what car was it ? was it a trade or private sale?

 

It was a trade sale

 

what car was it ? was it a trade or private sale?
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There is a shortage of 2nd hand cars so dealers will not drop the price. If you are buying new then that is different ....

 

I got a PX price of ?5.5K on my Corsa VXR today and the book price is ?10k

I have no idea what is happening to the market at the moment

 

WHAT

i have just been offered 4.4k for a 3 year old 1.2 sxi corsa

 

Most dealers at the minute are selling very few cars,so the mentality seems to be get as much as possible for any car they sell.If it were me i'd try and get the finance personally and go out and buy the car you want privately.That way you will get a lot better deal and will avoid the usual dealer price mark up.

 

tried that but couldnt get finance anywhere even with a good profile. Im kinda stuck because the dealer set up the finance on a specific car with a reputable financier at a great rate.

 

Strange this.

I would have thought it would be better to sell the car, and make slightly less profit, (therefore probably sell more cars!)

My dad was buying a new Ford Fiesta, and the guys told him scrapage scheme orders come first! I didnt think that was fair either!

 

We have just cancelled an order for a New Golf for this reason. It was meant to be here november, then end of november, then beginning of December then end of december. We went in to get to the bottom of it (the dealer had told us that the scrappage scheme cars take priorty on the phone then changed his mind when we went to see him)
He told us our car had been confirmed and showed us the order on the screen with a build date on week 52.
Then I noticed it had sat nav which we had not ordered. It was not the car we ordered he looked a bit sheepish and then showed us our car and it was still not confirmed......he reckoned it would not be built until well into the new year

so we cancelled (actually got our deposit back aswell because it was over their 16week delivery time or something) and will now wait till the market has settled down before we buy again.

 

In all the years I have been buying cars for myself and now for my sister I have never paid Window price and always managed to get something thrown in like some tax etc. This is not because I think I am an expert negotiator or anything I just set my stall out early on and make them aware that I have no problem with walking away and going to the next garage down the road.

Usually goes something like - "I wont pay the price on the window - I wont pay any silly "administration" or "document handling" fees and the car needs at least 6 months tax"
Usually works - once I didnt get the tax but did get the ?105 doc fee waved and ?800 off the price and a valet.
Last car I bought (not the 5) was from a trade dealer, used car and was only in August so it still worked in the recession.

You still have a lot of power in the 2nd hand market becuase despite what is being said about the market there is lots of cars available.
If you dont feel your getting the deal you deserve I would walk away. More than a 50% chance you will get a phone call within 48 hrs offering somethign to go back.

Best of luck

 

I found the same last yr looking to buy my wife an XC90 went to dealer as there weren't many about.

They absolutely refused to move from ?14k for an 80k model.

So I looked around and waited and bought an identical one privately with 60k for ?8k.

 

This was my experience when recently buying. Dealers were not prepared to budge on sticker prices - even prepared to lose a deal for ?250 on ?8k. I guess cash is king and you'll be able to buy a car privately for a good price.

Mikey, you cant have your cake and eat it mate - if the car is a 'great deal' and you can get finance why not buy it? It's either a great deal or not. Yes, you may be able to get the car cheaper elsewhere, but you may not be able to get the finance deal or any finance to purchase it, so it's swings and roundabouts.

Asking the finance company to finance an alternative car is a good idea but you may not be able to get the same deal and then the other car may sell while you're faffing around putting you right back to square one.

 

Working in the trade it has been a bizarre year, we've had the so called recession and on my site we've seen superb sales all through the year with the Christmas lul only just showing it's head.

Upto this point Auction prices have been exceptionally strong with the lack of good used cars available, I've had cars reach 150% CAP (Current Auction Price) uptil this point, in last nights auction I only had two cars listed, both ?1,000 behind book, with lower miles and in good condition, neither of them got a bid!!

As times are getting quiter until the new years a lot of dealerships will advertise their cars at what they need to sell them for so there is next to no room for movement, finance rates in most dealerships won't be abused (depending on the manufacturer) as if you use an escalated finance rate it will be harder to help the customer into a newer car at the end of their existing finance deal.

