Haggling Heaven: Your feedback on haggling for cars

layercake

nickmack wrote:

The majority of the time, the speaking with their manager is part of the charade that they're really doing their best for you. A Salesperson generally have quite a bit of room to manouvere

I've heard that too. They just drag one of their colleagues into view, start chatting, look like they're sincere and point ocasionally at you.

After the sale they go into the back room, cackle, then dive into their money pit.

DealDrivers_company_representative

When comparing prices you do also need to compare like-for-like deals.

You can't compare the price of a pre-registered car (warranty already being eaten into..and no dealer pre-registered cars that are in demand, they pre-register the ones hard to sell..so you need to calculate that into your perception of how much you've 'saved')...with a brand new 1st.only owner deal.

Both have different residuals and different conditions of sale, so you cannot line the prices up side by side and fairly justge what was better long term value for money.

Always line your comprisons up on a like-forlike basis and decide if you want to buy brand new, used, or pre-registered, then compare prices within those categories.

Saving £4k against list price on a car registered a few weeks ago that is also now superceded by an updated facelifted model is probably more like a £1k saving in actual re-sale terms and by using a good broker you'd probably save more than that on the updated current model, brand new. There's always a reason for a deal seeming too good to be true..so do your homework!

HarryPotter_3

Hi,

I used autobytel.co.uk to get a low price on a new people carrier.

I talked to the dealer, took a test drive and picked out the model i wanted, then walked away.

I used Autobytel to get a price on the exact spec, and the also gave very good finance calculations, in the dealership everytime you want to add £100 to the deposit or add an extra to the car they have to go away and talk to the manager.

I got a very good price on the net and took this with me, they came up with a very close offer but could not get quite the same price. I walked away again.

I did some more research and went back to them I said if they could drop the price by £100, offer £100 more for my part ex I would give another £100 deposit to get the monthly payment I wanted. I they used the phrase " If you can get that price Ill give you the deposit today"

This is after all what they want you to do and of often what they ask to see how commited to buy you are, they were begining to loose intrest in me because they could not quite match the offer I had from the internet.

They came back and agreed to my terms, saving £2700 on the 'on the road price'. I then agreed to drop all the extras I had been asking for to take a car that was in the country, allowing them to close the deal before the month end. This then dropped the value of the car, but allowed me to keep the discount making my monthly payment less. It should arrive very soon.

I also used buymycar.co.uk to get an offer price for my current car, this is a price they are perpaired to pay subject to viewing, so gives you the opertunity to show the dealer you have an offer but it will slow the transaction down, and you may have to come back next month when is sold, they upped the PX offer and matched it.

Taking firm offers in to the dealer gives them something to work toward, so no need to haggle over how much they can go down to, they ether beat the price you have or you go else where. Even if you have every intenton of buying from a dealer rather than from the net.

You cut down on all the trying to outsmart someone who sells cars for a living, they will have seen every way of haggling you know, but at the end of the day are desprate to sell you something, even if they are making a tiny margin. The fact you are honest with them giving a print out and price upfront forces them to get a deal for you, arguing and telling them you can get a better price for a different car does you little good.

natanddan1

I have been lookinging into buying a Peugeot 407 coupe. 2.2L SE

I got some internet prices and then mail shot loads of main dealers across the country.
I have managed to get the price down from £22,800 to £16740. This is the on the road price and also includes the new RT4 satnav and GSM phone system (includes 30gb hard drive built in).

I have 3 main dealers who have offered this price. (got some really stroppy emails back though!!!)

Going to place an order next week unless someone can get the price down further, but i doubt it!!!!

Anon

This may sound a silly question (I know, no such thing on MSE ... read on!), but is there any hard and fast rule when buying a used/nearly new car about how much to start your offer below the asking price at a main dealers? How much profit is built into a car?

When I went in recently a Vauxhall Zafira was just over £12,000, they offered around £3000 part exchange for mine and the salesman claimed that at that they were about breaking even with a £1 profit or so - I walked away but wondered if this was realistic (were they being honest? £1 on a car sounded as though it was designed to make you feel sorry for them!) or how much to try to negotiate it down from this?

Many thanks

Anon

Pobman_2

F.A.O Anon

I bought a new Honda two years ago. List price was £13,400 - best internet broker price was £11,900 on the road. Dealer said his breakeven price was £12,700 per car. However when the crunch came he accepted my offer of £12,300.

Yes they may sell at a loss per car, but the sale will go towards their incentive scheme, which may include a 'free' car for every X sold, or a big dealer kickback for meeting sales targets.

I don't know how low your dealer will go - probably something slightly higher than the internet brokers are quoting. Also have a look at the 'Target Price' in a magazine like What Car? - which is an achievable price at any dealer.

plane_boy2000

Very true Pobman - I bough a car once for which the dealer told me he was selling at cost price. His reason for doing this was that he got a volume bonus from Citroen for shifting a large number of cars. His way of achieving this was to pile them high, sell em cheap

katiep_2

Hi All,

I'm looking into buying a new car, but a little run-around for less than £10k. You guys have got some fabulous deals, but for cars over that amount - do you think there are still the offers around for the lower end cars?

faustina_2

this is just to say thank you for the haggling help. I bought a toyota prius yesterday. I'd got identical quotes from broadspeed and autofinders £15999 for the T3 - list price £17997, whatcar target price £16734. The toyota dealer from Broadspeed at first offered me a preregistered car for the above, with £100 for delivery but then changed his mind and said I could have a new one, and the autofinder one was new - anyway, then I called my local dealer who'd given me the car for a day's test drive thinking he would never match that, and he did! And he also had one that had arrived on the forecourt that day in the colour I wanted. I am glad to have been able to order from my local dealer because he was helpful. I was DREADING the haggling bit, but in the event I just called him and said "I've got some quotes on the net and I wondered if you could match them". I think it would have been more nerve wracking face to face

jstallan

I live in Essex, where to be honest I've always found the price of decent used cars pretty high. Looking online at autotrader, the further North you go the cheaper they tend to get. So I used the following approach :-
1. Took myself off to Derby to visit some of the larger SuperMarket Sites after checking they had my kinda car in stock (which they did , but not the colour it turns out). Got some literature and had a good look at the cars.
2. Return back home and used the literature, knowledge and pricing to drive down the purchase price of my car.
3. Waited till the end of the month (end of sales quarter actually) to purchase as the dealer was keen to gain a sale rather than just a profit.

From the local Vauxhall Main Dealer I got a 9 month old Vauxhall Zafira 1.9 CDTI (150 BHP) Design in the colour I wanted with 9k miles on the clock for £13k. Was up for £15k. Same car in Derby was £12,700 plus fees (total was £12,850 plus travel costs).