UKC

I have found a good one owner low mileage two year old car at a main dealer. Went in for a test drive yesterday and all good. They will service before it's sold but the sticking point (as always!) is around price. The asking price is pretty good but they will only give a 1% discount on top of that. I'm not unrealistic in expecting 15% or whatever, but I was hoping for a bit more than that.

There aren't too many of these cars around so I reckon that's why he's holding out. It's been about six years since I have bought a car so what's other folk's experience at the moment?

Are you paying cash (or equivalent, including finance from another source)? The garages make quite a bit from the finance deal.

You could offer to buy on finance and then either use the early termination clause to pay off after a few days, or even use the 44 (I think) days cooling off to cancel the financial product and instead pay cash or equivalent).

This negotiating style, whether fair or not, works with places like Currys - where you can sometimes get a discount if you take the insurance package, which you can later cancel within a few weeks and not lose the discount you got.

Or for a more conventional approach, you could search for an equivalent (but cheaper) car from another dealer. Print the details and take in. If it was genuine they'd be silly to let you walk away to buy elsewhere.

In reply to fast eddie:


There are other ways of getting trying to get more from the deal.
I've just bought a popular car and got 10% off plus given 6 months' tax...he drew the line at the request for a tankful petrol. I think I could have got more off if I'd been a bit more savvy and confident in haggling.
Showing too much enthusiasm and being in a hurry to buy obviously go against you.

In reply to fast eddie: Got myself 13+% off a new car, was looking for new or up to 2 yr old at the time. Had to take the finance out from them as well but at a reasonable rate on that as well 6-7%.

All depends on what you are looking at. The car I was bought was pre registered and already with the dealer, some of the Car Supermarkets I went to had very competative pricing to start with but absolutly no discounts or negotiation.

It's counter intuative, we all want to get a discount, but is what you are paying for what you are getting a good deal. try to think are you getting a good deal, rather than is it a good discount.

In reply to John Lewis:

You probably checked, but the they used to try and make their finance look good by quoting flat rate not APR to make the value look competitive against bank rates. 6-7% APR is quite good.

An APR of 7% on £7500 over 2 years would be the same as 3.6% annual flat rate.

In reply to Philip: i did check, from memory the apr was between 6-7% CBA to go look it up. But as I had the cash in my ofset account I looked to see which was cheeper, it wasn't but close enough for me to think I'll keep the cash thanks!

In reply to John Lewis:

I wasn't trying to be nosey. Just pointing out a fact to watch (having earlier recommended asking for finance I wanted to point out a point to be careful of).

When I bought my first car I showed them the APR and they found a flat rate to match. I pointed out that it didn't work out - they either feigned ignorance or were genuinely unsure of the difference and went back until they found a deal where the monthly repayment matched what my bank offered.

In reply to fast eddie: Give the dealer the price that you would be willing to pay and your phone number and walk away.
If he rings you its yours, if he doesn't then its more than you want to pay so no loss.

In reply to Philip: Didn't think you were, no problem.

In reply to everyone:

thanks all for your thoughts so far.

I'm paying cash with no part exchange so perhaps the lack of finance package is not helping either. He knows I'm only after a bit more off so I'll see whether he changes his mind over the next few days!

In reply to fast eddie:

Cash and no Part-X I would want at least 10% off - don't piss about with finance - offer him a "buy now price" with a chunky cash deposit. End of the month, middle of winter; they are messing you about.


Chris

In reply to Philip:


So that is how they did it. I could never understand why the 5% finance deal offered by the dealer was more expensive than the 9% bank rate.