Originally Posted by wackjum

Getting a quote from Carmax doesn't hurt him even if he does this.

One time, the dealer offered me 7k for trade-in. They said that was the best amount they could do. They finally tossed me a bone and went up to $7,500. I said fine and worked on haggling the price. After about thirty minutes of back and forth, I finally got the price of the car down to where I wanted. Then I showed them the Carmax appraisal for 9k and said if they couldn't match or beat this, I was walking away.

They beat Carmax by $500, I got my tax break, and the price of my car was locked from the previous haggling. This was on my used 2009 370Z btw.

I buy cars all the time. Sort of a sick hobby of mine. More information NEVER hurts you in the car buying world.