Cash for Clunkers and ability to negotiate.

MeetJoeAsian

Unless the dealership is paying someone some mad money to handle the clunker program, it shouldn't impact the selling price. At our dealership, we have 2 guys who are assigned to handle all reimbursements with the government. They are paid a small flat fee, but the fee is so minimal that it doesn't affect the profit of the deal.

The only reason how I can see that this program will affect final negotiated price is that the dealership you're going to is a small dealership where they don't have the money to front the clunker deals (since the government is REALLY SLOW PAYING us back) until they are reimbursed, or they fear not getting paid because of their past shady practices.

There is a LOT of paperwork for the dealership to process the rebate and get their reimbursement. And we are SLOWLY getting funded. Our 2 guys who handle the reimbursement stayed at the dealership to 4AM a few times just to get their paperwork processed and try to get as much of them billed as possible, and we're still not getting funded...

As far as what you're trying to accomplish, paying $1000 over invoice, that all depends on the dealership you're going to. If a few dealerships tell you they're not discounting, I would believe the popular consensus. And remember what I said above, the longer you wait, the fewer selections you will have.