How do new car rebates work?
 

I've done a little bit of online research, but I can't find the answer to this question:

Does a "customer cash" rebate from Mazda require that you finance the car with them? What if you were paying for the car in full?

If it's straight customer cash, it applies no matter how you buy the car. Sometimes there are customer cashes tied to Mazda financing. For example, when I bought mine there was a$1500 regular CC and another $500 for Mazda financing.

I paid cash, and got the $1500. I've been second guessing about whethr I could have financed to get the other $500, then paid the loan off immediately.

Ken

It depends. For example, 2008 RX-8's :

$5,000 Customer Cash (1) OR

1.9% APR for up to 60 MONTHS PLUS $500 Customer Cash (3) OR
2.9% APR for up to 72 MONTHS PLUS $500 Customer Cash (16)

IT means :

If you buy the car, and pay cash on the spot, You can take another 5000 dollars off your final price (after all the taxes and stuff). So lets just say if your final price is 30000 after all taxes and stuff, Mazda will "give you" 5000 dollars. So you just have to pay 25000 and can you drive the car out the lot.

For the 1.9 APR, you HAVE to do financing thru Mazda America Financing, its almost the same as above except that instead of 5000, they will "most likely" include all interest charges first THEN they will deduce 500 from the total amount then break it up into 60 months.

When I got mine I got 2K off,the manager made a mistake cuz only leasing can get 2K off, he actually called me and see if I wanna go back and "Re-do" the contract again, he said "do the right thing". I was like, I think about it LOL ! of course I never went back, I think he got fired. hohoho ~

Yes you can choose the financing option to get another "whatever amount" off, then pay it off immediately. I think all auto company's own financing has no pre-paid penalty. At least Mazda and Honda doesn't