How much deposit should you leave on a car at a dealer?

sky_rat

I went to look at a car today and was about to buy it but the dealer wanted a £500 deposit. The car is a vauxhall corsa (2007 plate) priced at £4850. The deposit seems a lot so I wanted to find out how much deposit dealers typically ask for on a car. It wasn't a main vauxhall dealer but a third party dealer. I said I would call tomorow to pay the deposit if I decided to take the car.

atrixblue.-MFR-.

deposits vary place to place.


some do it in £1000 increments like this
£1000=£100dep
£2000=£200dep and so on and rounded up to the nearest hundred £4800=£500dep.

OddballJamie

If you are concerned about the deposit then maybe you don't really want the car.

There's far too many posts on here about people complaining they lose a deposit when they get cold feet over a car purchase.

If you want to pay a smaller deposit then ask the dealer, but be prepared to lose it if you see another car you want elsewhere afterwards.

Unless you're having finance, then they may want 10% upfront.

daveyjp

10% or £500, whichever is lower.

nobbysn*ts

Zero. Buy it or don't. Equally they can sell it or keep it.

spacey2012

The short answer, is nothing you can not afford to lose.
Deposits and LTD company car dealers are like oil and water.

They are very rarely returned and any CCJ's get put in the big filing draw marked more CCJ's.
Get the cash and go back, if it is gone, it is gone.

But my advice is treat a deposit as lost if anyone backs out including the dealer, it usually is.

arcon5

A deposit is a pre-estimate of losses in the event the contract is rescinded from, this is more of a pre-payment.

rev_henry

I've only ever given about £100, however the most expensive car was about £4k from a friendly, almost hobbyist used car dealer. I have no experience of more expensive/upmarket places!

Hintza

None....zero. Unless I was just going to the bank to withdraw the balance in cash.

Why would you call tomorrow to pay a deposit? If you go tomorrow surely you are going to buy the car!

eschaton

I wouldn't leave more than £100 and that is on cars around the £25k mark. On the new car that I bought in September, I wasn't even asked for a deposit.

Only exception was a £2k deposit on a car 8 years ago but that was a requirement from Nissan and not the dealer.

Petree

£1000 on all the cars i've bought. They usually accept a credit card for the deposit, not for the main cost, so I try and get as much down to get the cash back/points (plus I assume you get C/Card protection?)