i want to buy a car

carol9uk

i live in the north west and looking for dealer i e carcraft,motorpoint, not been to these places before, so any advice would be gratefully recived.


thanks

Nile

Hello carol9uk

I'll move your thread to the 'Motoring & Public Transport' board, where it should get more responses.

Hi, Martin’s asked me to post this in these circumstances: I’ve asked Board Guides to move threads if they’ll receive a better response elsewhere(please see this rule) so this post/thread has been moved to another board, where it should get more replies. If you have any questions about this policy please email [EMAIL="abuse@moneysavingexpert.com"]abuse@moneysavingexpert.com[/EMAIL].

Regards

Nile

DavidHM

Motorpoint: being massaged.

Carcraft: being stabbed.

I'll give you a fuller answer as to why later.

carol9uk

ive looked into carcraft and they dont look good and there is a motorpoint near me. anyone used the carpeople

peterg1965

try Fords of Winsford, https://www.fow.co.uk they have won the What Car best car supermarket for a few years on the trot and are a very good company to deal with, with loads of choice. Website good too.

saintjanet

Whats wrong with a local dealer/garage?

Some of these so called car supermarkets can seem cheaper but do not give a wonderful after sales if you have problems.I like to go back ,if need be and talk to the man who sold me the car and not find he is now selling mobile phones in a new job!!,thats just my opinion but i would add that i have bought LOADS of cars over many years.I must be getting old but i cant imagine buying a car unseen off the net as some do!!Unless it was new.

I would add however that i have heard good things said about the above mentioned Fords of Winsford.

DavidHM

There are basically two kinds of car supermarket:

1. One sells nearly new, ex-manufacturer and ex-rental cars (plus some imports). It sells on offering a fairly homogenous product (one year-old Focus is much like another) cheaply, with a large choice and low pressure sales (even to the point of indifference from the sales force). Motorpoint and Fords of Winsford fall into this category.

2. The other sells anything it can get its hands on but typically 2 - 6 years old. Their sales focus is on how easy the transaction is: easy to get credit, easy to have your old finance paid off, trade in, warranty etc. all sold in one place with a "monthly" figure - usually over five expensive years. You can easily end up paying more for a four-year-old car with this kind than you would for a one-year-old in the first kind. Carcraft, Carland (and probably some others) fall into this category.

Car Giant in London is a sort of hybrid: the sales approach of the first with the stock of the second, which does at least mean pretty cheap motoring.

Whatever you buy, get an idea of what the monthly payment should be by looking at http://www.moneysupermarket.com/loans and try to sell your car privately, both to get the best price and so that you know you are comparing like with like when you see the adverts and negotiate the price.

glammakid

I had a friend who worked for Car Craft in Leeds and this is what he told me.

For whatever car he sold he got £500 just commission. And so lets say the car costs £4,000. This is how it broke down -

£500 Commission
Below £800 the car cost
They will only do the very basic checks on the car that you wouldn't notice until their 3 month warranty expires. So it's not worth the paper its printed on really.
The leftover money goes towards salaries and profit.

If you go thinking they must be reputable becauase they're big....think again.

My friend told me the purchase price for cars and when I tried to minimise they're profit they told me that it was impossible.

My friend told me that one person traded in his old car which he forgot to take the Sat Nav Tom Tom out (well hidden) and then when he realised where it had been a few days later they denied it was there! Other stories include cd players that we broken and the person didn't know until they put a cd in after taking it home and then being told it wasn't under the warranty. Apparently a lot of Corsas, Focus', Micras, Fiestas and Puntos had this problem that is why they were cheaper to buy in. Because the parts for original manufacturer cars are just too expensive for places like Car Craft.

Just about every car you see has been taken home at some point by staff. These are usually those people who choose to wreck the cars by throwing the gears in a "Vin Diesel - Fast And Furious stylee" or driving around like a boy racer. You can imagine why - only petrol costs are payable by staff as an incentive to work hard for the company but it's all abused.

Even the fleet manager was on £50k a year and he was only 22 years old so u can imagine how pushy he was just to get buy cheap cars and sell them high.

I wish I could compliment them on more than just on the cleaniness of some of the cars.

Think again before buying from them.

peterg1965

I am not surprised with your comments glammakid, but i really dont think you can tar the same brush with all companies. Fords of Winsford have a great reputation (I dont work for them) and I suspect their customer service is better the the average. A lot of supermarkets deal with cars less than three years old, therefore the original manufacturers warranty should still count.