some research on models, pricing, etc. I sent an email to each dealer describing what I was looking for and requested a quote. Some did not reply at all. I took the most decent offer. They dropped it off at my office. I never set foot in the dealership for the whole transaction.

When I lived in Waco, the Hyundai dealership's website's "internet sales" department was a page telling you to call Lisa at [telephone number]. No, I'm not kidding.

Apparently, they've wised up since then, because the link doesn't work:

http://www.wacohyundai.net/internet.htm

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