OK, youve finally gotten through the front end part of buying your car. You have worked hard done some tough negotiating and feel like you have negotiated a good and fair deal on your car purchase and trade-in. Now its time to head into the dealers F&I (finance and insurance) department and go through the formality of signing the financing paper work on the back end of the deal.
You may have noticed a couple of terms: front end and back end. I used these terms to illustrate a point to you. From a car dealer perspective there are two distinct parts (profit centers) to each deal. The front end of the deal is the new car price, your trade in, any dealer add ons that they got you to buy with your new car, etc. All of this, most everyone is indeed familiar with. The second part of the deal, the back end, is not a place to let your guard down. The back end is the F&I department. The F&I manager is every bit as responsible for making sales numbers and profit margins as everyone else at the dealership and they are sales people NOT financial advisers and their purpose is to help maximize the profit on the deal.
Dont assume that you are going to be offered...