Time to Clean up the Car Trade

Blether

I have been looking to buy a new car and have been astounded at the practises used. Some garages will not deal with you until they get all your personal data. Many will barely tell you the price of the car and focus on monthly payments. The prices vary depending on how you are going to pay for the car with differing prices if you are paying cash or getting a credit deal. And you will never get a written quote from any of them.

I can't imagine any other type of trade being allowed to do this. If you go to buy a house it is a specific price and they don't discuss monthly payments or encourage you to take a mortgage with them. Prices are freely discussed.

Marks and Spencer don't hound you if you go to look at a suit and don't buy it.

I have been blatently lied to by car sales staff who tell you that a car is one price and when you travel to their dealership they don't have the car discussed but they have another that is £9,000 dearer.

There are also a lot of web pages with non existent offers. One local garage carried an advert in our local paper for a car for six weeks when they didn't have any stock available at that price.

[Deleted User]

Good luck with the clean up

At the end of the day you are the customer and it`s up to you to find a decent seller.

Good luck with that as I know it`s bloody hard.

maddogb

have to agree to some aspects, recently had a salesman laugh deliberately loudly down the phone then hang up after I asked if a cash discount was available..


Saying that, I think there are higher priorities, with my ongoing insurance dispute it occurred to me we all go out and buy car insurance with absolutely no idea how much we would receive if the car was damaged a few days later, times are getting hard and it seems insurers aren't willing to drop profit levels.

Strider590

Car retailing attracts the scum of the earth salesmen types, always has, always will.

forgotmyname

As with anything these days, the product is only a means to get your data, thats worth more than selling the product.

Hey Mr J Bloggs at.... has just bought a new car. lets spam him with GAP and extra warranties and paint protection etc etc.

agrinnall

Blether wrote: »

If you go to buy a house it is a specific price and they don't discuss monthly payments or encourage you to take a mortgage with them.

No it isn't, and yes they do. Very poor analogy.

jimmy_cricket

Just vote with your feet. There are good ones out there. Honda lost a sale to me as they would not discuss price unless I agreed to buy. How can I when I don't know the price? Was my response. I drive a mini clubman and the service from the main dealer has been fantastic and honest.

Herzlos

Commission based sales people lie about everything. You're much better off trying to buy a car from a dealership without talking to them at all, and ask for evidence of everything, like service history. Then when you're happy with the car, talk money, being prepared to walk away if you're not happy.

Unfortunately, salesmen are pretty good at overcoming that too.

DKLS

You could start with this place http://www.motor-hub.co.uk

They must break every rule in the book and invent a few more: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Motor-Hub-Keighley/1376227689287167

iolanthe07

One of their tactics that really p....s me off is quoting flat rate interest in a large font, with the APR hidden in the small print. How are they able to get away with this? No other trader is allowed to.