Des Moines Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
buying new vehicles
i have never bought a new vehicle so i'm kinda clueless about the process... DH and I are thinking of trading one of our cars in for a new one. Is there still 0% financing or is that a thing of the past? For those that have bought new cars- did you finance through your bank or through the dealership?
Can you recommend 1) new cars 2) good, reputable dealerships in the metro area?
I should mention....we're not in a position to buy the car we would if we could (we're Honda people but thats not realistic for us at this time) so we're looking at off brands (Kia comes to mind) but are open to ideas.
Re: buying new vehicles
We're leasing our 2010 Toyota Corolla right now and then will purchase after the lease. We went this route because the lease payments are super low and very affordable ($125/month for 3 years).
I'd check with the bank and the dealer to make them get competitive for you. We tried to finance through Chrysler, didn't like the rate, so went to the bank, got a lower rate, and Chrysler beat it for us. Make sure the dealer lays out all of the details for you. Ours just kept wanting to give us the payment amount (we can get you $xxx/month) but I wanted to know the rate too because I planned on paying it down faster. I swear I had to beat it out of them.
As for dealers, I had better luck with Stew Hansen's Southtown than I did with the big one in Urbandale. I couldn't get any information out of the Urbandale one, the guy said he'd let us know when what I wanted came in and we never heard from him. One call to the Southtown location got the ball rolling to FIND me what I wanted and I was driving in about a week. Long story short, I think I got better service from a smaller shop, feel like the guy cared more. (It might have been his paycheck he was caring about, but he got the job done).
We never buy new, it's always been a better value for us to buy a few years old since the prices drops so much. We have always used my credit union to finance. We got our most recent truck at World of Wheels and the service was ok. I have also purchased a car from Willis when it was Betts but that was like 10 years ago.
I am NOT a fan of dealing with and buying cars. We used Cars.com to have a couple of dealers give us the best deal and went with the one that gave us the lowest price.
I have to say I am very against buying a brand new car as well as leasing a vehicle as I feel both ways you lose money in the long run unless you can pay cash for the brand new one and don't mind losing a chunk off the top.
We just purchased a used 2008 and I went in and negotiated the crap out of it to get the best possible deal I could. My situation was different in that the vehicle I wanted is not one you can find on any dealer lot so I had less leeway, but still walked away feeling like I got an amazing deal (and did according to NADA and KBB). Research the vehicle you are buying TO DEATH and know what its worth before you even set foot in the dealership. As far as financing, I'd check your local bank, a credit union, and then the dealership. Like SS said, make sure they are telling you the interest rate, not just the payment. I also wouldn't finance long-term as some dealerships are now handing out 6-8 year auto loans so the payments are lower and more "affordable".
I bought through Stivers out here in Waukee and had a great experience, including two trips back into the dealership to fix very minor things that I noticed after driving it for a week. They gave me no hassle even then and probably didn't have to fix them, but wanted to see a satisfied customer so they did.
We purchased our last two Kias from Kia of Des Moines and have had great experiences both times and LOVE our Kias.
I agree to get a quote of financing from as many as you can. We had a bidding war for our loan from our credit union and Kia financing. Kia finally went 1.5% lower than our credit union would go, just to get our loan.
We purchased a new 2011 Kia that was being driven as a program car. Because it was "used" (it had 5k miles on it) we got quite a bit off the "new" price. It was AWESOME! We love it and felt like we got a good deal.
Kia also has great customer service and their warranty, imo, is unbeatable. DH felt a "rattle" in the driving, we took it to the dealership and they gave us all new awesome tires for no charge. We didn't think the car was cleaned out well enough when we bought it, because the lady that drove it let her dog in the back, they replaced the entire back carpet and bumper (where a scratch was) for no charge.