Customers are not always financially astute when it comes to buying a car. Thus, the car dealers are given freedom to juggle prices so that they can gain a considerable profit out of the car buyers. It is their business after all. But, when the car dealer says that he is going to "work out some numbers" for you, you need not be totally at his mercy.

First, you need to stay awake and alert when numbers and money are being discussed. If you cannot add or multiply mentally, bring a calculator. And second, before you approach a car dealer, you must have an idea on how he is going to balance figures in a way called "four-square".

Four-square refers to four big factors that dealers focus on: the "trade-in", the "purchase price of the car", the "down payment", and the "monthly payments". When a car dealer is prevailed upon to decrease his profit in one of the factors above, he will make sure that the other factors will make it up for him. Thus, the four squares are interconnected.

With the trade-in, the car dealer will credit you for the price of your trade-in car. He will not use the full price of the car and will convince you to put down a third of its value.

With the purchase price of the car, the car dealer will write down the price of the car. Then he becomes vague by adding a phrase "plus fees". These fees refer to sales tax, insurance, title and licensing fees. As for the accurate price of the car, compare it (of the same model and year) with the price quotes of other dealers.

With the down payment, the car dealer determines how much money you can afford to release to secure that the car is yours and won't be available to other buyers.

And with the monthly payments, the car dealer's aim is to find out how high the monthly payments should be. He would not start by giving you the lowest interests and the most affordable down payments. He begins at the highest possible monthly payments and works his way down until he doesn't see your face wince at the mention of the amount.

If, for example, you insist that the credit given to you is the full price of your trade-in car, the dealer will reluctantly agree and convince you in the next minutes that your monthly payment should be higher. What actually happened is that he was transferring the source of his profit from one square to another.

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