Forecourt haggling and how much to offer

chickmug

Whats the best way of trying to negotiate the price down of a used car in a main dealer. My wife is looking for something small, no more than two years old, and wants to trade in a five year old large car.

Do people pay anywhere near the asking prices or are they pumped up as they know they will come down. But by how much?

Little_John

It helps knowing the trade prices of the car your selling and the car your buying. the idea is to get as much more over the price of the trade in and pay as close to the trade price of the car your buying.

Go to www.vauxhall.co.uk and up at the top the owners section will allow you to value your car, do it for both cars to get the trade valuse of both cars.

Mak sure your trade in is clean as possible when you take it down to them a clean car gives the impresion it has been looked after and should get you a better price as the dealer on't need to valet it. A good example of this is a freind of my mums tried to trade her 55 plate corsa in against a new one a few month ago the offer was poor. I then detailed it spent 18 hours cleaning it up includeing machine polishing they then returned to the same dealer and was offered £2000 more than their previous offer for the same car. I know there are other factors in there but that was a huge increase on the previous offer.

Knowing figures of everything helps, prices the same cars have sold for before, do they have a similar car to yours on their lot or any other local place have a similar car, you can get an idea of how much they will make on the car you can eat in to that as much as possible great. You will also be able to see what other places are selling similar cars that you want to buy.

Don't tell them what you are prepared to pay, funiliy enough their deal is alway just above that tell them to come back with their best deal and see what they come back with. I always find telling them it is too much helps then give them a price your prepared to pay based on the figures you have. if they get nowhere near always walk away. if your figures are realistic they should always come up with a deal.

chickmug

Little John

Thanks so much for your tips you have been really helpful. :beer: