drivethedeal - Review

ardandy

Picked up my new Octavia vRS TDI CR on friday! Had to go to London (from Yorkshire) to get it but it was well worth the trip!

Forgetting the car (which is brilliant!) this is my experience of the online broker www.drivethedeal.com

Website's easy to use, just tell it what car you want and the options you need, although make sure you read the paragraph at the top after you've picked your make/model as they sometimes mention what you have to do to qualify for a special offer or something like that.

I visited 2 local Skoda dealers and the best price with my options was £19,100, I like to think I'm competent at haggling too.

Through drivethedeal the total price for the same car was £16,475! :T

The process is that you place the order on their website for the car and the options you want, then put your details in for the deposit which is a minimum of £500. THIS DEPOSIT IS TAKEN BY THE MAIN DEALER, NOT THE BROKER.

After you've placed the order you get a call within 24 hours to check what you've ordered is correct and that you're happy with everything. Once you've agreed drivethedeal place the order with the dealer, up to this point you're not told who or where the dealer is for obvious reasons!

Within a few days you get a call from the dealer who you are buying the car from to introduce themselves. After this point your dealings with 'dtd' are over, although if any issues arise with the dealer/order (which I had a minor one) then they do try to help out and sort things out for you.

Now for the sceptics (as I was) regarding brokers/online etc.

You do not pay anything to 'dtd', think of them as finding the best price from around the country and haggling for you, I'm guessing their money comes from the dealer, like a mortgage broker.

None of the cars are pre-registered like some online brokers do to get cheaper cars, you're the 1st registered owner! (check the paragraph at the top as mentioned above for extra details)

As said, all financial dealings are with the main dealer ONLY.

Dtd do offer finance quotes and its worth getting one through their website but you do not have to get finance from them just because you are buying the car from them. A company they use quoted me £248 p/m but when I contacted the Skoda dealer themselves (after order) for a quote, thanks to a special Skoda offer it went down to £212 p/m!


To summarise if you're wanting to buy through them:

1, Buy through the website.
2, Get a quote for finance (if needed) from them but then get another after been contacted by the Main Dealer as they often have better offers. (Dtd don't mind this)
3, Be aware that the dealer could be anywhere in the UK but they do deliver the car for free to you if you didn't want to travel.

I've heard only good things from others (they've been going over 10 years) which is why I placed an order through them and all I can do is echo previous reports! I genuinely saved over £2,500 by not just relying on my 2 local dealers!

Thanks!

Debtor

ardandy- thanks for the review!

my question is (you may not know the answer), what if you like the look of the deal and put down the £500 deposit and then you are contacted by the local dealer. but what happens next is that for some reason, you are refused the finance you need from the dealer/ DTD. Do you get your £500 back?

ardandy

I would imagine you would get your deposit back, not sure TBH! I think you can get a quote before an order is placed .

The best thing to do would be to ring them, their phone number is on the website and are nice to speak to (think theres only a few of them!).

Debtor

cheers for that andy!

bclark

This happened to me with Drive the Deal a few years back. I wanted to take advantage of a discounted finance offer the manufacturer were offering and the dealer said he couldn't do it with the small margin he was making from the Car. It was no problem with Drive the Deal and they hadn't even taken the money at this point. They were very apologetic.

Debtor

i thought DTD wouldn't let you make contact with any dealer until the £500 had been paid over???
They have a great deal on at the moment with the car i am looking for and i was just concerned about the finance aspect- especially with the way things are going at the moment!

bclark

Debtor wrote: »

i thought DTD wouldn't let you make contact with any dealer until the £500 had been paid over???
They have a great deal on at the moment with the car i am looking for and i was just concerned about the finance aspect- especially with the way things are going at the moment!

No they won't. I had paid the £500 with my card over their web page but it all happened so quickly (within about 4 hours) that when it turned out that they couldn't progress, the money hadn't been taken off my card. If you have any specific worries about finance then you can make a note of it on the page where you pay.

Markyt

Debtor wrote: »

i thought DTD wouldn't let you make contact with any dealer until the £500 had been paid over???
They have a great deal on at the moment with the car i am looking for and i was just concerned about the finance aspect- especially with the way things are going at the moment!

I did it a few weeks ago and DTD took nothing - the garage contacted me directly and I paid my deposit straight to them after checking the details.

Debtor

markyt, thanks for the clarification..

ardandy

As its the dealer and not DTD that take your deposit, DTD will be checking with them to make sure the car is available before they take anything out.

I got a switch receipt in the post with order forms etc from the dealer after I ordered it.

What car you going for then?

Debtor

Hi andy, am looking at the Honda CRV and Dtd have it for over £3500 off the EX version!

not 100% yet, but am very deep in thought!