You'll only nned gap insur. if you total the car and you owe more on the car its worth. If you can get the financed price of the car below the BB value then its a non issue.
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A-plan, $1000 below invoice + rebates

 

gap insurance is for people who paid way too much for the car, say you went in and only got $500 off sticker price or something and financed everything, then yeah you would be up side down for probably a couple years. the insurance company always pays FULL retail if the car is totaled they also pay sales tax etc. and this amount is somewhat negotiable. basically you are paying an extra $500 bucks to insure that you are not going to total the car and the insurance is not going to pay enough and even at that this should only in worse case scenario be for like the first 2 years. heck $500 bucks is nearly what I pay for a year of regular car insurance. I work with insurance companies for a living, I am sure some people will disagree with me, bottom line, BUY THE CAR RIGHT AND YOU DON'T NEED GAP INSURANCE!!

I used to buy wrecked cars that were totaled and rebuild them, we would always see what the insurance paid out when the car was totaled, in every case the owner made out very good. 2 years ago my wife totaled her 06 sienna, actually it wasn't quite damaged enough to total at least that is what the insurance company tried to say, we were at 70% repair to value ratio or more. we haggeled back and forth, I owned the car outright and finally agreed to take a bit less value to total the car in exchange for them agreeing to total it. I to enough money out of the deal to buy a 1 year newer van, with less miles and the upgraded model trim with no out of pocket. if the van had been damaged more and the ratios for repair had been say 80+% I would have gotten enough to buy a BRAND NEW van even though the one totaled was 2 years old and had 40k miles on it.

 

Dropped my car off at the local Ford dealer today for some warranty repairs and saw a 2011 GT500 out front. Sticker was 55K and the extra sticker was asking for a 10K upcharge for "limited availability" This made me ROFL!

The same dealer two years ago had a new 2009 GT500KR on their lot. Sticker was 70K with an upcharge of 35K for "limited availability" This made me ROFLMFAO!

Man, this LA thing is expensive!

and to top it off...a Dodge dealer in 2000 had the new Durango at the time. 1000 dollar upcharge for scotch guard sprayed on the seats. OMFG! Two cans @ 20.00 now cost 1000.00! HAHAHA!!!

 

You never should not "haggle". I ordered one last week from the same dealer I got my 08 Bullitt from.....God rest its soul . I thought about looking around for a used Gt500 but I really like the newer body style and love having warranties. At least till I break them early which never seems to fail lol. I happened to have access to the xplan so I got it about 120 above dealer invoice which was about 300 above Edmunds invoice prices. I didnt feel to bad with that seeing it is a new set up this year and all (I actually hate buying first year cars but it cant be worse than that 99 cougar ). Any way your location and dealer sizes make a difference alot of times also. The dealer I go through is not super big for around this area but I had no problems dealing with them when I had the Bullitt so I figured paying 2-5 hundred more woundt hurt my feelings to much.

 

I would of called my salesman over and we would of talked about how much BS that was. Sad part is they will probably sale it for that.

 

Or better yet, wait until 2012 and then buy the 2011 used. Let someone else take the depreciation hit. Your retirement account will love you for it. I would only buy a brand new car if there was some extreme incentives. But that's just me.

 

If u need to buy gap insurance then u have NO reason to buy that car. I mean really that is dumb. Save ur money for down payment and dont get urself upside down. Just like 0% for 72 months. Dealers love it when u do that b./c they are counting on u to be back in two years to trade in again and boom ur screwed again. This is the reason why we are in the state we are in. The country and the world

 

Interesting thread guys!

I was wondering what deals people were getting on the 2011. I bought my 2010 GT in January, had to put a lot down due to being a recent immigrant (hence new credit) but stood fast for $2,000 off, free 6 year warranty and 0% financing as sweeteners.

The bottom line is they ALWAYS want to sell cars. I read that dealers get a nominal period (30 days or so) in which they can sell a car and not be charged interest on it by the manufacturer. Catch them when their time is running low on a car (as I think I did) and they won't let you leave without it...

Haggle hard, drive harder!

 

another thing, another deal I learned by experience is 0% sucks over taking cash incentives, because when you take 0% you are paying more up front for the car in lieu of taking the incentive, this means you pay more sales tax on the higher purchase price, plus you never know you may want to sell the car early in which case you don't realize the savings that 0% offers.