I've only ever had to go through the car buying process once in my life. My husband and I were buying a used car from a place that relatives recommended. The salesman was good. When I say that, I mean this: we came in wanting to just look at a couple of used cars, didn't want red, and wanted something with some power; we walked out with a small red Hyundai that day. We joked for years that the car had a "super boost button" (the button that turned off the air conditioning.) I think about why we purchased that car and I haven't really been able to pinpoint it.
I think it was because the salesperson was just very good. He was honest and trustworthy. He said he would find us something in our budget that we could live with and give us a good value for our trade. He followed through on every step. I never felt like we were being taken. He was straight up with us that the car would be about $20 bucks over our budget and it came in just there. There were no surprises like the horror stories I've heard from friends who went in and through a series of addition mistakes ended up $100 over budget. Our trade in value was pretty high, and now knowing a bit about the industry I think they probably robbed from elsewhere to pay for the trade-in, but it worked for us. After is was all over, we had no buyer's remorse. We even got a nice Thank You card from the salesman afterward.
What experiences have you had buying a car? What did you like or not like?