Old cars on forecourts at silly money

rev_henry

Happened to take a stroll down to a local main dealer this evening, they had some utterly ludicrous cars on the forecourt behind the shiny new ones in front:

M reg Suzuki Baleno - screen price £1495
R reg Baleno - £1995
V reg passat - £2495
V reg 5 series - £3995 I think
P reg C class - £3495

The passat and merc I KNOW have been sat there for about a year! The balenos had cobwebs between them so must also have been there a while.

What is their business model?! Do they comprehend how to sell cars at all? Ludicrous!

Guest101

I'd offer them a ridiculous price and see if they accept. It may be a case of appearing to keep more stock than they have, and keep prices high, so you are compelled to buy the newer cars as the old ones cost almost as much

rev_henry

I was vaguely tempted to offer them £2000 for the lot! Wouldn't mind the C class!

To put the 5er into comparison. Someone locally is selling a similar vintage, absolutely stunning 540i for £1300!

Johnmcl7

There was a program I caught part of where they were helping to turn round a garage selling second hand cars. The people running the garage just didn't really seem to have a clue about selling cars, much of what they had was similar to what you've listed - older cars, well overpriced that had been sitting on the forecourt for a long time. One that was highlighted was an old Daewoo Matiz that was a daft price and had been there for a long, long time but they didn't seem to twig that having cars sitting there taking up space and not being sold was a very bad idea.

Although they were doing better at the end of the program I couldn't see how the garage could last longterm unless they hired staff that knew how to price and sell cars.

John

Weird_Nev

If you find them online, you will see that they're advertised at a very much lower price (often with the forecourt price still in the windows in the pictures).

It's 'stupid tax' for people who buy cars on a whim. The dealer can even do you a favor and knock £500 off (one day only) and he's still laughing.

rev_henry

Johnmcl7 wrote: »

There was a program I caught part of where they were helping to turn round a garage selling second hand cars. The people running the garage just didn't really seem to have a clue about selling cars, much of what they had was similar to what you've listed - older cars, well overpriced that had been sitting on the forecourt for a long time. One that was highlighted was an old Daewoo Matiz that was a daft price and had been there for a long, long time but they didn't seem to twig that having cars sitting there taking up space and not being sold was a very bad idea.

Although they were doing better at the end of the program I couldn't see how the garage could last longterm unless they hired staff that knew how to price and sell cars.

John

Yeah I saw that too! This reminded me of it. They had a Rover 45 sat there for 6 months didn't they?

[Deleted User]

Local trader does this, gives an old R reg 1.0 Corsa a big write up about every minute detail about it then puts £1995 on the screen. Mental.

Strider590

What they've done there is given too much for the cars and now refuse to sell them at a loss.

forgotmyname

Or its the type of car that someone with no money wants to buy. So they get one of the (give anyone who can write) a loan at 99999.9% interest.

They pay a couple of £ a week for the rest of eternity and drive away happy they have a car.
It wont be until someone mentions that they are 18 and they wont pay for the car until they are 70 years old that they think Oh S...

colino

All sorts of permutations from money laundering to sub-prime finance (with £1k minimum trade-in for a welly boot), or even worse, a buy-here-pay-here operation. Unfortunately there is a bum for every seat and people who are at the bottom of the credit scale often pay far more for all of their goods.

DKLS

rev_henry wrote: »

I was vaguely tempted to offer them £2000 for the lot! Wouldn't mind the C class!

To put the 5er into comparison. Someone locally is selling a similar vintage, absolutely stunning 540i for £1300!

Do you have a link for that 540i? please, am looking for cheap a luxo-barge for a european charity roadtrip.