6 Best Times to Buy a Car

By Eric C. Evarts | March 31, 2017

Buying a Car at the Right Time Could Save You Money

Everybody knows you shouldn`t pay sticker for a fresh car. You can get a vehicle inbetween 7.Five percent and eight percent below MSRP, depending on the year and the type of car. If you`re looking to maximize those discounts, when is the best time to find the best deal?

Deals vary across the year as cold weather keeps buyers at home, car dealers work to clear inventory off their lots in prep for fresh models, and sales staff work to maximize their monthly, quarterly, and annual bonus incentives.

To find out when incentives are highest, we checked with TrueCar.com, which monitors millions of sales from thousands of car dealerships all over the country. TrueCar tracks sales incentives by the day, week, and month, and publishes the average discount for each. It also tracks the best times to buy certain types of cars, such as SUVs, pickups, and sedans. This slideshow is based off of TrueCar`s analysis of the two thousand fifteen vehicle market.

When those discounts peak is sometimes surprising. The best times are usually not on the big holiday weekends when dealers run the largest ad campaigns trumpeting their discounts. Presidents` Day weekend and the Fourth of July are particularly bad times to buy a fresh car, if you want to get a good deal.

Here are six of the best times, in no particular order:

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No. 1: Mondays

Most people buy cars on a weekend. Fewer carve time out of their workdays to trudge down to the dealership to test drive and negotiate, very likely anticipating that the process can take hours. But the fewest buyers of all make the trek at the beginning of the workweek, on Mondays.

Average Monday discounts reach 8.1 percent, according to TrueCar.com, compared to just 7.49 percent the day before and 7.77 percent on Saturdays. On Tuesdays, discounts surge again to an average of 8.05 percent, and fluctuate near that level for the rest of the week. Thursday is the second-best day of the week to buy a car, with average discounts of 8.08 percent off MSRP.

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No. Two: May

Even with its Memorial Day sales events, May proved to be one of the best months to get a superb deal on a car, according to TrueCar data, especially if you`re looking for a family-oriented midsized SUV. That may have more do to with fresh models for the following year beginning to trickle out in June, and dealers needing to clear out old inventory, rather than big sales blowouts.

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No. Trio: October

If you`re looking for a big pickup, October may represent your best chance for getting a good deal. Discounts averaged about seven percent. That`s nothing to write home about, but the highest of those discounts in October centered on full-size pickup trucks, which tend to remain on sales lots a little longer than other types of cars. Perhaps that`s because automakers build so many, or because they build such a multiplicity that it`s hard for consumers to find the flawless configuration. Either way, the leftover models begin to sell at big discounts by Halloween. In TrueCar`s examine, the thickest discounts came on October 30, a Friday, and just in time for end-of-the-month sales incentives.

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No. Four: November

If sedans are more your speed than SUVs or pickups, November proved to be the best time to get discounts in TrueCar`s sample. Both compact cars and midsized cars spotted the steepest discounts in November.

For the month, discounts squeaked over seven percent, and they centered on mainstream cars that people need to commute. Perhaps nobody wants to trust their old beater to get them to work through one more winter.

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No. Five: December

Most SUVs see their thickest discounts in December. These include the most popular types of SUVs: midsize SUVs and luxury midsize SUVs.

December is a logical time to look for discounts on popular models, because automaker and dealer sales incentives converge for the quarter and the year. If a dealership is on the cusp of getting a big annual sales bonus on top of a big quarterly bonus, it`s in their interest to budge the last several cars before they reach that purpose at rock-bottom prices. Popular midsize and luxury midsize SUVs benefit from that trend.

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No. 6: Specifically, Fresh Year`s Eve

Fresh Year`s Eve has long been the most likely target to get a excellent deal on a fresh car. Monthly, quarterly, and annual sales goals all converge, providing dealerships and their sales people the thickest financial bonuses for selling more vehicles. The more they sell, the more they make, and those bonuses can more than offset any discount they give you on a single car.

These monthly, quarterly, and annual sales goals can add up to big savings of 8.Trio percent off the price of an average fresh vehicle. Even December 29th and 30th suggested enormous average discounts of 7.8 and 7.9 percent, respectively.

Need more evidence? The next fattest discounts of the year came at the end of July (8.1 percent, on July 31st), August (7.9 percent on the 31st), September (7.9 percent on the 30th) and October (8.0 percent on the 30th, and 7.9 percent again on the 31st). Those are the months when automakers switch the bulk of their models over from one model-year designation to the next. However, there was one day in two thousand fifteen that hammer all these dates.

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Bonus Time: January Very first

Remarkably, the thickest discounts of all came not at the end of the year, but at the beginning. If you`re looking for the best time of the year to buy a car, be ready to act quickly! You won`t find a better time all year than Fresh Year`s Day. At least TrueCar buyers in two thousand fifteen didn`t.

The reasons for this are unclear, but there could be several. The most likely is that dealerships had already agreed to low prices to get buyers to close deals on Fresh Year`s Eve, and some of those transactions weren`t finished until the next day.

Lonely sales people sitting in empty showrooms are impatient to sell to anyone who comes through the door on Fresh Year`s Day, with almost everybody else sitting at home watching football, recovering from late night parties, or not daring to venture out into the cold.

Since TrueCar`s data all comes from 2015, this particular Fresh Year`s Day didn`t go after the Fresh Year`s Eve for which TrueCar has data. It came almost a total year earlier, and sales picked up via 2015. Dealerships may not have been as greedy for sales by the end of the year as they were the year before. (Or, put another way, had sales not picked up through the year, end-of-the-year discounts could have been even higher than they were, eclipsing the 8.Five percent on Fresh Year`s Day.)

Whatever the reason, the lesson is clear: The best times to get a superb deal on a fresh car are at the end of the year, and the end of the month, especially from July through December. The largest discounts are on leftover versions of the current years` model, which will sell at a big discount to make way for the next model-year`s run. Failing all of that, you can always take the day off work and attempt to buy on a Monday.

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