Money Saving Car Buying Consultancy - opinions please

Phirefly

I usually contribute to the property board, but would like the opinions of you motoring moneysavers please.

Would you be prepared to pay a fee for a service that would source you the new or used vehicle you wanted at a price cheaper than you could find yourself?

Effectively the fee would be more than covered by the saving you're making, not only that you would be provided with impartial expertise and knowledge to personally guide you through the car-buying process.

Is this a service that you or loved ones less savvy than you would potentially consider using?

Any contributions greatfully received

I'm not advertising or soliciting, I'm a longterm contributor to the mse forums with an idea I'd love your feedback on.

newlywed

Having just bought a second hand car - it is a headache looking through all the ads and drive round the area to go and look at cars that were mis-described as good condition and rust free etc! So to have someone do the legwork sounds interesting. But I would have wanted our specific requirements and budget to be taken into account and want to be told the entire truth about the vehicle.

Having said that, I would also want to know that all cars sourced had been data checked too as we had a trader trying to sell us a Cat B write off.

I personally would still also want to meet the person the car is registered to and confirm their id before buying.

If the service didn't produce anything that met our requirements then I would not be willing to pay anything (except maybe for data checks).

As for being guided through the process. The DVLA website has good links to advice for free. What sort of "guidance" are you thinking?

Phirefly

Guidance in as much as the following:

People don't realise what they could actually afford, partiularly bearing in mind the minefield of lease hire and other PCPs, often people don't realise what is actually within their financial reach. Depreciation and options can often run into quite complex mathematics when comparing different marques, so something that appears good value, over time is rinsing your wallet.

Also, often people have a limited idea of the vehicle they think they need and have not considered other options due to lack of time/interest.

Haggling with dealers is extremely complex and often takes a very confident individual to get the very best deal. Salespeople negotiate deals on cars all day, joe public may do it only two or three times a lifetime so are not always aware which buttons to press.

When viewing a vehicle and taking test drives, even with online guides in mind, its difficult for the layman to really know what they are looking for.

Thats just a snapshot of the guidance I think people could benefit from....

newlywed

Can see your point in quite a bit of that. Yes people don't always consider other makes/models as they have a set idea or a set make of car they like/prefer.

Haggling - I hate it (thankfully OH says it's all part of buying a car and dealt with that).

So yes. See your point and think it could be useful for those like me who aren't used to/experienced in buying a car (my Dad got my previous cars as he's a mechanic).

However, what would happen if you gave advice and then something was wrong with the car you didn't realise? Would they be trying to come back to you for the possible error in the service they had paid for?

Phirefly

Yes thats a good point. Vehicles from dealerships would come with the dealers' own warranty/hpi checks/mechanical checks, and private sales would have an accredited 125 point check by either the AA or similar and the HPI checks (that you can perform yourself).

The consultancy service I'm suggesting would not give you any further guarantees on the vehicles' soundness that you couldn't arrange yourself, but perhaps it could promise that within the fee would come advice and assistance should any problem arise after sale.

The service I'm proposing is less to do with mechanical soundness of used cars while this would still be a factor, more on getting the best deal and right vehicle for the individual, and would probably focus more on dealerships rather than private sales.

vikingaero

http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/buy_sell/buying_used/BuySell_UsedAuction-6.htm

Phirefly

vikingaero wrote: »

http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/buy_sell/buying_used/BuySell_UsedAuction-6.htm

I am aware of this website.

I have referred to it myself in the past when buying a car. Is your point that a consultancy service such as I'm suggesting is superfluous when theres websites like this?

staticbob

Tell you what, how about you test-drive (no pun intended) your suggested service on me.

I need to buy a car in the next 2 weeks. I have price range and car class in mind already, just need to find the best and cheapest option.

vikingaero

Phirefly wrote: »

I am aware of this website.

I have referred to it myself in the past when buying a car. Is your point that a consultancy service such as I'm suggesting is superfluous when theres websites like this?

Absolutely not. It's just that I got mega-nagged to get my hiney moving to my daughters sports day. So I quickly clicked post! There's a few people in the market and the more entrants the better.

None of those listed on the HJ site seem to have a decent website and it would be good if people who want to buy a car this way are better informed via a informative website.

Phirefly

great feedback, thanks vikingaero.

Static bob, I may well take you up on that! Pm me your details if you like

To give you all a bit more info, my boyfriend, currently working in sales is a gifted buyer. His particular forte is car buying as he has a massive bredth of knowledge. He has a knack of using his knowledge and brilliant negotiating skills to dig up amazing deals on buying cars and because of this has taken on the role at his workplace of sourcing vehicles for their fleet. Not only that he's friendly and approachable and has a way of making people feel at ease.

There are millions of car discount websites but to the non-enthusiast (me included) these can be mindboggling and its boring and time consuming to sift through all the deals. When you do find something, its often a daunting prospect to make such a huge financial commitment at the click of a mouse and most people end up down the dealership paying through the nose in an attempt to ease the process. Main dealers can often offer massive discounts, but unless you are extremely savvy and emotionally detached from the purchase, these are elusive. The idea of the consultancy is to take all of that hassle out of the hands of the client and find them the right vehicle for them at a price they would never expect.

He's decided to make a business out of this talent and we're currently researching the market and working out how the consultancy will function. The idea is for an upfront finders fee payable on instruction, which is fully refundable should you not be completely satisfied with the service provided. Its necessary to pay the fee upfront to avoid timewasters. The fee would be guaranteed to be less than the saving made on book price.

It would be a highly personal service, fronted by a website, but you would deal with the consultant directly and he would have as much or as little input in all aspects of the process as the client likes. From discussing the range of options on the market to accompanied test drives and finding finance.

I don't want to go into too much more detail about the service or incentives, but it would be great to know if this is a service people would be interested in using.

DealDrivers_company_representative

As one of MSE's recommended car brokers, we are told 8-10 times a week min' that we have the most informative and up to date site out of any online price agent...and we don't charge customers a penny for our advice online or on the telephone. That's what a good broker does....not charge the customer - they take their income as small intro' fee from the motor groups who supply the cars on a volume basis..

We even provide latest production info, see our VW and Ford model pages as an example, we let customers know what colours/engines are being deleted and from what date, so they can make informed decisions...I've pasted a couple of links to example pages on our own site here so you can see the level of information already available for free.....

http://www.dealdrivers.co.uk/html/touran.html

http://www.dealdrivers.co.uk/html/s_max.html