Buying car from dealer - how to approach?

soso17

After years of driving old bangers we are finally taking the plunge and looking to get a newish car. Leaning towards an A4 from an Audi dealer - but having never done this before can anyone please give us some tips?


What sort of discount should we look to achieve on the asking price?


Does buying at month end mean there might be more flex on prices?


Would we be better of waiting until December to get year end discounts?


Should we ask them to throw in any "extras"? If so, what?!


What else should we be aware of / do?


All help and inputs very gratefully received!

jaydeeuk1

Depends on the model, popularity, lead time. I struggled to get a grand off and a tank of petrol on a c4 cactus.

OddballJamie

All depends on how competitive the price is to start with.

My Dad bought a low mileage 2 year old A4 from a main dealer, got about 10% off screen and the standard one year warranty increased to three.

He could've probably got a little more if he had gone the finance route but he was a cash buyer. They tried hard to push paint and interior protection, chip/scratch insurance and he turned it all down.

The dealer was the previous supplier and showed him the invoice, the previous owner had paid for the paint/interior protection and garaged it. Car looked brand new.

Their main selling point for the paint protection was that he wouldn't have to wash the car often. His reply was he's retired, what else is he gonna do?

bOingball

I've just bought a new car with the Wife,

the way I done it was spec a car up on the website - carwow.co.uk - this emails dealers with the car you want and then I picked the cheapest. (The cheapest dealer was located about 90 miles away)

So I printed this off, went to my local dealer and said can you match this / better it or I can go to that dealer.
I made up some figures on the finance side of things (Working out how much a month it would be at low interest etc before I went in.)

45 mins later, £2750 off a new car with all optional extras I wanted

On finance with 0.2% APR over 4 years - PCP, final lump sum for payment currently in a savings account waiting to be either used at the end if the Wife loves the car or deposit for next one.

OK it was a Fiat Panda Trekking not an Audi, but £3500 is a good saving in my book :money:

If you get a dealer closed through Carwow it can be done through the website without going to the dealership I think.

HTH
bOing

MX5huggy

soso17 wrote: »

What sort of discount should we look to achieve on the asking price? Depends on the price 10% off £20k is better than 15% of £25k


Does buying at month end mean there might be more flex on prices? If they have met the target for the month then it won't help at all, same if they are miles off meting the target.

Would we be better of waiting until December to get year end discounts? Do you know when there financial year ends?

Should we ask them to throw in any "extras"? If so, what?! Only if you want them, fuel, mats.

What else should we be aware of / do? Be prepared to walk away from any car there are hundreds of A4's around.

All help and inputs very gratefully received!

Look at a new Skoda Octavia its the same car with, and you could get a new one for the same money.

harrys_dad

bOingball wrote: »

I've just bought a new car with the Wife,


bOing

Seems a fair trade to me

soso17

Thanks very much for all inputs - so far we've been offered £1k off and a free paintwork protection plan, so good start but we'll see what else we can negotiate :-)

jadebee

My sisters boyfriend has a massive nack for this. Got over 4,000 off a bmw because he's prepared to walk away. He also just got my sister a brand new mini by playing off the two mini dealerships closet to us.

Always leave them with your number, Tell them to think about what you propose and give you a call if you think you can do something. Seems to work for him.

BeenThroughItAll

soso17 wrote: »

Thanks very much for all inputs - so far we've been offered £1k off and a free paintwork protection plan, so good start but we'll see what else we can negotiate :-)

Ask them to forget the pointless magic polish and give you something useful, like a tank of fuel.


They WILL refuse, but that's because the magic polish costs them £20, the fuel would cost them £60. Don't be fooled by their 'Supergard etc is worth £400' bovine excrement.

OddballJamie

jadebee wrote: »

My sisters boyfriend has a massive nack for this. Got over 4,000 off a bmw because he's prepared to walk away. He also just got my sister a brand new mini by playing off the two mini dealerships closet to us.

Always leave them with your number, Tell them to think about what you propose and give you a call if you think you can do something. Seems to work for him.

I find it's easier to get money off brand new cars as you're comparing like for like, so you can either use a broker or give dealers an exact list of what you want and then compare prices.

Being used is more difficult as it's unlikely the cars will be exactly the same in terms of colour, condition, mileage, history. There's also the chance someone else will want that exact car you've found, whereas if it's new they just order another one.

OddballJamie

BeenThroughItAll wrote: »

Ask them to forget the pointless magic polish and give you something useful, like a tank of fuel.


They WILL refuse, but that's because the magic polish costs them £20, the fuel would cost them £60. Don't be fooled by their 'Supergard etc is worth £400' bovine excrement.

Extended warranty or servicing is the ones to go for with Audi as running/maintenance costs can be high.