Trading in a car with a service plan

amycs

I recently took out a two year servicing plan with Audi but am considering trading in the car for a newer and cheaper one. The service plan is with VW finance and I’ll be buying a VW. Are the dealers ok in accepting the transfer of the service plan to them? Apparently it has to go with the car and cannot be cancelled early.

Has anyone had experience of this? Thanks in advance.

Grumpy_chap

amycs said:

I recently took out a two year servicing plan with Audi but am considering trading in the car for a newer and cheaper one. The service plan is with VW finance and I’ll be buying a VW. Are the dealers ok in accepting the transfer of the service plan to them? Apparently it has to go with the car and cannot be cancelled early.

Has anyone had experience of this? Thanks in advance.

I doubt the service plan will add anything to the price of the car. 

Some could even take it as a negative as in "why are you selling this car unexpectedly early, is it a lemon?"  There can be good answers to that, such as "It's a two-seater and now we have triplets", but the suspicion would also be understandable.

As the car is going to trade, the service plan may make it to the next owner, or may get misplaced somewhere in the process, especially if the car goes onwards via auction.  Indeed, a car sales person may not see any value in the transferred service plan as it prevents them selling a new plan.

I've never had a car with service plan and sold it on, but I'd just get the best price I can for the car and write off the value of the service plan as being within whatever that value is for the car.  Is the trade-in the best price, or can you get better elsewhere? Try WBAC, Motorway, Arnold Clark, local "buy cars for cash" forecourts.

amycs

Thanks grumpy, I didn’t think it would add anything - I guess I just need as you say to assume that they’ll knock the whole amount off the car.

I mis typed my post, it’s only a two year old car (12000 miles) but I’m going to buy something a little older and cheaper so no longer have a PCP. Amazingly the settlement figure is really good & the car is worth more than I paid brand new!