Massively ripped of at a "car supermarket" Tell or not?
Discussion
Its so easy to get ripped off by Finance companies especially when the dealers get commission from the finance companies to sign people up (which I hear is common in these "supermarkets").
When I bought a new car recently I took out about 5k on finance and the garage that I was buying it from said they could sort it or I could do it myself, either way they were happy as they didn't earn anything out of it.
By shopping around (and eventually going back to the finance company my previous car was with) I managed to shave £20 pcm off my finance bills which over the 4 years was £960!! I know they're not going to let you have the money for nothing but I don't see how some companies can justify charging that much more, especially as I have a good record (I'm just young).
When I bought a new car recently I took out about 5k on finance and the garage that I was buying it from said they could sort it or I could do it myself, either way they were happy as they didn't earn anything out of it.
By shopping around (and eventually going back to the finance company my previous car was with) I managed to shave £20 pcm off my finance bills which over the 4 years was £960!! I know they're not going to let you have the money for nothing but I don't see how some companies can justify charging that much more, especially as I have a good record (I'm just young).
I would go against the advice that most have the posters have suggested, with a couple of caveats. How much of a friend is this guy to you op?
I have no idea if he can legally get himself out of this, but if he can & you spend quality time with him I think you should at least point out the situation & show him just how much this deal is costing him over the term.
I don't see the point of joining the rather smug posters who are advocating leaving him as he is. Saying he should know better, & the cotton wool protection has to be removed at some point is all very well, but it comes across that the PH pack mentality has kicked in & the majority sound delighted that some poor sap has gotten himself in a financial mess.
If it were me I would pull him to one side & point out the mechanics of what he has done. He may feel a prat or he might say "so what", but I wouldn't feel comfortable keeping schtum with a mate.
I have no idea if he can legally get himself out of this, but if he can & you spend quality time with him I think you should at least point out the situation & show him just how much this deal is costing him over the term.
I don't see the point of joining the rather smug posters who are advocating leaving him as he is. Saying he should know better, & the cotton wool protection has to be removed at some point is all very well, but it comes across that the PH pack mentality has kicked in & the majority sound delighted that some poor sap has gotten himself in a financial mess.
If it were me I would pull him to one side & point out the mechanics of what he has done. He may feel a prat or he might say "so what", but I wouldn't feel comfortable keeping schtum with a mate.
I popped into a car supermarket a couple of weeks ago as my lease company had decided they were the best place to service my van. What struck me whilst wandering around the showroom was how hard it was to determine the actual price of a car, lots of figures quoting repayments and deposits but nothing about the actual price. I'm convinced that these places are purely about flogging credit and the cars are simply a means to an end.
If it's just a colleague you get on with instead of a 'proper' friend I'd leave it. He's happy, not worth the potential bad feeling/awkwardness if he misinterprets your intentions.
If any of my actual mates had done similar I'd be sending them 'look what you could have won' autotrader links for weeks
(along with actually suggesting some better finance before it's too late...)
If any of my actual mates had done similar I'd be sending them 'look what you could have won' autotrader links for weeks
(along with actually suggesting some better finance before it's too late...)davec1960 said:
The only people I know that have bought from supermarkets have all had poor credit records and it is the only way they they can get the newish car that they "must have"
This may not be the case for your friend but is another reason to say nothing, just in case
I know of another group who buy at car supermarkets, the desperate for a car, - their current car is in the unreliable stage and as such they are getting rid before the intermitent fault reappears, or the MOT expires the car supermarket can bail them out of this as generally the car is available that day or the next.This may not be the case for your friend but is another reason to say nothing, just in case
I worked for 3 years at Carcraft in Sheffield and it was horrendous. Some customers left the sales paperwork in the car as it went for valeting at the total payment was truly shocking. The problem being, the customer didn't have £6k up front, but could afford £30 a week for ever. They got a nice shiny newer car than their old one.
Ikemi said:
Which car supermarket did he buy from? There must be some sort of 'cooling off' period in their T&Cs ...
Cooling off periods exist far more frequently in the minds of PHers than real life, they are right up there with the mythical SOGA magic wand warranty. There is a cooling off period on the finance agreement but he'd still have to arrange finance to pay the balance required. Why tell your mate? What good will it do? He's buoyed up that he's got a new car, all that will happen is you'll take the edge off this, you won't actually help him, and the chances are he'll see you as a smartarse.
