Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background.

Are car buying services worth it?
Depends on how you value your time.  These programs do not say they will get you the lowest basement price; they say you get a reasonable price without negotiation.  This is true. Use a service.  Pick out the car you want and spend less than an afternoon picking up your vehicle.  You don't have to fret or do all of the price research or comparison shopping because that is what the service does for you. Since you have to pick a make and model before you begin AND because you need to arrange your financing at a credit union before you being (regardless of a buying service) I don't think they actually work out financially for most folks. My anecdote: Because we were buying an already inexpensive new car, the Costco pre-negotiated discount was just a few hundred bucks.  The discount is different for each car (naturally).  Our base model was terrific in consumer reports, but the sticker price doesn't leave dealerships a lot of room for profit to start with. We ended up saving a couple thousand dollars by skipping the Costco program and following these tips from JohnFX:  What are some tips for getting the upper hand in car price negotiations? But we did it all over email.  We emailed any dealership we could find online that was in driving distance. (There were literally dozens of dealerships to choose from.)  We made a new, throw away email address and starting to ask for a lower price.  Whenever we got a lower price, we simply asked the others to beat it.  All over email.  It only took a few days, we know we got a low price and the stress really wasn't a factor.  (A couple of the salespeople got a little rude, but it was over the email so we didn't care or fret.) I had time to kill, and the extra hassle and effort saved me much more money.