Carwow/Drivethedeal and PCP discounts
Discussion
I've been looking at buying a new car through Carwow or Drive the deal etc and the new prices are astonishingly close, and sometimes cheaper than many used cars up to two years old. However, the quotes always include £2500 discount for using PCP, which takes the edge right off it. I don't want to use PCP. Recent experience of trying to get a decent deal on a used car makes me think a new car through a broker may be the way to go.
There have been many arguments about PCP and I don't want to get into it, but if Skoda want to give me £2500 to get into a PCP agreement it MUST, in the majority of cases, benefit them. Perhaps it's as simple as keeping customers coming back every 2 or 3 years, locked into a cycle of being tempted into new cars.
Is there an ironclad way to take the PCP and then pay it off without losing money or being subject to charges of some kind? It seems very underhanded, but who would lose out, the finance company or the dealer? Have any of you done this? I try to be up front with my dealings but to be actively encouraged to take on debt and penalised for not doing so seems very wrong also.
There have been many arguments about PCP and I don't want to get into it, but if Skoda want to give me £2500 to get into a PCP agreement it MUST, in the majority of cases, benefit them. Perhaps it's as simple as keeping customers coming back every 2 or 3 years, locked into a cycle of being tempted into new cars.
Is there an ironclad way to take the PCP and then pay it off without losing money or being subject to charges of some kind? It seems very underhanded, but who would lose out, the finance company or the dealer? Have any of you done this? I try to be up front with my dealings but to be actively encouraged to take on debt and penalised for not doing so seems very wrong also.
Speak to Skoda dealers re the £2.5k deposit contributions. They have other ways of pricing / discounting the car and for my recent order at least two dealers were able to include the £2.5k as a discount rather than a deposit contribution (without eating into any other discount). You can't get the two services for approx £150 offer without putting the car on a pcp to start with, although you can, of course, simply pay the pcp off at any time you choose and keep the service package.
Don't forget Skoda are advertising another £1000 discount on vehicles in stock / on their 'importer list' if ordered by tomorrow (these have to be registered this month), and there is also 'secret' additional support on certain types of vehicle funded by Skoda too, e.g. another £1000 on petrol Octavia Vrs (and, I think, another £2k on diesel vrs).
The right dealer will give you all the Skoda support, possibly including the 2.5k in the form of discount rather deposit contributions, and then give you a decent % discount out of their own margin. I ordered through one who was prepared to eat into their margin beyond their normal commission level (so they are gambling on the fact that they will hit their quarter 2 target and make money due to receiving their bonuses for hitting target received from Skoda).
As an example, all the Skoda support plus the dealer discounts in my case added up to 27.5% off the list price of the car ordered. Do bear in mind though that the overall % discount will reduce if you start ordering cars with optional extras on them, because the extras will only be discounted by the % discount taken out of the dealer's margin.
Re Car Wow and Drive the Deal ... if you can get a stock car ordered using all the discount above, the price should be cheaper than the Drive the Deal price. Drive the Deal seem to be more focused on factory orders; they couldn't supply me a stock car. In my experience, even the best Car Wow offers were not automatically including the extra £2k offered by Skoda (as if, again, they were initially basing their quote on a factory order). If you speak to a Car Wow dealer and they can get a stock vehicle reserved for you on the current promo, they should be able to reduce their opening offer to you by at least the extra £1000.
Don't forget Skoda are advertising another £1000 discount on vehicles in stock / on their 'importer list' if ordered by tomorrow (these have to be registered this month), and there is also 'secret' additional support on certain types of vehicle funded by Skoda too, e.g. another £1000 on petrol Octavia Vrs (and, I think, another £2k on diesel vrs).
The right dealer will give you all the Skoda support, possibly including the 2.5k in the form of discount rather deposit contributions, and then give you a decent % discount out of their own margin. I ordered through one who was prepared to eat into their margin beyond their normal commission level (so they are gambling on the fact that they will hit their quarter 2 target and make money due to receiving their bonuses for hitting target received from Skoda).
As an example, all the Skoda support plus the dealer discounts in my case added up to 27.5% off the list price of the car ordered. Do bear in mind though that the overall % discount will reduce if you start ordering cars with optional extras on them, because the extras will only be discounted by the % discount taken out of the dealer's margin.
Re Car Wow and Drive the Deal ... if you can get a stock car ordered using all the discount above, the price should be cheaper than the Drive the Deal price. Drive the Deal seem to be more focused on factory orders; they couldn't supply me a stock car. In my experience, even the best Car Wow offers were not automatically including the extra £2k offered by Skoda (as if, again, they were initially basing their quote on a factory order). If you speak to a Car Wow dealer and they can get a stock vehicle reserved for you on the current promo, they should be able to reduce their opening offer to you by at least the extra £1000.
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