Scared to Buy a New Car?

I sure am. I'm pretty sure that our car is about to bite the dust. And there's no reason that it shouldn't. It's a 12 year old mini-van that only cost $1500 a year ago. It owes us nothing. It's been a good car.
But it means that I'm facing the scary prospect of buying a new (to me) car. And that scares me.
See, I've never actually done this. I tried once, when I got my first job out of college. But my credit score was bad/non-existent at the time and so I was turned down. I remember feeling so humiliated about that. After all, a friend of mine had just financed a used car and I made significantly more money than she did.
I hate negotiating and I hate people trying to rip me off. And you always hear stories of car salespeople being like that. My husband's not good at things like that either, so I can't defer to him (and even if he was, I'd have to handle all of the arrangements because his English isn't that good).
Well, fortunately, I mentioned this to my friend, who loaned me a copy of the book href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FWhat-Dealers-Wont-Tell-2005%2Fdp%2FB000H2N87I%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1202160692%26sr%3D8-1&tag=teachinengl0b-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">What
Car Dealers Won't Tell You. This book is fascinating!
I'm not even that far into it, but I'm just so excited about it that I had to post! It's written by Bob Ford, who's been working in the car sales business for over 30 years. So far, it walks you through all of the steps that the car salesperson will go through to get you to buy. Little tricks that they may play depending on the type of buyer you are. It gives you hints on what to say and when to say it. And provides a bunch of checklists to make sure that you are getting what you want (and not getting extras that you don't need).
I'm so happy that I'll be walking into the dealership with this knowledge floating around in my head. I'm still a little nervous, but I'm feeling much more confident. Still might not go for awhile, but I'll let you know when I do.