Haggling Heaven: Your feedback on haggling for cars

Moomin

Help! I have got my eye on great offer on nearly new Yaris (top spec) on sale for £9400 ono - 07 Reg (July 2007). How low should my offer be, without offending the seller? (This is the second time I've bought a used car!)

gsmmad

I need somehelp im looking the get the ...

http://fiat-grande-punto.sgpetch.co.uk/pages/new/single/make=Fiat/model=Grande%20Punto/type=Grande_Punto_Stripes_5_door_MANUAL_1013

Its the limited edition fiat punto i was told its 8250 ....at the dealership.

I think i can get it from the guy for 7500 ....saving me 750.....what would you suggest is best for me to do in order to get this down even lower. I know its a great price but i would like another 300-400 shaved off. Im looking at sites to find the regular version for as cheap as possible so i can use that as a point to get the price lowered.

matthewn.green

Has anyone actually had any experience of selling?

Coz after reading a post about how us nasty car salesman dive into our money pit, and cackle in the sales office, it seems a little unbalanced as a point of view.

Generally speaking, I get about £60 for selling a brand new car. Bearing in mind the hassle from the customer that complains because his car is going to be 2 month wait, even though I told him that, and thinks he can get a better deal elsewhere, you have to wonder if its worth it.

As you can probably tell from me being on this website, I don't have a money pit myself. I earn money based on commission plus a basic wage, which is basically dole. If I don't sell I don't earn, so bear in mind that when you go into a dealership, as hard as it may be to believe it, the salesman is on your side. If I can't get a good deal off my boss for the car, then you won't buy the car, and I've not earnt any money.

Its you and the salesman vs. The Sales Manager, and they only have so much to play with. Generally, dealer margin is 7% of the basic price (pre vat, no delivery, no tax or first reg fee), and after that the deal makes no profit, although as said the dealership gets volume bonus.

Just wanted to make a bit of an argument to the nasty saleman attitude. We've all got jobs to do, and bills to pay. If you were to go into any other establishment and start haggling over a deal, you'd feel happy to get 1% off the price. Don't forget also, Part Exchanging is the only transaction these days where you buy and sell in one go.

To the above poster, why do you think you should be able to get more off? Is this a figure you've decided you'd like to pay? Because if so, you have a choice to accept the offer the dealer has made, or walk away. I would suggest asking for £1000 off a car is pushing it, for the reasons listed above.

You aren't clear if its a new car, but if it is, then I would would work out the following:

£8250 - OTR Price
-£115 Road Tax
-£500 Delivery (ish)
-£50 First Registration
_______
£7585

Less tax = basic price of £6455.32.

Dealer margin of 7% - £450. Sounds like a good deal to me.

gsmmad

The car is new, the price is 8,395, i have taken it down to 7,500 possibly but the normal version of this car is shown on the link below, and not only that the car is being sold for 6,900 and nearly on all internet sites the car is worth around 7,000 .....

http://www.buyacar.co.uk/detailyq14432.jhtml?ref=CarPriceChecker

As you can see OTR 9,000 ...the sites price 6,900...

This car is 8,400 ...i would like it for 7,000 and i will get the thing that protects the cars interior and the exterior ....which would make it 7350....

I am a student, this is my first car my insurance alone is 1500-2000 ....thats why i am looking at ways of getting this car as cheap as possible, so therefor when it comes to selling the car my loss wont be too much. I have 6000 at the moment ill be borrowing from my brother to get the car and pay for insurance which he will get back once i get paid this month, well some of it .

I am a sales man myself i work at phones4u and i get nasty sales man attitude from people all the time and i know what you mean, like if i cannot get the discount the person wants then i do not make a sale and waste my time. I totally know where your coming from because i have to go to the manager for the discount all the time.

The guy selling me the car seems like a very good man, and a good sales executive, he did seem very disinterested about the deal as i am assuming he thought that i wont buy, due to my age. Also probably got the idea that i had to check with my parents and ask for money. Then we got down to finance and he realised i could just buy the car cash then he got more down to business. I has a test drive, loved the car, i think its a small nice car and cheap to run. I nice car for london.

Im going to go back as soon as i can to discuss this with the sales executive. I do think i may walk away and i hope not because i do like the car but my budget is not too big its 8,500 for everything i can push this up by going into my student over draft which is interest free but i see no reason for this. I have done my research and i am hoping i can get this car for the price i want.

any ideas of how i can take the price lower

snoopy1971

Whilst I agree with matthewn green that not all salesman are "nasty" but I am not about to feel sorry for them as a whole. Ultimately the whole buying thing is a game or at best a battle of wills!

