Negotiating with dealer: VW Bora

[ajbaker]

I have been looking at purchasing a 2-4 year old VW Bora in the last month or so to replace my ageing (96 114k miles) Nissan Almera. The 53 Bora has been at the dealers now for almost 6 weeks and the advertised price has dropped from £10000 to £9200 suggesting the dealer is getting keen to sell.

I test drove the car almost 5 weeks ago (asking price of £10,000) and although the silver colour was not my first choice I was keen to make an offer. Finance would be £2k cash deposit and the remainder private loan - so effectively cash. The dealer offered me £400 for my current car p/x so while I was keen to make an offer I was flat out offended by this low offer for mine.

Since I am guessing the dealer is now keen to sell, I am considering how I should negotiate my offer. The asking price is now just over to £9k and my car is worth around £700 p/x to £1000 private, so I was considering starting at around £7800 total and going up to a MAX of £9100 or 9200.

What do people think? Am i likely to get that or is there no way the dealer will go so low? What sort of margins do VW dealers have on that price car? Is this a good price for 53 Bora with mileage slightly above average? The book price from a main dealer is about £9000.

Thoughts appreciated.

[tomstickland]

What are private sale Almeras going for on Autotrader? You could sell privately for more and then go to the dealer saying you just want a cash deal.
The cheapest approach would to keep the 114K car though - it's only half way through it's service life and Nissans are very reliable.

[Ian Griffiths]

Sell the Almera privately for £650 and tell the dealer you want the Bora for £8500.

[pgilc1]

have you checked the likes of autotrader for other boras of that year, perhaps sold by a smaller independent garage? a vw dealer is probably the most expensive place to buy a vw...

[pgilc1]

also sell your own car privately, the dealer is offering you what it is worth to the motor trade, ie a trader has 'underwritten' it at £400, budgets to spend maybe £100 on it and maybe £50 advertising, then sticks it in the autotrader for £850.

[ajbaker]

Thank you for all your replies. Nice to see a little common sense! I knew it was the most expensive option, but was falling for the 'prestige' of buying through a dealer none the less. As tomstickland said, my car has been incredibly reliable and continues to be so, despite the fact it has done 115k. The reason I was thinking of selling is my previous car got to this age and started getting expensive. I know there will be a few relatively expensive details in my next MOT, but spending a few hundred is certainly cheaper than spending £8k!

I think for the moment then I will be sticking to the current car.

[mr_accountant]

Thank you for all your replies. Nice to see a little common sense! I knew it was the most expensive option, but was falling for the 'prestige' of buying through a dealer none the less. As tomstickland said, my car has been incredibly reliable and continues to be so, despite the fact it has done 115k. The reason I was thinking of selling is my previous car got to this age and started getting expensive. I know there will be a few relatively expensive details in my next MOT, but spending a few hundred is certainly cheaper than spending £8k!

I think for the moment then I will be sticking to the current car.

Good choice i might add. If your car is fine why change it? most modern cars(if looked after) are very reliable and Nissans have above average reliability. My car has done 95k and fells like a car with 20k on it. Reliable and well built too, i will only change if/when something expensive goes wrong, i suggest you do the same too.

Re vw, i understand a recent JD power survey put them as the worst car dealers in the UK, that’s says a lot when the vast majority of car dealers are awful rip off merchants to begin with. To be the worst of a bad bunch is very bad! And vw are at best a mid-table manufacturer when it comes to reliability.

[tomstickland]

When your MOT comes up then post on here with any fail points and I/we'll try to point out ways to save money on getting it through.

I've never bought a car with less than 95K on the clock. I took one up to 180K with no break downs, the second one I took to 195K before fitting a rebuilt engine, current car was bought on 145K and I'll be taking it to 200K hopefully.


I was once told by an old man in the queue at Halfords (yes, I used to shop there before I knew better) to Just keep changing the oil and filter and then an engine would do 200K without any trouble. I've subsequently read some articles on this and it's true - it's combustion particles in the oil that do a lot of the damage. Synthetic oil lasts longer but still turns to griding paste.

[highguyuk]

Have posted this as a few replies, people probably think im on commision.

Try www.wisebuyers.co.uk for car valuations, yours and the Bora.