Help him next time he's buying a car but leave him to enjoy this one.
SpeckledJim said:
nick s said:
I hate seeing things like that happen to people!
Lightning strikes 'happen' to people. Lottery wins 'happen' to people. These are 'unlucky' and 'lucky' people, respectively.Failure to DYOR is an active choice some people make. We can categorise them as 'stupid people'.
The money hasn't isn't gone - it's just been redistributed from the stupid to the less stupid.
Money abhors stupid, and always flows from stupid > less stupid.
Some people say they don't really care about cars so aren't too bothered with this sort of thing... But IMO that's irrelevant, everyone is interested in money, so in not doing research non-car people are losing out on thousands but insisting they don't care because they don't care for cars. It really is pure stupidity.
Its like somebody with no interest in fashion going out and purchasing designer labels.
IDIOTIC
nick s said:
After some opinions here.. A colleague has just bought himself a "new" car from one of these Car Supermarkets, and is absolutely chuffed to bits. Unfortunately he's their perfect customer, and they saw him coming a mile off! I'll outline briefly what he's done.
Gone in there with his 57 plate Corsa (worth £2500) and £2000 cash. Test drove an 08 Audi A3 TDI sport 170 with 53,000 miles and loved it. Started talking figures, and when they asked him what he wanted for his car, he thought he'd be cheeky and say £3000. They agreed of course, and he's now thinking they are the mugs and they are giving him an amazing deal.
Now the shocking part.... The Audi was up for £13700!!! So with his £3000 trade in, and £2000 cash, he "only" needed to get £8700 on their finance. They again impressed him with a monthly repayment figure, which he didn't bother to work out. £195 x 60 months. So he's essentially now paying £16700 over 5 years for this A3... EXACT same spec on Autotrader are around the £9000 mark. So he's paying almost double the true value of the car! they will be laughing at him, as they have effectively taken his Corsa and £2000 savings from him for absolutely nothing. He's still paying the full value of what that car is truly worth.
So he's been completely done over. Some would say it's his fault for being stupid and not doing his research. But the purpose for this thread is this... Should I tell him? Could he take the car back to them, or would I just been taking the shine off his new car purchase, and making him feel completely rubbish about it? I only want to tell him if he has a chance of cancelling the whole deal!
er people do this day in day out with PCP at main dealers paying 20k alone in interest, what's your point ?Gone in there with his 57 plate Corsa (worth £2500) and £2000 cash. Test drove an 08 Audi A3 TDI sport 170 with 53,000 miles and loved it. Started talking figures, and when they asked him what he wanted for his car, he thought he'd be cheeky and say £3000. They agreed of course, and he's now thinking they are the mugs and they are giving him an amazing deal.
Now the shocking part.... The Audi was up for £13700!!! So with his £3000 trade in, and £2000 cash, he "only" needed to get £8700 on their finance. They again impressed him with a monthly repayment figure, which he didn't bother to work out. £195 x 60 months. So he's essentially now paying £16700 over 5 years for this A3... EXACT same spec on Autotrader are around the £9000 mark. So he's paying almost double the true value of the car! they will be laughing at him, as they have effectively taken his Corsa and £2000 savings from him for absolutely nothing. He's still paying the full value of what that car is truly worth.
So he's been completely done over. Some would say it's his fault for being stupid and not doing his research. But the purpose for this thread is this... Should I tell him? Could he take the car back to them, or would I just been taking the shine off his new car purchase, and making him feel completely rubbish about it? I only want to tell him if he has a chance of cancelling the whole deal!
Engineer1 said:
davec1960 said:
The only people I know that have bought from supermarkets have all had poor credit records and it is the only way they they can get the newish car that they "must have"
This may not be the case for your friend but is another reason to say nothing, just in case
I know of another group who buy at car supermarkets, the desperate for a car, - their current car is in the unreliable stage and as such they are getting rid before the intermitent fault reappears, or the MOT expires the car supermarket can bail them out of this as generally the car is available that day or the next.This may not be the case for your friend but is another reason to say nothing, just in case
In fact the "poor credit" places seems to go a while back when yes car credit went bust, hence the number of "bargain" dealers around now, dealing in sub £1k and sub £2k cars. I don't think most of the car supermarkets do "poor credit" sales now. Just row upon row of bland boxes for the masses.
nick s said:
mrmr96 said:
Not sure he's paid double for the car, maybe 50% too much. The rest of the money over and above the car value is the finance charge, and they are providing finance. So we need to price that separately to see if it's any good.
