When's a good time of year to buy a car from a dealership?

[TypeR]

Currently looking for a 2-3 year old Fiat 500e for the Mrs.
Budget is about £14K which gets us into something with about 20K miles.
The big Fiat/Alfa dealer nearby has some cracking deals on pre reg cars with about 60 miles on them.
These are approx £3k more than our initial budget but I can stretch it a bit.
Am I likely to chip a bit off the price as we're close to the year end?

Cheers.

[Dashnine]

TypeR said:

Currently looking for a 2-3 year old Fiat 500e for the Mrs.
Budget is about £14K which gets us into something with about 20K miles.
The big Fiat/Alfa dealer nearby has some cracking deals on pre reg cars with about 60 miles on them.
These are approx £3k more than our initial budget but I can stretch it a bit.
Am I likely to chip a bit off the price as we're close to the year end?

Cheers.

If you can find the parent company details, their financial year end may not be the calendar year end, might be April, etc. which is a good time to try.

Or some times end of month, end of quarter are good times to haggle hard too. If the cars been in stock for a while, after 60 or 90 days they may look to move it on through the trade, especially if non-brand (not applicable in your case).

[Whataguy]

This time of year December/ January is a very good time.

I did the same thing in January. Was looking at 2-3 year old corollas but a brand new pre-reg with under 50 miles came up from a main dealer so I stretched and bought that instead.

[Venisonpie]

I'd be tempted to research some of the pre regs and decide on one you'd happily buy. Then next weekend rock up to the dealer and tell them you'll do the deal right now but at your price. They'll tut and protest and you need to be prepared to walk away.

If there's a deal to be done you'll know before Christmas and it will need to be transacted before year end.

I imagine the deals being touted will be linked to taking either a PCP or HP but you can settle that immediatlely. I've done this twice and got decent outcome's both times.

Edited - sorry my post sounds patronising, really not meant to be

[TypeR]

Venisonpie said:

I'd be tempted to research some of the pre regs and decide on one you'd happily buy. Then next weekend rock up to the dealer and tell them you'll do the deal right now but at your price. They'll tut and protest and you need to be prepared to walk away.

If there's a deal to be done you'll know before Christmas and it will need to be transacted before year end.

I imagine the deals being touted will be linked to taking either a PCP or HP but you can settle that immediatlely. I've done this twice and got decent outcome's both times.

Edited - sorry my post sounds patronising, really not meant to be

Not at all. I’ve not bought from a dealership for 14 years, so definitely out of the loop a bit.
The original car we’ve seen is £13,300 with 25,000 miles.
The pre reg car is just a smidge under £19,000.
I’m going to try to haggle down to £16,000.
Might be tempted to pop in between Christmas and New Year.

[bennno]

TypeR said:

Currently looking for a 2-3 year old Fiat 500e for the Mrs.
Budget is about £14K which gets us into something with about 20K miles.
The big Fiat/Alfa dealer nearby has some cracking deals on pre reg cars with about 60 miles on them.
These are approx £3k more than our initial budget but I can stretch it a bit.
Am I likely to chip a bit off the price as we're close to the year end?

Cheers.

A lot of these going through the auctions, I've shared a couple of examples below. More than 60 listed for December auctions.

Theres a plug in app to work with auto trader which tells you how long a car has been advertised and how many price drops its had - that info really helps as many dealers have a stock rotation approach after 90 or 120 days.

Edited by bennno on Sunday 15th December 14:56

[fflump]

TypeR said:

Not at all. I’ve not bought from a dealership for 14 years, so definitely out of the loop a bit.
The original car we’ve seen is £13,300 with 25,000 miles.
The pre reg car is just a smidge under £19,000.
I’m going to try to haggle down to £16,000.
Might be tempted to pop in between Christmas and New Year.

People do tend to get more interested in car purchases after Christmas so I'd recommend going before and failing that between Christmas and New Year like you say.

Haggling 15% off is going to be challenging to put it mildly. That said, there is a pre-reg deas at £17k for the base action spec and £17.5k for 'red' spec so they are worth quoting as ammunition.

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202407011...

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202410215...

[bennno]

fflump said:

People do tend to get more interested in car purchases after Christmas so I'd recommend going before and failing that between Christmas and New Year like you say.

Haggling 15% off is going to be challenging to put it mildly. That said, there is a pre-reg deas at £17k for the base action spec and £17.5k for 'red' spec so they are worth quoting as ammunition.

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202407011...

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202410215...

Under no circumstances should you buy a car with a 24khw battery. Only a 42kwh.

85 miles at best in a 24kwh, combine that with the rule of thumb you don’t charge over 80% and that’ll give you about 65 miles in the summer, perhaps 5k in the winter… Will be nearly impossible to resell.