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Perhaps your ears perked up when the government promised a stimulus check. Perhaps you are particularly excited about extra unemployment money. If you got or are getting any or all of the above, there’s a good chance that you are thinking about how to spend that money.
Well, no surprise, but car dealerships are thinking about how you should spend that money too. Car prices are now lower than they have been in some time just because of coronavirus. If your family could use a new car, now is a good time to get one with that extra government fundage. To help you feel more comfortable about shopping for a new car post-coronavirus lockdown, you should know what dealerships are doing to make car shopping the safest experience it can be.
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Social-Distancing Is Still a Thing
You may be coming out of lockdown, but social-distancing is still a thing. Most businesses are making sure all of their customers are remaining six feet apart. If there is a vehicle you want to look at while someone else is looking at it, you can either wait for them to move away from said vehicle, or stand on the other side of it and move around the vehicle as the other customers are moving around it. If you choose to test-drive a vehicle, car dealers wear masks and wipe down all vehicles that are driven after the test drive. Dealers also ask that you wear a mask while test-driving any car.
If you are going to purchase a vehicle, you will sit in chairs that are about three feet back from a dealer’s desk. There will most likely be panels of clear plastic glass between you and the dealer. If you have to impart particularly personal information, the dealers will have you fill out that info on the forms by yourself before handing the forms back to the dealer.
Financing
If you decide to put down some or all of your stimulus money, but you still need to finance the rest of the vehicle, you can ask about financing. This is one feature of buying a car that really has not changed much post-virus. The only difference is that instead of leaning over a desk to tell the dealer your social security number(s) to apply for a loan or line of credit, you have to fill out the forms yourself. It would be a bad idea to be talking very loudly over the distance of several feet about what your social security number is!
You can also skip using your stimulus as downpayment. If you are receiving the extra money for unemployment, you only have to show your recent unemployment pay stubs. Some dealers allow you to upload these documents over a secure connection so that you do not have to bring in paper copies. If you choose to skip putting any money down, you may still qualify for financial products to buy a car, but the interest and/or payments may be higher.
What Manufacturers Are Doing to Encourage You to Buy a Vehicle
The dealers and their businesses are not the only ones thinking about how you will spend your money. Manufacturers have jumped on the bandwagon too. Many of them are offering their own post-COVID lockdown deals. Some will give you no payments for the first six months until you can get back on your feet financially.
Others will not only offer a sale on one of their vehicles, but also pay the first two months’ payments on the vehicles for you. Still others are offering customers who have already purchased vehicles pre-virus and now have trouble making payments a way to skip payments for a couple months until they can resume payments on their leases or loans. If you are going to go shop for a car, ask the dealers about what specials different car companies are offering on their vehicles
