In light of the events related here, I am reading up on buying cars.
If you're in the market, too, then read, "Confessions of a Car Salesman" at Edmunds.com. Enlightening!
I have not bought a new car in many years. One of the advantages of buying a used car (apart from letting the original buyer get soaked by depreciation) is that it's much harder for a salesman to "bump" you - get you to agree to high-cost extras. The car is what it is. Its options are already installed. All they can do is try to sell you high-profit items such as a used-car warranty, but these are easy to turn down.
I saw a new car in a display in the local mall last week that had $2,500 of dealer-added cost, things like "anti-theft engraving" on the windshield, "paint protection" (a plain wax job), fabric protection" (Scotch-Gard sprayed on) and other junk like that. Another article on Edmunds told of a man who was thrilled to get a price via fax for a new, hard-to-find Lexus that was only $500 over invoice. So thrilled that he closed the deal before he even saw the car or closely reviewed the sales documents. He just signed his name away.
Later he discovered that while the basic sales price was indeed $500 over invoice, the dealer had added more than $5,300 for chrome plating the wheels. It was a "dealer added" option that Edmunds says a local specialty shop charged $850 to do.
Always carefully review all the sales documents the Finance and Insurance salesman hands you. Yes, that right - the guy or gal who draws up the paperwork is not a clerk, s/he is a salesperson, and often the highest earner in the dealership. In 1986 I bought a Subaru that this guy just loaded up with extra charges. I just handed it all back to him and told him that the salesman had agreed on a certain price plus nothing but TT&L, and that I was going back to the salesman to tell him that the F&I guy had just cost him his commission. It was amazing how quickly all that stuff came off.
Never get attached to a particular car. Always be prepared to walk away from dealers who pre-load their cars with dealer-added options and won't budge on them (by "budge," I mean remove the cost completely). A Dodge dealer once tried to sell my Dad an $850 "acid rain protection" job, I kid you not. They'll tell you that they add such things to all their cars or that they come from the factory like that. Those things are about 90 percent profit. So walk away. Otherwise, this is what you are!