Great ‘salespeople, tell us the best time to haggle’ Hunt

ThriftyScot

I work in Scotland's largest used car showroom and I would definately say that the last 2 days of the month is the best time to buy even if monthly target has been met as anything over and above target gives the manager's bigger bonuses.

If you have your funds in place or willing to take finance then you could expect to negotiate a good discount (£300+) as long as the monies were paid on the last day of the month.

Dealers (or customers) can purchase road tax for used cars for the next month 48 hours beforehand whereas if it was a brand new car the dealer can tax your car for 6/12 months PLUS additional weeks (3,2 or 1) this does incur a fee which I think is about £3.50 for every extra week required.

A lot of dealers now use CAP's black book for pricing part exchange vehicles and will nearly always base their price on CAP Average. Give your car a good valet beforehand it may make quite a difference to the price offered.

Hope this helps someone.

jillie1974

with holidays prob best time to haggle is Jan/Feb over 40% of a store's annual target can be achieved in these 2 months and some stores will do some good discounts however... you will prob never get more than 10%
Jul is a good time as well as is the next busiest month of the year to book and we have high targets then as well.
no best time of month though......

ralph_wilson

Is there a best time to buy a used car with no trade in? I was thinking that on the 1st day of a new plate they would be up to their eyes in trade-ins and would want to get them shifted. - Any thoughts?

saadia_haq

blossom76 wrote: »

I'm moving into a flat and require washing machine, cooker and fridgefreezer, how should I go about getting these as cheap as possible?

If you google freecycle you can join up to your area. This is a website where people give things away rather than throw or sell it. It often has household things. These are free, you just need to be able to collect.:T

chog24

Anyone know the best time to haggle with Virgin Multimedia? I have their cable, broadband and phone already but know that there are better deals out there so I want to try to get their V+ and maybe faster broadband and preferably cut my montly bills (having done a bit of research, Sky should be cheaper, but I've got Virgin all installed and set up now, plus sky use a BT line and I detest BT... of course, Virgin don't need to know all this )

darrahman

TRY quidco they got 130 quid for virging sign up at the moment

Helix

darrahman wrote: »

TRY quidco they got 130 quid for virging sign up at the moment

Only for new customers though. Not existing ones so that won't help to get a better deal as he is already and existing customer.

frauslug

Does anybody know when the best time to buy a new or used caravan is?
We bought a cheap one a few months ago to see if the family enjoyed it. They did and now we are looking to upgade to something better, but don't want to pay more than we have to.

Cerulean

From working in the motor trade for the last decade I would add the following tips to the good advice already given.

1) Don't be confrontational. It shouldn't be a battle. A deal is more likely to be done to both parties satisfaction if the negotiations are carried out in a pleasant manner.

2) Be realistic especially in todays tougher economic climate. As chelleapps discovered part exchanges are not worth as much as expectant customers often think, and it's not always the salesperson trying to pull a fast one. Never underestimate the value of selling your car privately. See this article from Autocars website:
http://www.autocar.co.uk/blogs/anythinggoes/archive/2008/07/07/why-nobody-wants-your-car.aspx)
Of course the upside of this is that you are likely to be getting a very good deal on your new car.

3)Don't always wait until the end of the quarter. Although the chances are a deal will be there to be had on the last day of the month there is always the chance that you may miss the boat and the dealership has met their targets and is now concentrating on the next quarter. I would advise coming in early in the last month of the quarter, and at least registering an interest that you are in the market. That way even if you don't come to a deal then there's a chance you will get a phone call later in the month from an eager salesperson.

4)Don't always go with the cheapest option (Support your local dealer). Admittedly this won't make sense if there is thousands of pounds difference, but by buying from your local dealer rather than someone possibly hundreds of miles away, the value of the goodwill as far as aftersales care can not be underestimated. Yes, warranty work will be carried out as per the manufacturers instructions, but in my experience garages will be less likely to go out of there way to help you when things do go pear shaped if the car was bought elsewhere. For instance we recently had a customer in who had done just this and was complaining of a poor ride. It transpired that the transport blocks had not been removed at the pre delivery inspection by the selling dealer. As the dealer was 300 miles away the customer was not going to take it back to them, and we charged them for the time taken. This could equally apply to any scratches or damage found on the car not spotted at handover.

Jarlawuk

Don't know if its been posted already but:

Retailer: Phones 4 U
Best time/days to go: Early morning/Near close of business - lots of pressure to get sales on board quickly in the morning to get the day started. If the store hasn't hit target they will offer more near closing time to hit target for the day. Saturday's as targets are at their highest. End of the month - if the store is close to target, they will offer as much as they can to get your business.

Also if where you live has more than one store - shop around. I used to work in a Birmingham city centre branch and some customers would go around all 4 stores to see who would give more discount.