Buying a used car - prices, haggling etc

tacpot12

The best way to negotiate a discount is to be prepared to walk away from the dealer if they won't give you the discount you want. Assume that a car with a sticker price of £2000 has cost the dealer £1300. The dealer needs to make a minimum of £500 profit per car they sell otherwise they can't cover their other costs and make a living, and they expect people to haggle because they know the cars they are selling have problems - dealers generally don't know what problems a particular car has - they expect the purchaser to identify these and haggle - the dealer expects to give a small discount for these.

Always keep some money in reserve - if you budget is £2000, look at cars costing £1800, and expect to get £100-200 off this price - ever car has something wrong with it, so find the problems and price it into your offer. Be aware that some problems are very expensive to repair or spot. Learn what these faults are for the model of car you are buying. Keep the difference between £2000 and the final price to fix the issues or to buy something else if this turns out to be a lemon. I wouldn't start fixing stuff until you have driven the car for a couple off weeks just in case it has a serious fault that that the dealer didn't know about, or did know about but sold the car anyway!


In the £2000 price range, 50% of dealer cars will have a serious fault that means the car isn't going to pass another MOT. Caveat emptor.