Cost to Change ? "nahhhh mate we don't do that any more...."
Discussion
I was interested in a car at a main dealer priced at £29k. I sent the dealer a message detailing my current car (with a pic) and asking for an indicative ‘cost to change’ as that is really the only thing I’m interested in.
Dealer sent a fast and pleasant response - but it basically said “get a We Buy Any Car quote and that will give you an idea”. So, presumably, he is then expecting me to simply deduct the WBAC figure from their retail car price and assume that the result is the cost to change. Presumably to manage my expectations. Not exactly busting a gut to try to put something together.
My WBAC came out at £7k. Just out of interest I also WBAC’d their car. It came out at £25,330. A ‘trade for trade’ differential of £18,330. Yes, I know that isn’t feasible as I do understand that dealers have to make a profit and therefore command a premium to reflect that and all of the other things they add like warranty, part ex facility etc (unlike many on PH who seem to think that they can expect to receive dealer prices when selling their cars privately and don’t acknowledge the normal 10% - 20% private sale deduction thing. If I was looking to buy the same car as a private sale I’d be looking to pay no more than £25k - £26k. I’ll only pay nearer £30k because it is from a main dealer). As an aside, pretty sure mine would retail for at least £9,995 on a forecourt somewhere.
Anyway, I sent back an indicative offer just to see if I was in the ball park. I didn’t want to go there to find we were miles apart on relative values and the whole thing is a non starter. So told them I’d offer my car plus up to £21k cash if their car was as nice as it looked. Thus they are giving me £1,000 more for mine than WBAC (or reducing theirs by £1,000 and giving me only £7k for mine). And I'm paying £3k over WBAC value for theirs. Pretty reasonable I thought.
No response since - so I have to assume they aren’t interested (or have sold it already although it is still advertised). Or perhaps they prefer someone who needs finance with a profit to be made on a loan agreement.
Maybe people don’t do the “cost to change” thing and use real money anymore ? Or don't make indicative offers ? Maybe I'm out of touch and needed to make my offer on Twitter or Facebook or put a photo of a £ amount on Snapchat (or whatever people do these days!)
Dealer sent a fast and pleasant response - but it basically said “get a We Buy Any Car quote and that will give you an idea”. So, presumably, he is then expecting me to simply deduct the WBAC figure from their retail car price and assume that the result is the cost to change. Presumably to manage my expectations. Not exactly busting a gut to try to put something together.
My WBAC came out at £7k. Just out of interest I also WBAC’d their car. It came out at £25,330. A ‘trade for trade’ differential of £18,330. Yes, I know that isn’t feasible as I do understand that dealers have to make a profit and therefore command a premium to reflect that and all of the other things they add like warranty, part ex facility etc (unlike many on PH who seem to think that they can expect to receive dealer prices when selling their cars privately and don’t acknowledge the normal 10% - 20% private sale deduction thing. If I was looking to buy the same car as a private sale I’d be looking to pay no more than £25k - £26k. I’ll only pay nearer £30k because it is from a main dealer). As an aside, pretty sure mine would retail for at least £9,995 on a forecourt somewhere.
Anyway, I sent back an indicative offer just to see if I was in the ball park. I didn’t want to go there to find we were miles apart on relative values and the whole thing is a non starter. So told them I’d offer my car plus up to £21k cash if their car was as nice as it looked. Thus they are giving me £1,000 more for mine than WBAC (or reducing theirs by £1,000 and giving me only £7k for mine). And I'm paying £3k over WBAC value for theirs. Pretty reasonable I thought.
No response since - so I have to assume they aren’t interested (or have sold it already although it is still advertised). Or perhaps they prefer someone who needs finance with a profit to be made on a loan agreement.
Maybe people don’t do the “cost to change” thing and use real money anymore ? Or don't make indicative offers ? Maybe I'm out of touch and needed to make my offer on Twitter or Facebook or put a photo of a £ amount on Snapchat (or whatever people do these days!)
LordHaveMurci said:
Maybe most people that message rather than call & speak to them are not serious...
Perhaps. But I did it through "send us a message" on Autotrader so presumably they are up for such communications. They could just email back and say "sorry, proposed offer doesn't work for us". But to simply not reply ?
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