Back in the old days, before carmakers figured out how to fight a winning battle against rust, the idea of keeping your new car out of salt-laden slush meant you might have a better chance of avoiding early-onset oxidation. But that was then, and this is now.
These days, buying a car when many others are not—in the stock market, they call it being contrarian—can be a smart move. Instead of waiting for spring and battling hordes of other car buyers for the most popular vehicles with the most desirable equipment, you can get into the market early and pick up a good deal without tripping over other car buyers in the dealership.
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1. Winter Is a Bad Time to Have Unreliable Transportation
Winter is tough on your car. If you are concerned about the overall reliability of your current vehicle, then the winter months are arguably among the poorest months of the year to roll the dice on your potentially unreliable car's ability to make it a couple more months.
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Should you get your current car fixed and try to make it through the winter, or do you take the money you would have used to fix the car and put it into a down payment on a brand-new vehicle? It might make sense to take the latter course.
2. Warmer Incentives
In days gone by, car manufacturers were more content to wait out winter with the expectation that sales would inevitably pick up in the spring. But today’s market is too competitive and too dependent on continued cash flow to sit out a couple of months of sales or even let them slip markedly. So, to keep the sales party going in the face of miserable weather, the carmakers get more generous with the incentives they offer consumers to get them to buy or lease.
“In the northern states, you’re battling snow, you’re battling freezing temperatures, so inventories start to build up,” John Hennessy, owner of Chicago-area River View Ford, told C/D. “Well, manufacturers know that, so the levels of incentives they put on are always extremely good.”
3. Auto Show Incentives
For the same reason, winter is the time for the local auto show in many snow-centric cities. Car dealers, often in cooperation with the auto manufacturers, put on these shows in an effort to persuade otherwise on-the-fence buyers to get off the couch and get serious about buying a car. To support the local auto show and turn auto-show visitors into paying customers, individual dealers, regional same-make dealer associations, and carmakers go to uncommon extremes to make their midwinter deals irresistible.
“The public [in Chicago] knows that come February there are going to be great incentives going on at the Chicago Auto Show,” said Hennessy, “because manufacturers put a little extra on to try to entice people who go to the auto show to buy a car.”
4. Lonely Dealers
The typical dealership depends on foot traffic, and when poor weather prevents potential customers from going out car shopping, dealers are more eager to close deals with those few customers who do brave the elements.
Most consumers don’t realize that dealers finance a significant portion of their inventory, so they have car payments, too. And that means they are often more willing to take less for a car rather than making another payment on it. So a shrewd negotiator has more leverage in late February than in the beginning of June.
Hennessy agrees that the lack of traffic caused by inclement weather can be a big consumer advantage.
“When dealers aren’t seeing a lot of people, we are more inclined to step up and put more money into that trade that isn’t worth too much,” he said. “We’re paying interest on that car sitting on the ground, so I’d rather relieve that interest and put a lot more money into that trade and help you get into the car.”
Having said all this, just scraping the snow off your current car and driving to the closest dealership won’t necessarily guarantee you a good deal. But if you approach the transaction with knowledge, there's a good chance you can use the snow, ice, and cold to save yourself some serious money.
