Buying a brand new car

swebb

You've done the research and chosen the car you want - brand new. Let's say the offical selling price is £15,000, but you have £12,000. Option 1 is you can't afford it so let's end it there or option 2 (the more interesting one) is seeing how you can get the price down. Anyone have any experiences and advice?

A friend of mine recently bought a brand new Laguna with extras and got about £3k off the selling price...

W1zz

I bought my Renault Scenic pre-reg and imported from internet dealer and got it about £4.5K less than the UK list price. Even got top book price on my part exchange, although this was down to me knowing the sales guy.

khizman

Lagunas depreciate really bad so they offer large discounts.
Look what you can get online/on autotrader for a pre reg one.
the dealer would be aiming slightly above what the internet company is chargind

cookiemonster25

got my pre reg streetka for about £500 less than a second hand one from my local ford dealer only 20 miles on the clock

MarkyMarkD

The three answers I would suggest are:

(1) check online broker sites like https://www.drivethedeal.com, https://www.autofinders.ltd.uk (recommended by my Dad who saved over £4500 on a Citroen Picasso, although £3000 of this was a Citroen promotion in any case) or https://www.tins.co.uk

(2) buy pre-reg from one of the trade centres like https://www.motorpoint.co.uk or https://www.trade-sales.co.uk

(3) use the prices from the above to barter with your local dealer who might surprise you with a good price.

I'm buying a new car from a local dealer for very little more than the online broker prices, just for the psychological comfort and assurance of having a physical person to take the car back to if anything goes awry.

blue_haddock

Easist way is to look at e brokers site and go and ask your local dealer if he can match/beat/get close to the price. If he can great, if not give the broker a call and place the order.

Chriswil

As well as doing what MarkyMarkD suggests, I would get a quote from one dealer and then go to another dealer. Don't let them know that you have a quote, see what they offer you - it could differ greatly! Then play them off against each other.

I wouldn't let them know about the quote because when I was buying a new car, one dealer came in straight away at £800 cheaper! That was before the bargaining started!

Also going to a dealer towards the end of the month can be a good idea as they have tight targets to meet - another sale means bigger bonus etc

Also make sure you have a play for some extras - mats, full tank of fuel and first two services free are relatively simple things to obtain, as long as you can convince the salesman that you will go to a competitor instead.

A last thing to do is to have a different manufacturers brand in mind, and tell the salesman that you are seriously considering that too! Really anything to make the salesman believe that you are serious, but he will have to work with you to make the sale!

Good Luck!

surfnlurk

Got mine from All Brands New in Hull. They are a car broker company, there are many more around. Paid £14000 for a £16500 Avensis, although they will deal in pretty much any brand and any model.

There always seems to be a glut of french cars, one can only speculate why???? But kizman is pretty much right about depreciation of them.

One thing to note, brokers will be the registered owner (but not registered keeper) of the car for a set period of time, usually 3 to 6 months. This is how they get around the rules about selling to private purchasers. Companys pay a lot less for cars than private buyers and rental companys work even more special deals.

Only one thing is certain with NEW cars, they all LOSE money. I buy them and keep them until things start to go wrong. Last one was a Corrolla, had it 11yrs as nothing would go wrong. Hope this one serves me as good as the last.


EDIT: Beware of places like motorpoint, although they do offer some very good deals, most of their cars are imports. Whilst this should not put you off it may be advisable to talk to your insurance company first. Apparently, trim colours etc are different for uk markets and can affect availability of spares an insurance premium. I have no experience of this, just word of mouth and insurance preliminary questions.

blue_haddock

surfnlurk wrote:

One thing to note, brokers will be the registered owner (but not registered keeper) of the car for a set period of time, usually 3 to 6 months. This is how they get around the rules about selling to private purchasers. Companys pay a lot less for cars than private buyers and rental companys work even more special deals.

You can buy a brand new Avensis that hasn't been pre-registered for only a very little more than what you paid and you would deal directly with a main dealer. If the car is pre-registered to a fleet company to gain fleet discount and reclaim VAT they will have to keep the V5 document untill this period is over. This can cause problems if you get pulled by the police, wish to take the car abroad etc.

Rave

More to the point though, I genuinely think that it just ain't moneysaving to buy a new or nearly new car. Nowadays cars are so well made that they should have at least 15 years/ 200,000 miles of life in them- and yet after 3 years/ 40,000 miles they'll have shed 50% of their value on average- up to 60% for larger/ less popular cars.

My car was built in 1988 and has 120,000 miles on the clock- and yet the engine will still rip round to 7500 RPM with little provocation::D.

royalsteve

swebb wrote:

You've done the research and chosen the car you want - brand new. Let's say the offical selling price is £15,000, but you have £12,000. Option 1 is you can't afford it so let's end it there or option 2 (the more interesting one) is seeing how you can get the price down. Anyone have any experiences and advice?

A friend of mine recently bought a brand new Laguna with extras and got about £3k off the selling price...

Bought my Peugeot 307xsi for 12995 from a main dealer with 0% interest finance, so put my 13K in a high interest account to save approx 3% a year net tax, so another 1200 saving over 3 years....so my 16000 car cost me approx 11700.....whatcar target price was 14900 at the time! (nearer 13000 now)....how, well i bought my at xmas just when people dont buy cars and agreed to buy before the end of Dec.

I played dealers off each other.....remember to check the what car target rpice and go for that....if they cant match it...say you are interested and leave your details and then....WALK AWAY.

The salesman will ring you if its a reasonable offer.....but this depends upon demand v supply....works with mass production cars but prob not luxury makes or high demand cars (ie. BMW M5)

I also bought my wife a 10 month old 8K miles mercedes A class long wheel base from merc direct in mint condition for 10000, which is about 1.5K below book, why 10mths old, well A classes lose huge value in the first year.....my one is 17K new!!....but they lose little after the first year as they become affordable and better value.