Buying a brand new car for cash

demontfort

I’m thinking of buying a brand new car. I’ve never bought a new car before and was wondering how hard you can haggle with the dealers and what kind of discount I can expect if paying the full price upfront. I’m looking at a Lexus for about 33k, is it realistic to get the price under 30k?
Are there any particular times of years it’s best to buy, I’m thinking January as money is tight for everyone and business should be slow then.

slyracoon

Yes you can haggle but they make more money out of customers buying on their finance packages than a cash buyer so don't go in there thinking they'll bite your hand off and offer you the deal of the century, they'll be more than willing to show you the door and sell to the next customer on finance and make a big % on interest/finance company comission that they won't get from you.

The days of cash buyers getting the best deals are gone.

peter_the_piper

Birchwood would not take actual cash I think because they don't like it hanging around and staff don't like to take it to the bank etc.

Ranger8

Get the cheapest broker price and ask the main dealer to match it.
My Toyota dealer did nearly so did the wifes Vauxhall dealer

fivetide

peter_the_piper wrote: »

Birchwood would not take actual cash I think because they don't like it hanging around and staff don't like to take it to the bank etc.

i'm not entirely sure he'd be taking a suitcase full of money in...

I'm thinking something similar but I'd simply be using my debit card to pay for it from my balance (although I am shopping at a much lower level than this).

OP I'd have a look on drive the deal and see what they can do. It is right they make more out of finance buyers but as you are going new not used it is simply a case of putting an order in so I wouldn't have thought the issue of wanting to sell to another buyer will be an issue at all here.

MX5huggy

As said use Drive the Deal, my local dealer could not believe the price I got and was no way willing to go near matching it. Drive the deal turn car buying into a simple painless process with out the need for Salesmen.

Yolina

About 10% off seems perfectly reasonable. Dealers do prefer finance buyers, but there's always something off to be had. It's possible that you can't get as much off the list price as you'd like but can get some options and accessories thrown in instead

Do not agree on a price until the salesman has to "go and speak to his manager" and then try to extract a few more small odds and sods when you collect the car like a litre of oil, spare bulbs... That kind of things.

Recently got a new car and paid with my debit card. I called my bank the day before to let them know that there would be a transaction for £X the following morning from dealer Y just to make things smoother (although there's still a chance it might get flagged and that they call while you're at the dealership to check the transaction)

demontfort

Thank you for all your advice, very helpful. I’ll have a look at drive the deal. I’d also like to know about any experiences people have had buying new recently especially the types of discounts they’ve got or any haggling tips.

I agree about finance, cash buyers don’t have the same appeal. I managed to get the price down on my last car (£4k sale down from £4.8k list) by umming and ahhing about finance and all the expensive add ons. I could see the greed in the saleswoman’s eyes when I mentioned finance so she kept dropping the price. Then at the last minute I told her I’d pay cash and after a bit of persuasion she decided to stick to the agreed price rather than lose the sale. Needless to say she wasn’t happy and tried to make me feel bad for having the cheek to pay cash upfront, what a messed up country we live in. Even told me it made more sense to take the 12% APR finance (this was 2006), keep my cash and stick it in the bank. I did ask her if she knew any saving accounts paying 12%, she wasn’t best pleased

I’m happy to try the same approach again though wouldn’t expect such a big % discount. I’m also happy to walk if I don’t get a good price and leave them twiddling their thumbs in their expensive suits.

eschaton

All depends on the car and what margin is in the sale.

I bought a new car in 2005 cash/debit card for £26,350 and I got a free set of mats and nothing off the price. I didn't even have a trade-in. But I did better than some who didn't even get the mats. On another car you may get £000's off.

Cash/debit card isn't what they like as they make no money on finance - the sales guys faces normally drop a few inches when you say you don't want finance.

Generally end of month is when sales targets need to be met and can be your best bet. Go the week before as the car needs to be paid for and driven away by the month end, not deal agreed.

Yolina

The Yaris Hybrid T4 had a just under £16k price list when I was looking around for a car(now gone up by £100 or so). With it being a "just out" model I didn't particularly expect a lot in the way of straight off discount.

The total invoice was... £16k, which was my budget, but also got the following thrown in (about £2k worth): metallic paint, sat-nav, 3 years gap insurance, supagard (that's really not something I'd pay dealer price for), mats obviously (!), petrol.

Deal of the century? Nope but good enough for me to be happy with what I got.

Edit: probably surprising but in the UK, the number of new car sales has been going up in 2012, unlike the rest of Europe.

Herzlos

peter_the_piper wrote: »

Birchwood would not take actual cash I think because they don't like it hanging around and staff don't like to take it to the bank etc.

There's an upper limit of about £10k in cash that dealers can accept due to anti-laundering regulations, but in reality most won't accept anywhere near that, and cash-in-suitcase transactions are almost completely non-existent now.