A car salesman with 43 years of experience recently revealed three questions on TikTok that he says dealers don’t want their customers to ask. Based on the comments on the video, his advice seems to work.

“They hope you don’t ask to see the invoice,” he shared as his first car-buying tip. “They could show it to you, but they don’t want to.

The next question he says dealers hope you don’t ask is, “What’s the buy rate?” He says it is “because they don’t want you to know what they’re getting the money for.”

He then added, “And for sure, they don’t want you to ask for the out-the-door price because they just want to keep concentrating on payments, not price.”

Further explanation of why dealers don’t want customers to ask these questions

The video’s narrator then asked him to elaborate on his first tip about asking for the dealer invoice. Is the reason for that because the customer can then use it to negotiate?

“Yes,” he replied. “And smart dealerships would be more than happy to share that invoice with you and say, “Okay, I’m gonna make you a partner in the business. Here’s what we paid for the vehicle. How much over that are you willing to pay?”

The experienced car salesman next expanded on what he meant by “buy rate.” Put simply, the buy rate is what the dealership pays to get the money for a customer to finance the vehicle. They can then mark that up before they sell it.

“Because it’s indirect lending, you’re not going directly to the bank for the loan,” he continued. “The dealership is sending your application to the bank. So it’s what’s known as indirect lending. The dealer gets a rate from the bank that they can charge, and they are allowed to mark that up and earn extra profit that way.”

Asking for the out-the-door price takes the focus off the payments, which the dealer wants to focus on, and onto the price, which the customer wants to emphasize.

“Always remember, price over payments, price over payments, price over payments,” the car salesman shouted at the end.

Reactions to these car-buying tips led to more information

One viewer commented, “I’ll gladly show an invoice, buy rate, or otd price. Dealers are lucky to sell at invoice now. More than 90% of my vehicles are online for invoice or less.”

They were then asked, “So you’re losing money on every sale or break even?”

“I didn’t say every deal. We may lose money on the sale of the vehicle, but make up for it on the financing and warranty,” he replied, shedding more light on how a car sale actually works. “Some are just a straight loss, but the dealership will make it back when they come in for service. We also may lose on the individual deal but get a volume bonus. We’re a high-volume dealership, so it averages out. We sell enough that we only need to make a little per deal.”

More car-buying tips from experts

Earlier this month, another car-buying expert on TikTok explained why you should not visit a car dealership until you’ve spoken to them on the phone and agreed to a price.

“Stop going to the dealership until you’ve called and negotiated the entire deal over the phone!” he shouts at the beginning of his TikTok video, emphasizing how important he believes this is.

He added that you do everything over the phone. If you go to the dealership, you won’t get a great deal. “You’re gonna get the worst deal you could have gotten,” he said.

Now, if you’re looking for red flags when buying a car, in November, one of America’s top salespeople identified some big ones to watch out for when buying a new car from a dealer. She said these red flags often mean dealers are trying to “hide something.”

Much like with the car salesman in today’s video, she said, “The biggest thing is transparency; if they are trying to hide something, they will just not give you just enough to be able to make a purchase.”

She also, like the car-buying expert who says to negotiate the entire deal over the phone before visiting the dealership, suggests calling the dealership to ask questions before scheduling an appointment.