People Would Rather Go to the DMV (!) than Go Through the Car-Buying Process

Have you ever played Would You Rather? It's a series of terrible choices. For instance:

Would you rather have a purple nose or green ears?

Would you rather live without music or without television? 

Would you rather eat a dead spider or a live worm? 

In that vein, in 2014 Edmunds conducted a multigenerational survey about the car-buying process. One in three, or 33%, of those surveyed would rather go to the DMV, do their taxes, or sit in the middle airplane seat than go through the process of buying a car. That’s clearly a conundrum for the automotive industry.

I’m one of the strange ones who enjoys the process, but I’m definitely not in the majority. Last time we bought a car, my husband insisted on buying from a brand that doesn’t haggle. What is the fun in that? Well, as it turns out, most people don’t like to haggle, either.

Save Time on the Financial Side

As much as you want to buy a new car for yourself, your spouse, or a child, the process takes a long time. From the moment you start researching the kinds of vehicles you want to the time it takes to test drive a couple of them and narrow down to the time you sit down at the dealership, you have already spent hours and hours. Add on the process of negotiating, haggling, and finance checking, and you’re exhausted. And the truth is, everyone buys cars differently and for different reasons. There are, perhaps surprisingly, very few commonalities.

In today’s world, personal digital experiences are what consumers have come to expect.

Capital One (yes, the one with the Jennifer Garner commercials) has a service called Auto Navigator designed to help streamline that process. So in this case, it’s not “What’s in your wallet?” but “What’s on your phone?” or “What’s on your computer?"

The site/ app simplifies the car buying process, offering a database of dealerships and cars for your review, then you give them permission to do a "soft pull" of your credit that will not affect your credit score. The site tells you your rate and the monthly payment you can expect to make; you can make any changes on the fly as you discuss additional options, like service contracts. Ultimately, pre-qualification doesn't guarantee final financing, and your final terms will depend on the hard credit pull at the dealership. However, the option to walk into the dealership knowing your parameters is empowering all by itself.

It reminds me of Progressive insurance in that once the dealership pulls your hard credit, options will be generated for you. At that point, you can use the Capital One financing or accept another offer from the dealer.

We're not getting paid to create an advertorial for Capital One, but I think this is worth looking at. Anything that makes the car-buying process less painful is one that could help us all, and smoothing out the financing part is key. After all, no one goes out shopping for a car loan; they're looking for a car.

This post first appeared on my automotive site, Drive Mode Show.