have you ever had a good part exchange deal?

[C. Grimsley]

We took our BMW to the dealership yesterday for a laugh, 2008 120 d sport cabriolet with 28k on the clock got offered £11k, bought it 18 months ago for £15k unsure whether that was a good deal or not? Didn't seem so on the £35k car she was looking at.

It's only because its mainly her car we have so much money tied into a car we rarely use, now with a new born its just not practical.


Carl

[caprirob]

AmitG said:

There seem to be a lot of people happy with their last P/X, which is not what I was expecting.

Now, I understand that the sample is self selecting, because if you weren't happy, you probably didn't deal, so you wouldn't post on this thread. (We could have a separate thread for "worst part exchange offer"...)

But it seems clear that dealers are paying good - in some cases above book - money for P/Xs. Any dealers want to comment on why this is? Is it easier to over-value a P/X than to give showroom discount? Is it because these cars are fetching strong money in the auctions? Does it flatter the sales target numbers?

Because the profit is in the new car sale - the p/ex taken is a cheap punt to get the deal done that if the worst comes to the worst and they cant shift it they can always auction it for around what they have given for it.

I'm pretty sure the diesel mondeo that I p/exd for £700 would have fetched around that at auction because the only outwardly visible issue was the tyres and short MOT.

[VorsprungDirk]

Auctions are currently dropping by as much as 15%. I would say this survey has been a little embellished in some cases. I never pay more than CAP for a trade in, I won't lose money why would I.

[daemon]

AmitG said:

There seem to be a lot of people happy with their last P/X, which is not what I was expecting.

Essentially the salesmans job is to do a deal that the customer is happy with and the dealership is happy with.

AmitG said:

But it seems clear that dealers are paying good - in some cases above book - money for P/Xs. Any dealers want to comment on why this is? Is it easier to over-value a P/X than to give showroom discount? Is it because these cars are fetching strong money in the auctions? Does it flatter the sales target numbers?

A dealer will rarely pay above book for a car. UNLESS its something they want to stock themselves and its a very desirable spec. You've hit the nail on the head though RE: showroom discount. Effectively the discount you could otherwise get for a 'straight sale price' is added on to the trade in price to make it look better. The sales invoice though will usually show the 'raw' figures though with the customers new car discounted back and the raw trade in price. This is done because the dealer pays VAT on their profit margin, so if they were to use the inflated price, they'd pay more VAT.

[Mr Roper]

Yes.....bought a car for 20k (1k off sticker) which was bang on the money at 21k...they offered 13k for my car. Which was exactly what I had it advertised privately for with zero interest and £3k more than the highest px offer.

I wasted little time.

[R26Andy]

daemon said:

Then they had welded on a load of discount they could have given you onto the price of your trade in.

No dealer can work on a £299 gross margin.

Agree about the margin but factoring in the warranty (400) and tax (250) they were also eating in to the other cars profit. It all went through 3 days before the dealership changed hands so a bit of book cooking I suspect, I got an exceptional deal in exceptional circumstances. The poor bugger who traded it in is not likely say the same thing!

Oh and I forgot to mention, I bought it from 200 miles away having only seen pictures of it!

[R26Andy]

VorsprungDirk said:

Auctions are currently dropping by as much as 15%. I would say this survey has been a little embellished in some cases. I never pay more than CAP for a trade in, I won't lose money why would I.

Maybe I'm just optimistic but I don't think there is any embellishment, only a handful of people on the forum have replied so those who have had a good deal must be 1 in 1000. I myself have traded in 7 cars, you can guess why I've only mentioned one

[juansolo]

Yep, when I traded in an Elise I had for the Cayman. Went in with the right attitude; essentially I have a car that I like and that even though the Cayman looks perfect, I was prepared to walk away from it. I wanted what I'd paid for the Elise 9 months earlier against what they had on the window of the Cayman. Which in all honesty, I thought was taking the piss a little. FWIW, it was JCT600 in Leeds and their Porsche and Lotus dealers were about 1/2 mile away from each other, which made things easier.

The haggling on the day lasted some time (understatement) and I ended up leaving without buying it. I think two or three further phone calls over the next week from them. I crumbled at £100 off my target... I reckon I could have got it, but it had gone on that long I made that concession.

The whole process was surprisingly enjoyable. Not often that happens!

Edited by juansolo on Monday 6th May 08:44

[Cosevo]

Back in late 90's, I bought a new N plate fiesta Diesel from Rates Fords, only paid £5300 for the car, as it was purchased the same week the newer shape was being launched, and the dealer had two old models left that they wanted gone, my uncle (who could sell ice to eskimos) bought the other one and got us the cracking deal. Had the car from November until august the folling year, done around 15k miles, and took it back to trade up for the then new shape Fiesta Si, got given £5500 for it, so bit their arm off, was like Ford paid me to drive a new car around for 10 months, lol

[LuS1fer]

Yes. Fordthorne, Cardiff.
Bought a brand new 09 Mondeo 2.0 Petrol from stock for £12k and they still gave us a good price for our 4 year old Mazda 5 PLUS £2000 "scrappage" for my £400 ebay Mondeo. That was a result and a half.

[Rollcage]

Back in 2006 my dad bought a new Panda Multijet and chopped in his 52 plate Laguna. Dealer gave him £4500 for it, and the Fiat was discounted down to £6995. We'd bought the Renault 6 months previously for £3500, so were very pleased with the deal overall.

It took them the best part of 6 months to shift the Laguna, and I'm sure they made a loss on it.

[Welshbeef]

BoRED S2upid said:

Yes my old porsche needed an engine rebuild the dealer offered the px without even starting it I was over the moon that they offered me anything!

Wow I mean wow. I know its their perogative to check it over but you failed to mention its needs a new engine c£5-10k on parts alone someone has to pay for that and no doubt it will be higher margins for customers.



Only time I've not mentioned anything about a car is whe the scrap man came to pick it up I told him its on the drive here are the keys check it over give me your best price. hGF which he clearly was aware of but got scrap value for it so wasn't an issue

[9mm]

Twice. Once when getting rid of an old car under the scrappage system. The second time when I traded a car in for a car that was cheaper and got a net refund.

[99t]

Not quite what the OP is asking but the "best" part-ex I was ever offered was £1,200 for a nearly mint 16v Integrale when I was buying my M5 - made keeping both the easiest decision ever!!

[Faxo]

Bought a high specced MINI Cooper S off eBay in Dec 2011 for £7900

2 front tyres and an MOT in ownership

Went to look at a Golf Edition 35 in Feb and got offered £7k P/X

Bought a new John Cooper Works in March, again offered £7k

Sold it within 24 hrs on eBay last month for £7500, to the founder of a regional MINI owners club

She's had 4 previous MINIs and lost very little on each one

[POORCARDEALER]

Part exchanges:

Until a month ago cars have been doing FORTUNES under the hammer.

Dealers have been giving very strong money in part ex relying on getting that and more through the auctions.

We give really strong money for desirable retail cars, saves time and money sourcing them.

[darkyoung1000]

I did a private PX once - My Mk2 Golf GTD which I had spent 2 years and a lot of time bringing up to scratch, plus £1K cash for a Corrado VR6.

We'd met half way to look at each others cars previously, agreed the prices and met up again to do the paperwork and swap cars. A cheap way for me to scratch that VR6 itch and the other chap got something a little different along with much cheaper running costs.

Cheers,
Tom