For example I am in the process of buying a SEAT leon FRTDi list price £17695 target price £16470 Having gone to my nearest SEAT dealer i was offered 07 plate 4.5k miles with met paint, 18" wheels, bluetooth for £16999 or a "brand new" car also for £16999.

When I showed my internet site research was offering the same car brand new with met paint (no other extras) as low as £16350 they dropped the 07 to £15700.

However what they failed to tell me was that the cheapest website was actually THEIRS!!! So despite me showing the price and the website offering that price for verification they elected to not mention that the website and dealership were one and the same!!!

As of yesterday I have been offered the new car for £16350 but told do not expect any further discount as "that is the lowest you'll get that car anywhere" having been less than honest with me once I thought I would try elsewhere.

I now have offer 1. Brand new car £15900 with Met Paint or offer 2. £16100 with met paint and £250 of extras (rain sensor wipers, Intelligent lights, rear view mirror auto dimmer). Only stipulation is that an order is placed by end of Nov.

So i will now go back to the original dealer to see if they still want to tell me that I can't get lower than £16350!!

Whilst I appreciate that it is "a job and that salesman have bills to pay, if the sales man is happy to rob (cheat) me out of my hard earned money whether it is for his/her own benefit or the dealerships I am gonna do evrything to get the price down.

matthewn.green

snoopy1971 wrote: »

Ultimately the whole buying thing is a game or at best a battle of wills!

Exactly my point. Its not. It may seem it for you, and its good fun going shopping for cars, i'll admit. But when it comes down to it, its my living.

shays_mum

Any tips on buying & haggling from a second-hand car dealer?, Any advice is much appreciated as i'm going to see a car this weekend & don't fancy being ripped off, thanks in advance

trogit

Have a look at http://www.carbuyingguide.org.uk/index.php

It claims:
"The information on this website was written by two trained and successful car sales people and is packed with insider information, tips and advice about buying a car – to help you get the best deal."

If nothing else, it's a useful indication of what the salesman may really be thinking/planning/doing.

HTH
trogit

tryinhardtosavethepennies

My OH and I have just bought ourselves a brand new 08 reg Toyota Aygo Platinum special edition, 5 doors with air-con for a smashing £8135 - a total of £610 off the list price!!! (oh, plus a full tank of petrol!).

And our ability to do so is all down to you guys

Thanks ever so much for the hints and tips divulged here and in the general article about new car buying.

So here's how we did it:

Originally, I was looking at the Aygo Blue because it has air-con as standard, but the dealer talked me out of it, even though it would have been the same price as I would have ended up going for alloys as an extra on that, which costs the same as air-con as an extra on the Platinum (and to be fair, the Platinum comes with much more "as standard" and I didn't mind paying the extra £500 for air-con - especially since we got £610 off the list price!).

Before we went, I had done some basic research (as per the new car article on here), finding out the "target price" set by what car?, Glass's guide and Parker's. I also had a few quotes from different dealers and brokers online. I had also calculated what 7% off the list price would be as I read somewhere (I think it might even be on this thread) that really that's all dealers can afford to discount.

So, on Thursday evening we walked into the showroom and had a long-ish chat (~1-1.5 hours) with a salesman and, when haggling, I just told them outright that I'd seen the same car I wanted elsewhere for the price that I got it for in the end, and asked him quite plainly if he could match it.

But we walked away, saying we'd have to think about it and do the sums (at this point he hadn't promised to be able to give us that much money off, reiterating the usual schpeel about Toyota not normally giving much money off, etc. etc.!) but before we left we made an appointment with him on the Saturday, so he knew we were coming back (which afterwards made me wonder if that put us in a weaker position??).

However, when we went back, we asked if he could get us that discount, and also asked for a couple of years free servicing too, so he went off to "ask the general manager". He came back after about 10-15mins and said if he gave us that £610 off, then he couldn't do much else. So my OH simply asked if that was OTR price and reeled off all the usual stuff (you know, Tax, RFL, which we knew were included) and added, "and a full tank of petrol?" to which the guy shook his head and said no he couldn't do that, so my OH just said if you can do that too, then I'll sign right here and now, so off he went to ask the GM again, and came back a few minutes later, shook our hands and that was that!

So for a total of 2-3hours work, we "earned" £610 plus the cost of a tank of petrol (I'm guessing £35-£40?) - so approximately £200-£300 an hour! A salary I've only ever dreamed of!!!

Thank you so much fellow MSEers! :beer:

stevel1973_2

To get the best deal when buying a car is go to the showroom as a couple and one of you be negative about the car in question, this will put the salesman on his back foot thinking it is not going to be an easy sale and will offer a better deal to compensate the negativity