Making an offer to a dealer ?

Offering on the phone is the worst way to try and get a deal, go down and see the car and test drive it - that way you come across as a serious buyer and once they have invested time in you they will be more likely to do a deal as they will want something from their efforts.

Also remember to go in strong, easiest mistake people make is when they say "no" to 30k is to jump straight up to 31k for instance, best bet is to say ok what will you do - and go from there. Make small increments or none at all, pretty hard to meet in the middle if your first offer is just that...

Play hardball and be prepared to walk, sometimes that pays off if they need it sold.

Edit: Use Webuyanycar to value it, and that will give you the approx price they paid. Its pretty accurate to trade prices.

Interesting,makes sense really. Only snag is that these cars are pretty thin on the ground and can/do involve virtually day trips ! Surely it makes sense to at least mention your budget so as not to waste time all round? Tough one really as many variables involved.
Oh, do you think WBAC values apply to Astons ? If so they have a hell of a mark up !!

I buy all of my cars over the phone. How much more serious a buyer do you want to be than somebody who doesn't want to spend time sitting in a showroom drinking coffee and going for test drives? I phone up, I discuss the car, we discuss the price, I pay a deposit by telephone. I'm not going to travel often hundreds of miles on the offchance of a deal - I want it done there and then over the phone, if I travel to a dealer it's to collect the car.

Somebody on the phone is about as serious as it gets - they are not time wasting test pilots if they don't even want to see the car before the deposit goes down - they are pure buyers.

It has worked well every time for both myself and the dealer - they sell a car, I get the deal I want, they spend almost no time in the selling process.

Ironically I did try to buy one face to face this time - they wouldn't budge at all and were about £4k away from I wanted to be, so I gave up as it was just too big a gap. This was in May.

The car is still on the forecourt. It's now £4k cheaper than it was when I visited them...

It's already reasonably priced. Go and see it.

Without wanting to sound all Mike Brewer I'm sure it's psychologically slightly different if someone is stood in front of you holding their hand out for £30k firm with their car key in the other hand prepared to walk vs. a phone call over a bunch of "what ifs".

On balance I tend to think that if I were seriously considering travelling the "length of the country on an off chance" (and £30k or £32k is not a small chunk) I'd prefer to go with no obligation at all than turn up and feel pressured because the dealer is arguing it's "as we agreed on the phone".

Thing is there's no right or wrong answer, some buyers will prefer one, some sellers will prefer the other.

What is the price like compared to similar models?
How desperate are you to buy it?
Would you be happy to walk away and find someone else has bought it two weeks later?

It's annoying, discovering a car is miss-described. I had a 6 hour round trip to a reputable indy, only to discover a FSH was a receipt for an A/C recharge and a receipt for a trolley jack. The car looked good, but drove like a bag of spanners.

In cases like this, and in your instance finding unacceptable tyres fitted, agreeing a price over the phone is pointless.

I get as much info as possible up front, and haggle when I get there. If I want the car and it looks fair value (and the seller knows it!) I've been known to pay the asking price.

If you're going to go down and make a lower offer than list you HAVE to be willing to walk away. If not, you'll never knock them down. Yes there aren't many V8 Vantages knocking around the market but it's the middle of September and it's not exactly a car that sells very quickly. End of quarter is fast approaching and for all you know, the salesman hasn't hit target yet and needs it shifted.

Unless of course you REALLY want it and can't walk away, in which case just give him the £32k and be done with it.

As examples, I've watched my old man get big deals on every single car he's ever bought. When buying my first car, we got £3.5k knocked off a £12.5k car by playing 2 garages off each other. Thing is, we were happy to buy the other car if the other couldn't win the price war, so we were able to just walk away if the price wasn't right. We bought a Corsa but after haggling he actually stopped us at the front door as we were leaving the Vaux garage to go to Ford and crumbled, giving us loads of extras for free.

Or be my mate who can't even haggle on Champ Man. He just gives them what they ask then gets screwed to the wall. Probably throws about £10k a year away on excessive finance payments/paying full whack and changing cars every year (trading in to a dealer after owning for 6 months for ~£4k less than he paid).

My old man has walked away from countless cars though and bought other ones, it takes him 6 months to buy a new car but it's always the right one, in great condition for a great price. My mates never walked away from a car but loses money hand over fist. Just depends if you want it now or want it for the right price.

Not for a dealer - on that phone call is a debit card if the deal is right. Then the car is sold with no real effort.

Far more attractive than entertaining somebody for 2 hours, allowing tyre kicking, test drives and coffee.

With distance selling laws a deposit taken over the phone is worthless, a buyer who's stood in front of the car is far better than a phone enquiry as when the phone enquiry actually turns up to collect the process will be exactly the same as the man stood in the showroom anyway, coffee, test drive, looking at the paperwork etc etc. A dealer would much rather have a buyer stood in front of him.