TLDR: It depends on two things most buyers never factor in — the HST savings from trading in (13% of your trade value in Ontario), and how much time you actually want to spend selling a car. On paper, selling privately usually gets you a higher number. Once you include the tax math and the hassle, it often doesn't.

There's a reason dealerships love the question "What kind of monthly payment are you looking for?"

It's not to help you budget. It's because the moment you answer that question, the salesperson is in control of the process. Everything that happens next like the term length, the interest rate, the trade-in value, the add-ons — it all gets quietly engineered around that monthly payment number.

And that's where the trap is.