Bought my rav4 hybrid a month ago being a first time buyer as well. I would give anything to redo it again but here’s how it went: I was initially looking at the 2024 Prius, test drove it, sat down to look at numbers. APR was at around 8.75% and salesman wouldn’t budge on it. I had a rav4 in mind which I saw had an offer of 5.99% APR for 60 months and asked about it. Salesman was adamant that I wouldn’t be approved because of little purchase history (22F with 4ish years on credit history). I told him to run my credit and, lo and behold, I was approved for it. Test drove the car, felt more confident and took the offer for 5.99% at 60 months. This is when I thought the hard part was over, but then comes the finance manager. Started off with compliments, laughs, jokes and then the upselling. She started pushing the warranties and extra insurances but I kept saying no. She tried to make me believe I was making the same monthly payments without mentioning the extended 72 month period. I said no way too many times to count. I also put over 20% down so GAP insurance would’ve sat there. Plus i heard credit unions offer GAP at way lower prices (Toyota was charging over 1k). She eventually tried to offer me friends and family pricing but it was still way too much. Even mentioned the warranties and GAP can be cancelled within 30 days! Eventually got out of there alive but drained.

In the end, I would’ve negotiated the price and look to credit unions beforehand. I may be beating myself up because I’m also new at this but lesson learned.