[decwakeboarder]

You could also be missing out on incentives from the manufacturer for not using their financing. It's definitely a good idea to have money or financing already lined up, but some manufacturers will give thousands of dollars in incentives to use their financing.

[ghaff]

There are probably cases where the current incentives are rolled up in the financing, e.g. 0% interest. But there are also often other fees and, frankly, the available (effectively) risk-free investment options these days have such low rates of return as to be almost indistinguishable from 0%.

They're not giving you deals on the financing because they like you.

If I were buying a car my very strong default is to just pay cash and be done with it.

[Broken_Hippo]

Those incentives come with costs. In their case, it was better to know they didn't have to worry about making a loan payment every month for years when their overall financial future was a little iffy at the time - prudent when the main income earner's health was failing. It wound up being the correct decision, as my father died a couple years later.

[briffle]

My last vehicle I had cash to pay for it. Manufacturer offered a $2k incentive to finance through their own financing arm. I asked, and there was no early payoff penalty. So I financed the car, and sent a check a week later, paying it off completely well before the first payment was due.