ok sarah here's the deal. i'm going to give you a crash course on how to deal with these salesmen. i should know because i used to sell mistubishi's myself... they love to give you monthly payments or monthly lease payments. it's easy because it SOUNDS like less than if they give you the entire price and then they can hide a lot of extra charges in there.
Say for example they say the car is $400 a month for say 52 months (lets cut financing and all that jazz out to make it easy to understand) and that's what they tell you-- so then the total of that car should obviously be : $20,800 b/c that's 400 X 52. however that's never the case-- they never show you the invoice when they give you the monthly breakdown because really they are going to tell you 450 a month for the same car b/c then you don't realize that the bottom line is 20,800... so then you are really paying 23,400 so that's 2600 DOLLARS MORE than what the invoice says that car is worth. they do this because if they don't show you the invoice and you never see that 20,800 number then you usually don't realize that they are taking you for that extra money. not to mention different accessories they can get you on b/c they mark that up by SO much.
so what you need to do is look at the bottom line FIRST-- say i want to see the invoice of the car and i'm not going to be signing on anything unless the price i'm getting is a 'nickel over invoice' that's car terms for $500 dollars above the invoice which is the ONLY profit the car dealership should be making. sure it's nailing the salesman to the wall but for every one smart person they screw 12 dozen so don't worry about it. and they'll tell you they CAN'T no matter what give it to you for that price b/c they need to make a profit-- that's all BS, they still make a profit even if it's only 500 bucks over invoice that they are selling it for. make sure it's the FACTORY invoice also b/c some dealerships can just type up their own... it should have the VIN number on it. also, make sure they don't show you an invoice from a loaded car w/ leather but they are really selling you a gutted carcas with hubcaps.
it's a cut throat industry, i'm so glad i got out of it. but it's easy to get taken advantage of b/c they cover up in the monthly payment how much they are really taking you for. so if you take the monthly payment they gave you and times it by the months you are paying you come out with thousands more than the car is really costing and that's how they get rich. it's so easy to do. OK, i hope this info helps you-- just remember to look at that invoice, bring a calculator of your own, and crunch numbers-- it's really not complicated, work out a payment plan (either lease or finance for how many months, 36, 42, 52, 58 or 60)... all car dealers have different and then just times the monthly payment by the months you pay and look at the invoice to see if they come close to matching up-- or take the invoice and divide it so you can tell how much you should be paying if they aren't hosing you. then add on a % rate which they should be able to give you in two minutes after running a Credit report-- and add that in, and BAM you have your payment and you are not getting taken advantage of.
also, don't let them talk you into the extra warranty, when your warranty is about to expire the factory will send you a 'extend your warranty for this amount' and whatever it is is usually dirt cheap and A WHOLE HELL OF A LOT less than what they will charge you at the time of buying the car. basically do not take any of their extras that they try to throw in in the end unless you really want the 'after market rims' or whatever lol.
OK HOPE THAT HELPS!!! good luck-- try another dealership and set them straight, tell them they tried to take advantage of you at another location and you want to see all the numbers up front.
GOOD LUCK SARAH!!!! i'm just an FM away if you have any other questions--it's best to get this info from someone who used to do this lol i used to screw people out of money left and right. i'm not proud of it lol but it was my job.
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ETA: the best time of the month to buy is at the end, so you are right on the money with going in now but you also need to make sure it's not too close to the end or their 'deals' and 'spins' change from month to month and you could lose out... i would say the last week in the month is the best time b/c the salespeople have quotas they are trying to meet.
