Do you hate car buying?
Next to a visit to the dentist, haggling to buy a new car is one of the most unpleasant experiences many people can think of.
Many of us remember when dad would take us car shopping, and the salesman would haul him into the back office for an hour, and try everything to seal the deal.
Those tactics were immortalized in the 1980 Kurt Russell movie Used Cars.
But that's now changing.
Nowadays, you don't even need to talk to a salesman.
We found new car buyer Jeff Hummel trying out the new Nissan Altima he just bought completely online, without ever setting foot in a dealership, or even speaking with a salesman on the phone.
Hummel bought his Nissan through Wyler Complete, a program just launched in Cincinnati by the Jeff Wyler Automotive Family of dealerships, which claims it is the nation's first fully online car sales program.
"We just sold the first-ever new car 100 percent online from beginning to end, a true e-commerce experience," marketing director Kevin Frye said.
He said many other dealers sell new cars online, but claims those still require salesman or finance director interaction.
"The reality is you're going to have to interact with a call center, a salesperson or visit a dealership to actually complete the sale," Frye said.
Pros and cons of online buying
Here, Frye explained, you choose the vehicle, find all available discounts, decide if you want an extended warranty and gap insurance, get a quote for your trade-in, apply for financing or upload a check and then finally sign the paperwork digitally.
We tried it on the Wyler Complete website, and it walked us through all the steps, just like TurboTax does at tax time.
You never need to talk to a human.
The one downside we saw: the inability to try to haggle down the price further, which some buyers insist on doing.
Jeff Hummel said his deal was fair, and told us he did it all one evening from his family room comfy chair.
"This was much easier, all the normal stuff, getting the credit, figuring out what the price is, that was all electronic," he said. "It literally was just like buying something on Amazon."
So if you get the jitters walking into a new car showroom, see if your dealer has an all-online buying experience.
That way you avoid that salesman and finance office stress and you don't waste your money.
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