The most stressful part of buying a car is not negotiating with dealers or sellers, it's the unsolicited advice from acquaintances

Pardon the rant, it's just topical for me because I'm in unplanned car-buying mode and it's at the front of my mind right now.

I'm not a fan of the haggling system that's common and accepted in the US car dealership model. The thing that bothers me most about it, though, is how other people feel entitled to comment, interject, critique, and judge you on your haggling prowes and savvy both before and after your purchase. It's unavoidable; even if you try to keep it a secret during the process, once you show up to work driving a different car, inevitably someone notices and asks, "Did you get a good deal?" Of course you can deflect, lie, change the subject, but I'm annoyed that it's such a common topic in the first place. I don't want to have to justify my choice to someone else.

Right now, we're dealing with a sudden loss of a car, so my spouse and I are somewhat desperate and need a car right now. That takes a lot of decision room off the table, and we'll have to take what we can get. It doesn't help that we're not in a major metro market so the choices are slim. Still, we're getting the 'Don't go there they'll rip you off," "Make sure you use the end-of-month quotas to your advantage," type of advice from friends who know we're car shopping. I know they're trying to be helpful as they see it, but it really adds to the stress we're already under to find something while working around schedules. I don't care about price as much as finding something that fits our needs in this messed up post-COVID distorted market with few options.

I know I'm not the first person to feel this way. Thanks for listening to my rant.