As for rolling the red carpet out, from a reputable dealers point of view we will do anything we can to get a deal but the old addage 'all customers are lairs', most customers through the doors are not very up front about what they really want, budget, spec, expectations etc.

If your looking for a car the best way to get a good deal is be upfront, spend time with the sales exec (if you don't get on with your sales exec ask to speak to another one) and have a good natter about what you really want, this should be part of the salespersons job anyway.

If a customer came in looking for a certain type of car where I knew as a controller that what he wanted in terms of colours, spec, accessories, what he thought his car was worth and what he was willing to spend nine times out of ten I'ld sort out a good deal although you do get the nutters through the door. We had someone yesterday trying to trade in a Navara and wanting the same price for his as the one on the front with less miles and slightly newer!!!

All dealers will look after you if your up front with them!

 

I'm always scouring the 2nd hand market, what I have been seeing is some 2nd hand car prices going up drastically, some weren't negatively affected at all by the recession.

There is a large gap in the cars of around 10 years old that are available and for that reason current sellers of those vehicles, trade of private, are asking a lot of money for them advertising them as rare.

When you consider what happened to the MX5 market (and similar vehicles) which crashed and have yet to return, it would seem that other markets have done particularly well and are now worth more than they were two or three years ago.

Realistically, the scrappage scheme played a big part in keeping the people who couldn't afford new cars from buying newer cars.

 

The scrappage scheme has been a bit of joke in reality. It was introduced to help the UK markets and manufacturers, as the majority of cars aren't built in the UK were just sending money abroad! Manufacturers like Nissan are offering the 2k off against British Built cars from 8 to 10 years which has worked well for us.

What it has done in certain circumstances is entice people to buy a car because their ?50 scrapper is now worth 2k but all that is doing is getting more people into debt which is what caused the majority of the problems ni the first place, all one big viscious circle...

 

When it comes to finance remember that different dealer groups will be getting different base rates so might not be able to transfer that finance deal to another dealer as they may not be able to make the required comission. If your looking at finance ask the dealer what the base rate is they are offering and compare that with the finance companies. Do not compare on APR! I have seen APR's vary by 3-4% and the lower APR still resulting in higher repayments/more interest pay due to the various charges.

The majority of dealers will also offer regulated finance agreements which off you as the consumer much better protection and things like the halves and thirds rule which although we hope you won't have to use may come in very handy if needed.

 

ok - the final chapter on this is that if they had called me today with an offer of just 6 months tax on the car I would have bought it - they didnt so Im walking away and will probably leave it until the new year

it was a small non-franchise dealer with about 20-30 cars on their forecourt - I was very honest with them over what I wanted but they thought I was unreasonable

and yes - it was an MX-5 (MK2.5)

 

16 weeks is usually a guideline, from the date of estiamted delivery a Dealer normally has 28 days to deliver the car without having to give a refund, after that the consumer is entitled to a full refund.

Scrappage scheme shouldn't take priority, but, the scrappage scheme is getting very close to the end and the government are clamping down, dealers now have 10 days from the date of registration of the new vehicle to the date by which the old car must be scrapped and details entered on the system to claim your money from the government, I'm now getting daily emails stating which cars if any are outstanding which is a royal pita.

For the majority of new cars a dealer should be able to see exactly what date the car is arriving, personally I'll always add a week or two on to that date so the car can be prepped and checked over before we call the customer to say it's early, sounsd daft but get better Customer Satisfaction scores that way as our cars always appear to be early rather than late.

For small back street daelerships times are extremely tough at the moment, I really wouldn't be surprised at all if all he had accross the car was the required amount to cover his costs, it's easy to say make a little less profit and you'll sell more cars, unfortunately it doesn't work like that! Used cars are now suffering so people are pricing their cars as cheap as possible to sell them, when you look at valet, service, warranty, forecourt, electricity, gas, salaries, insurance costs etc the money needs to be paid somewhere!

 

*Update*

he called me back earlier today and offered me ?150 off the price of the car, which is more than I wanted

............................so it looks like the deal is back on!

 

Well done, i'm still looking

Will see what comes along as had a few rides in modified cars at Oulton & have seen the 'darkside'.
Was thinking standard then modify but now i'm confused