Price Negotiation

[kste]

Hi I am going to be spending about a year in Germany and want to buy a car - a Ford S-Max about one year old. I am looking on Autoscout.eu and found several good cars for what seem to be reasonable prices - around Euro 30,000 for a well optioned year old car with less than 20,000 km. My question is how much of a discount off the published price should I expect? I live in New Zealand and here we would never pay the advertised price but I am not sure about Germany.

Can anyone advise please? Also is that a good place to buy cars as it seems to link to most dealers?
Finally, should I expect to get winter tyres included with a second hand car?

Thanks!

[noneedtolift]

Hi - it depends if you are buying privately or from a dealer, but in any case you shoud haggle. I'd say that a dealer should be able to give you a higher discount that a private person. Normally I'd expect any car to come with a set of winter tyres.
Best local sites are www.mobile.de and autoscout24.de.

If the ad is German, drop them a line they all speak reasonable english. Mind you some (dealers) don't answer emails so might be easier to phone.

Hope that helps.

[kste]

Hi thanks, I am buying from a dealer. I am just wondering what kind of amount I should be going for? at least 10% I would have thought if not more. It is not a rare car and one looks as good as the other I would have thought.

[noneedtolift]

In general, 10% is probably a good value TO END UP with
So I think you are right and I'd probably start at 15-20%. Keep in mind though that IF that car is on the market in high volume but demand is equally high even 10% might be pushing it a bit. They are used to haggling though so I'd try it anyway.

[krallicious]

There'S no harm in asking. A couple of dealers I spoke to when looking for a new car told me that discounts do not exixt at all in Germany! Needless to say, they didn't get my business. I managed to get about 17% off the asking price after a week of haggling.

[kste]

Hi thanks everyone.
Another question(s)

1/ Is there any way to check if a car I am interested in has had an accident? Do dealers have to disclose this?
2/ How do I go about getting insurance? Does the dealer help with this?
3/ How do I handle the winter tyres? Does the dealer keep them for me? Is there a charge? I am going to be living in an area that is unlikely to be close to the dealer so do I get a local shop to store them?

Thanks

[noneedtolift]

Hi,

to make it short: they are obliged to tell you but as you can guess you never know.... If the dealer says it's accident free, than this should be put in the contract. If it turns out the car is not accident free the contract is void and you can give the car back (that's how the law/the theroy sees it anyway). So yes, the dealer must disclose if the car has been in an accident - if he knows....

Insurance: The dealer is most likely to help, but the differences in price and service is hughe. Best bet would be to use a portal where you can compare insurances (be aware of the smallprint) such as check24.de for example.

If your dealer offers storage for winter tyres then you can leave them with him, but he will charge you for it. Almost every dealership/tyre centre offers that service so you can choose one near where you'll live.

[JMGS4]

15-17% is a normal rebate on a new Ford here. Beware of dealers selling relatively new cars as they'll base their selling price on the list price instead of the market price which was originally paid. Take your time and haggle, won't do any harm, and you should get a better deal. A non-Ford dealer would possibly offer a better price as they'd ahve paid only the market price and want to get it off their hands...Good luck!

[kste]

Hi, quick update, made some offers on some cars at suggested discounts and one dealer came back with a price that was higher than the advertised price which I thought was a bit of laugh! It just occurred to me that perhaps prices advertised on autoscout etc might not include VAT. Would this be right or is an advertised price inclusive of VAT?

[Adenauer]

kste said:

Hi, quick update, made some offers on some cars at suggested discounts and one dealer came back with a price that was higher than the advertised price which I thought was a bit of laugh! It just occurred to me that perhaps prices advertised on autoscout etc might not include VAT. Would this be right or is an advertised price inclusive of VAT?

The advertised price to a private buyer, whether the seller is trade or private should be inclusive of VAT (MwSt).

Trade to trade it will be excluding VAT.

[cayman-black]

Hi just to bring this subject up again. Say on a car around 100k euros that does not seem to fly out the door in Germany would it insult the dealer to offer 10% less?
This is a second hand car at a main dealer. Many thanks.

[Adenauer]

Try it, I can't see how it would offend.

[cayman-black]

Adenauer said:

Try it, I can't see how it would offend.

.
Thanks Adenauer. Just trying to gauge how much they might take off in Germany.

[mikeraddin]

Sometimes it depends on Trader as well. Would you like in anyway to consider buying cars in auctions they are way cheaper when compared to direct used cars whihc you see online. If yes then try search auto auctions or car auctions or you can find them on http://trademachines.com/cars or http://www.autoscout24.com/. These are the best if you are still looking to buy one..

Well, best of luck!