Buying a car for "cash"

briddj

I know this is probably a foolish question, but is cash counted as anything that is not credit? For instance, if I bought a car on a credit card would that be clashed as cash as they dealership is getting the money up front?

tbourner

Dealerships get the money immediately no matter how you pay. With credit there is a seperate company who you owe the money to, and they 'buy' the car for you and give the dealership the 'cash'.

If you're looking for a discount, there's no way you will get one by offering 'cash' instead of anything else. Cash, cheque, credit card, finance, the dealers don't care any more as they still get the money easily and quickly. It's not like it was in the old days!

briddj

There still seems to be a lot of talk of "paying by cash" though. Just wondered if it was still the best way to get a chunk off having not owned a car for several years.

LandyAndy

TBH they may well charge you extra for paying by credit card if it's a large sum to cover their merchant fee.

colino

With sub-prime lenders retreating from the second hand car market, I see more and more people coming in buying bangers with shiny new credit cards. If they can't get finance for cars costing less than £5k, how are they paying off the plastic?

[Deleted User]

Surely a debit card is classed as 'cash' to a car dealer. Unless they are really dodgy and want actual paper notes in their back pocket before you drive away. They only pay a single merchant fee with debit cards unlike a percentage with credit cards.

briddj

I can pay by cash transfer from my savings account - I'm only mentioning credit cards as I thought it would be the quickest way to get the purchase through

Ebe_Scrooge

Been there, done that. In my experience, most dealers will accept a credit card, but ( as mentioned previously ) will charge you the 2.5 % or whatever it is that they get charged from the card company. The easiest way is by debit card - the dealer is happy as it's guaranteed ( i.e. the payment is either authorised or declined on the spot ), you don't have the worry of carrying a wad of used notes, and usually the fee to the dealer is actually lower than that for banking hard cash or a cheque. You can ( mostly ) still pay by cheque, but the dealer will probably not release the car until the cheque has cleared. Then you have the worry "what if the dealer does a runner whilst I'm waiting for the cheque to clear" ( OK, unlikely I know ).

So all in all, the easiest way is make sure you have the money in your bank account beforehand ( whether that's via a loan or whatever ), then pay by debit card. I've done this several times, there's a slight delay whilst the bank phones the dealer and asks to speak to you to authorise the payment as it's an unusally large amount - that's actually quite reassuring :-) But once authorised, the dealer is happy that his money is safe and off you tootle.

Inactive

Debit Card = Cash.

Credit Card = Credit, not cash.

claireac

We looked at a car last night, and we could have paid by hard cash or debit card and on a £3800 car he would only knock off £100 :eek:!!

Certainly not how it used to be. Might be better with a private seller, but then you don't get the warranty (for what it's worth!!).

tbourner

claireac wrote: »

Might be better with a private seller, but then you don't get the warranty (for what it's worth!!).

They don't tend to have card facilities though, it's cash all the way.