Is now the time to buy a GM car?

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GM’s woes can be your gain if you’re in the market for a new car. The bankruptcy filing by the giant automaker could boost your bargaining power with a dealer.

‘It gives the consumer more leverage,’ said Philip Reed, senior consumer advice editor at Edmunds.com. ‘That leverage is an attitude of, ‘I am unsure if I want to buy a car from a manufacturer that has just gone into bankruptcy.’ ‘

A ‘tude’ like that could get a dealer to lower the price on a car, especially because many people feel it for real.

For the best possible bargain, Reed suggested looking for a GM dealership that is being forced by the manufacturer to close. Approximately 1,100 of the dealerships have been told that GM is cutting them off, with more to be notified later.

The trick is finding one of those dealerships getting the ax -- GM hasn’t published a list, and many of the dealers are keeping it to themselves. Edmunds.com has only a partial listing.

Reed said that, as always, the unpopular models are the best targets for bargaining. It will be tougher to get a substantial price discount on GM’s more popular cars, like the Chevy Corvette.

One big downside to buying a GM car now -- it’ll probably dip in resale value because of the bankruptcy filing. But Chrysler, which is in the midst of its own bankruptcy filing, saw its resale pricing go down by only about 6%. ‘That was better than I was expecting,’ Reed said.

-- David Colker