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It is once again the unofficial start of summer upon us: Memorial Day Weekend! As we discussed in the article about holiday weekend shopping last year, holiday weekends tend to be a great time to buy a car for a variety of reasons. Of course, if you’re going to go car shopping over a holiday weekend you don’t want to spend your extra day off at the dealership. So get prepared in advance.
Among the holiday weekends Memorial Day weekend is one of the best ones for car buyers for a couple of reasons:
- The model year traditionally starts in the fall, so dealers use the summer to clear inventory of the outgoing model year. Memorial Day weekend is a great time to promote the clearance deals that will make room for the new models coming in from the factories.
- Memorial Day, unlike Independence Day or Labor Day, happens at the end of the month instead of in the first week. The car business is very much a month-to-month business when it comes to measuring performance. Dealerships go all out to get a sale in the last week of the month because they know how close they are to any promotions offered by their manufacturer.
The summer season is not just about clearance sales: there are already about 90,000 2019 model year vehicles listed for sale nationwide on AutoTrader, and obviously that number will continue to grow as the summer goes on. Also, while the entire summer is a combination of dealers offering great deals on the outgoing models and beginning to showcase the new model year vehicles, the summer is a great time to go vehicle shopping. A really basic reason: if you’re going to buy a car make sure you see it in daylight, and this time of year offers more daylight across North America than the rest of the year. So you can do your car shopping and won’t need to save it for the weekend (unless you want to), because even with a 9-ish to 5-ish there should be time in the evening to see the cars you’re considering before the sun goes down.
If you’re going to be buying a car this weekend, and specifically looking at leasing, you may want to check out the May leasing guide from our friends at CarsDirect. They have great info on specific deals being offered in May on many types of vehicles, and can help make sure you know the right questions to ask your dealer in advance to make the most of your dealership visit.
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