The incentives or rebates available on whatever vehicle you're interested in should in no way get in your way, or confuse things when negotiating a car deal. Simply negotiate the car deal as if there were no incentives involved.

Keep the rebates separate from the price negotiation. In the end, the rebates are the same as cash down! Therefore, once you negotiate your best car deal you must take the selling price then add tax and title fees to come up with the total price.

Then you subtract the rebates from that figure. The rebates are the same as you putting cash down out of your own pocket. After you do this you can deal with the trade-in allowance if there is one, and any payoff you may have on your trade.

Don't let the sales person muddle up the deal by dealing with the rebate in any other way. They will try to subtract it from the price of the car to make you think the price is lower then it actually is, or they may try to include it in the trade-in allowance to make you think they're giving you more for your trade. They have other tricks too, so just stick to what I've outlined above.

Always know what the rebate is before you go in to negotiate. The best place to find this information is on Edmunds.com