I'm actually looking to getting a new car.  There are tons of deals to be had right now.  Anyone have friends or relatives at nearby dealerships that they trust?  Right now i'm looking at Hyundai and Mercury.  The Sonata and Milan, though not exactly sporty, have a ton of features for the price and both have great reliability.

The employee discount they have at Mercury pretty much kills any price negotiations since the sticker price is now at or below invoice.  The Hyundai dealers aren't feeling the pinch as much, but they still have good rebates.

The odd thing is I don't get the feeling that any of the dealers in this area are hurting for sales as i've only gotten one call-back after leaving my info with 4+ dealers.

I'm in the Hershey area, but i'd be willing to go as far as 20 or so miles away to deal with a dealership i like.

While it isn't a Hyundai or Mercury I am absolutely loving my PT Cruiser.  27 MPG (average), good pickup and power, and tons of room to move or carry whatever you need.  I have had it for a year now and I haven't had a single problem with it.  I got it used with 26,000 miles on it.  If you want some more power there is even a turbo version with 250 HP vs 150 HP standard.  Drops the MPG down to about 16 or 17 but I am sure that thing flies.

 Im pretty happy with my nissan although,  I would be leary of hyundai.  Didn't they score poorly in the consumer reports.  that might have been a long time ago i don't really remember.  I always try to go Toyota Nissan or honda.  three makers that really are high in quality and reliability. 

JDM FTW! That's all I have to say (AKA I'd stick with Nissan, Toyota or Honda...you'll get decent MPG and they'll last forever as long as you remember to keep up with the maintenance)

The Sonata has been something i've been eyeing for a while.  Hyundai used to have a really really horrible reputation and reliability record.  But since the last 5+ years, they have caught up to and possibly exceeded some of the japanese cars.  Especially with the 10 year, 100,000 mile warranty.  The Sonata itself is compared to the likes of the Accord and Camry in quality, something Ford and GM have a hard time doing.  The only problem hyundai hasn't fixed is resale value which remains pretty poor.  The Hyundais depreciated pretty badly.

My first car was an 89 mercury tracer.  Basically a ford car with a Mazda 3 engine.  When the engine died at 215K miles, the root cause was a defect in that model's mazda3 engine and nothing Ford did.  But still, 215k miles ain't too shabby.

I have never paid more than $3,000 for a car.  So whatever I decide, this will be my first big car purchase.  My family has had pretty horrible experience with GM cars.  The workmanship is just simply horrible and made with cheap parts.  So, I honestly haven't even looked at what they have.

My brother swears by Ford, but they haven't always been good to him either.

Mercury right now is doing (0% financing -OR- $2,000 rebates) AND (employee discount).  A Mercury Milan i was looking at had a MSRP of $30,000 and after rebates and employee discount, it was at $24,000.  That was with full leather heated seats, remote start, moon roof, uber sound system, gps navi, etc, etc.

The Hyundai Sonata is ($2,000 rebate -OR- $1,000 rebate + 0% financing).  No employee discount type thing, so there's still room to negotiate as close to invoice as possible.

Both are Consumer Reports recommended cars with excellent reliability, safety, etc ratings.

I've heard bad things about Harrisburg Hyundai and good things about Freysinger Hyundai.  I've been trying to deal with Maguires Mercury here in Hershey but they've been pretty pathetic and don't seem overly interested in selling cars.

They will always go lower, tell them you know all about their game from dealer holdbacks to financing spiffs. There's lots of tricks to the trade and the more you know the better. I was in the sales game for 9 years before and shopping the competition is always the best and a salespersons worst enemy. Hell bro you can find the exact car your looking for with stealerships in and around the keystone state and send them an email requesting their best quote. Best of luck getting an uber deal and of course getting a good auto!!

Here's a link that might help with car shopping:  http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/deal-discussion/444610?highlight_key=y&keyword1=car+buying
 

Thanks Own3r!!

I've done so much research on how to buy a car and all the proper things to do that my head hurts.  I'm glad it's coming to a close.

I checked around every hyundai dealership within 50 miles today (including the one in York) and none of them would touch the price.  I finally called back the one in York and got him to give me a lower rate.  I then called the guys at Freysinger back haggled with them some more.  When I did the math, i realized they had only gotten me down to $300 above invoice.  So, with the ammo of the other dealership, i told them they would have a sale if they went straight invoice.  They agreed and i'm going in tomorrow to pick up the car.

Keeping them focused on just the base price (without rebates in the picture), I'm pretty happy with straight invoice.  After rebates, i'm $2,000 below invoice with a total of $4,219 below MSRP.  Not too bad.  I probably could have haggled more, but I think it's a decent deal and not worth the effort to push harder.

The sonata does come with a usb port.  But doing research I found that for whatever reason, they require a special adapter for the ipod to work properly.  So, I did get them to include the special ipod adapter for free (~$40 value).

W00t for new car soon.  I'm more exhausted from all the research than anything else.

For easy research there is a TV show on A&E called King of Cars.  It is all about this huge dealership in Nevada.  It is fun to watch and I noticed last time I went for a car I automatically used a couple of the tricks I saw in the show.

All done.

I really liked the salesguy and the manager I dealt with at Freysinger.  They played all the typical games I expected from all the research I did, but I came prepared.  The games they play were just to try to make as much money as possible (which is to be expected), but they weren't pushy or hard to deal with at all.

I was pretty picky with making sure all the numbers came out right, but they never tried to slip anything in.  They mentioned only once about the extended warranty and when I rejected it, they never mentioned it again.

I highly recommend them (at least from a sales perspective, no clue about service just yet).  Car is outside right now.  I keep thinking about going back out and sitting in it or driving it around some more.