Is Black Friday the Best Time to Buy a Car? Why December and January are Cheaper

Car dealers love to act like Black Friday is the Super Bowl of car buying. The ads start rolling the minute you wake up from your Thanksgiving food coma, promising “once-a-year savings” if you wander into a showroom before you’ve even digested dessert.

But here’s the truth: Black Friday is almost never the best time to buy a car. Not new, not used.

Used cars don’t follow the Black Friday hype

Unlike new-car deals, which depend on factory rebates and dealer incentives, used-car prices don’t bounce up and down every month. They move with bigger market trends — supply, demand, interest rates.

So yes, a study from iSeeCars found slightly better-than-average used-car deals over Thanksgiving weekend. But “slightly better” isn’t the same as “worth reorganizing your holiday for.” Buyers typically get stronger discounts on plenty of other holiday weekends.

Model-year leftovers? You're too late.

Most automakers release next year’s models in late summer or early fall. That means the best time to snag a deal on the previous model year is August and September, when dealers want old stock gone.

By the time Black Friday rolls around, most of those leftovers are long gone. What’s left on the lot is the newest inventory — and dealers aren’t feeling generous with cars that just arrived.

If you're eyeing a brand-new current-year model, a few more weeks of patience may pay off.

The real discounts show up closer to New Year’s

Black Friday may get the ads, but late December gets the actual deals.

Dealers and automakers have year-end targets to hit. When they're close to those numbers, they’re far more willing to cut prices, add rebates, or sweeten financing — especially on cars that have been sitting around too long.

But remember: inventory matters. If a model is hot and selling before it even hits the ground, no holiday—Black Friday, Christmas, or New Year’s—is going to magically make it cheap.

Walking into the showroom is exactly what they want

There’s a reason dealerships push Black Friday so hard:
They want people physically in the showroom, where the psychology works in their favor.

Once you’re on the lot — surrounded by “Hurry before it’s gone!” signs — it’s easy to feel like you need to grab whatever price is in front of you.

But to get the best deal, you need written quotes from multiple dealers, not high-pressure conversations at a desk. New-car prices are easy to compare on paper. Used-car pricing becomes clearer when you can see who’s being honest and who’s playing games.

And any dealer who refuses to give a price unless you show up in person? Skip them. That’s not a place that makes car buying easier for anyone.