Tips on dealing with car salesmen

piggeh

My main advice would be to leave all your financial details at home! Then you cannot be pressured into signing anything there & then. Instead you will simply HAVE to walk away and, if after thinking about it in your own time, you can go back afterwards with the terms you've thought are reasonable. It may even force them into making a better offer as you're leaving the forecourt.

gunternetzer

First of all well done to Kitster, it sounds like you got a cracking deal. I wish I had been as thorough as you when buying my car.

Two more tips that again were obvious with hindsight:

1. Demand for family friendly cars is high in the run-up to Easter, so there may not be too much stock about and importantly the salesmen will be less inclined to do a good deal. I noticed a lot more stock in the post-easter period and if you wait until the end of the month, you may have more chance of getting a good deal.

2. Make sure you will be getting two keys with the car. I naively assumed that this was the case and of course only got one key at handover. Additional key is £175 from dealer, so important lesson learnt for me.

Good luck to all car hunters!

tomstickland

Always give yourself time to think. Never agree to anything in the heat of the moment. Give it 24 hours. That's long enough for the intial excitement to fade and leave you with "reality".

A good salesman will be able to deal with this. An overly pushy one will not.

Personally I hate any attempt to push me and I'm a lot more perceptive than most people can tell.

Also, scope out the value of certain things. For example, a full fuel tank is worth, say, £45 and not worth it if the car is £1000 more than you could haggle it for somewhere else. There might be a certain pleasure in haggling some little details like that, but a clever salesperson will know the score and fight a bit and then give it to you so you think you've made some progress. A set of mats probably cost £10 if you buy 1000s of them.

peterg1965

I have just bought two new cars, one for myself and one for my father in law. I, like Kitster, did most of the leg work via the internet and by email to dealers various around the country. I finally arrived at the deal I wanted by playing one dealer off against the other, being brutally honest about the best deal I had been offered. I finally ended up contacting a dealer that had been recommended by a specialist car forum and I am am very pleased with the result. He beat the best deal by a considerable margin and I managed to negotiate some extras, best of all the dealership was only 30 miles away. It made the buying experience much more pleasurable and did away with the ridiculous 'cat and mouse' game that happens when dealing face to face. What helped here was that I dealt with a small franchise Ford dealer, not one of the big chains like Evans Halshaw or Perry's, and I was from outside the dealer's normal catchment area which makes it easier for them to offer bigger discounts.

I bought a Fort Focus ST3 with metallic for £15720, nearly £4600 off the list price (this included an occupational discount scheme too) and a Ford Focus C-Max 1.6LX for £11,050 (£3200 off). Both deals included a full tank of petrol, carpet mats, 12 months tax and the first service free on the C-Max.

Kitster

well done peterg..excellent aquisition...there is a chap on the parkers.co.uk forum struggling to get a ford internet price matched by dealers..i've put the link below in case you can help him with the dealership to talk to or give any other advice...

http://www.parkers.co.uk/advice/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=30427

can i ask you what an occupational discount scheme is and who qualifies? thx. picking up my jazz on tuesday..can't wait.

peterg1965

Kitster wrote: »

well done peterg..excellent aquisition...there is a chap on the parkers.co.uk forum struggling to get a ford internet price matched by dealers..i've put the link below in case you can help him with the dealership to talk to or give any other advice...

http://www.parkers.co.uk/advice/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=30427

can i ask you what an occupational discount scheme is and who qualifies? thx. picking up my jazz on tuesday..can't wait.

Thanks Kitster, I am a member of Parkers forums so I will leave a message. I will PM you with the details of the occupational discount scheme.

Shaft_2

Thanks Kitster and Peterg - I really appreciate the help you have both offered me. Peterg, hope you got my PM - can you let me know if you didn't pal, as I know how temperamental the internet can be

Happychappy

The only advice I can give in dealing with car salesmen is look for the classic lie sign ......... You will see they move their lips
Never fals, works with double glazing, timeshare, mobile phones etc

Shaft_2

Hi guys, I've just typed a detailed post on my purchase of a Ford Focus Titanium, rather than copy and past it here (as it may not sync with the posts already made) I will just leave a link to the Parkers web-site... for those who are interested that is.

http://www.parkers.co.uk/advice/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=30427

Exemplar

Hi all,

Just thought I would add my two pence in here as an ex salesman (for 5 years, selling Smart cars).

I always prided myself on being honest and not only expected that but demanded it in return. As an example when people phone they always say that their trade in is immaculate, well they normally fall way way short of that! Also when I used to ask an open question 'We all have a figure in mind of what we think our car is worth in part exchange, what do you think that figure is?' Well the normal answer is 'I dont know, you tell me', so you go through the whole appraisal, spend 20 minutes going over the car, looking at the history, looking at Glass's and CAP, on the internet (Normally Autotrader), Ebay and then last but not least trying a couple of dealers to get an underwrite, then you go back and say 'OK I see your car at £x meaning it's £x to swap'. Then they say 'Well I thought it was worth £x', well why didnt you say that in the first bleedin place!

Secondly if you want to see salesman scatter or just be left alone wander around with a copy of Parkers, or Hand Christian Anderson as we used to call it!

Another point about 2 way honesty, say that you are looking to buy, I have researched this and that and am looking to pay £x in total on the road. Also say that you have seen a particular one on their website, is it still available, can I see it and also I have seen the same model on x's website at £x.

I suppose that one of the major differences between the dealership I worked at and the 'Majors' was that we could not afford to do anything dodgy as we were too small. We never ever sent out a car that we were not 100% happy with as it would always always bite you on the !!!, unlike some of the trade ins that 'suddenly' developed faults that the previous owner knew nothing about.......

Lastly all car salesmen are seen as seedy scheisters, and to some extent that is true, but I can only quote by example. I was on £8000 plus £50 for every car sold and delivered. I worked 6 days a week and on my day off I did more work as the mobile never stopped ringing for things like underwrites etc etc. A friend of mine works for Evans Halshaw, he starts at 0730 - 1900 6 days a week and gets 3 days off a month. His targets are riduculous and he will be dismissed if he doesnt hit them as in the car sales trade you are only as good as the month you are in.

So back to my original point, honesty on both sides counts for a lot. Its up to us as to how the process starts!

Alex