Up for 13,700, should be 9,000
Trade in 3,000 should be 2,500
His cost to change was 13700-3000 = 10700
But it should have been 6,500
So he's overpaid on the car by 10700-6500 = 4200, so about 50% (4,200 / 9000 = 47%)
We can work out the finance cost as the difference between repayments and capital (195*60)-8700 = 3000 finance over 5 yrs, so 600/yr or 50/mth. Not sure what APR that works out at but £3k interest to borrow £8.7k sounds kind of steep, but not payday loan steep.
The other factor is his overpayment on the purchase of the car, which we can see what it equates to monthly 4200/60 = 70 per month.
Yeah, I think it's fair to say he's not done the worlds best deal there has he? I wonder why he didn't spot any of these identical cars for £9k and choose one of those instead?
Nicely put! That makes it a lot clearer.Up for 13,700, should be 9,000
Trade in 3,000 should be 2,500
His cost to change was 13700-3000 = 10700
But it should have been 6,500
So he's overpaid on the car by 10700-6500 = 4200, so about 50% (4,200 / 9000 = 47%)
We can work out the finance cost as the difference between repayments and capital (195*60)-8700 = 3000 finance over 5 yrs, so 600/yr or 50/mth. Not sure what APR that works out at but £3k interest to borrow £8.7k sounds kind of steep, but not payday loan steep.
The other factor is his overpayment on the purchase of the car, which we can see what it equates to monthly 4200/60 = 70 per month.
Yeah, I think it's fair to say he's not done the worlds best deal there has he? I wonder why he didn't spot any of these identical cars for £9k and choose one of those instead?
With regards to not noticing identical cars for 9k. He didn't even know what car he wanted. Went into the car supermarket and they showed him a Focus, a Golf etc, and then the Audi. so he hadn't been previously looking at them at all, and had no idea of the price of any cars. Wasn't as if he'd been browsing Autotrader for them before going in or anything.
Admitedly if I were spending £500 on something I wasn't interested in, like a washing machine, I'd be fairly tempted to spend what feels like midrange cash on a decent brand. But I'd like to think that even if it's something I'm not interested in then my reseach would reflect the amount of money being spent!
I think that this is kind of what your mate has done; spent what feels to him like the 'right amount' to spend on something which is a decent brand. Maybe he has no interest in cars and assumes that that kind of wedge on an Audi will serve him well, and it may do. But he's over paid for it because he only went to one shop and didn't do anything to 'keep them honest'.
He has had /some/ advantage through not researching though - he's certainly simplified his decision and saved time/headache doing research and fretting about stuff. To me that's a poor value proposition, because I don't find reseach to be too hard and I suspect most PHers are in the same boat.
Maybe there's a parallel thread on "What Ironing Board.com" about people who just go and buy one which does the job without worrying about it too much.
A few years back a mate of mine bought a Harley on finance, before it was a couple of years old he traded it in for a Honda on another finance deal, he then traded that for another Harley...
I sat him down several times and talked him through how much each of these finance deals was costing. In the end I realised that, despite always moaning about a lack of cash, the actual price of these bikes did not concern him in the least. All that mattered was that it was available for £X per month, no money up front, he could sign the papers and take it away there and then and the fact that he would probably never actually "own" one of them outright mattered not a jot. After a while it became obvious that his whole life was run this way, clothes, phones, cars... he even lost his house and went to live on a boat in the end!
Me? I don't buy anything that I can't afford to buy outright - puts you in a much better position.
I sat him down several times and talked him through how much each of these finance deals was costing. In the end I realised that, despite always moaning about a lack of cash, the actual price of these bikes did not concern him in the least. All that mattered was that it was available for £X per month, no money up front, he could sign the papers and take it away there and then and the fact that he would probably never actually "own" one of them outright mattered not a jot. After a while it became obvious that his whole life was run this way, clothes, phones, cars... he even lost his house and went to live on a boat in the end!
Me? I don't buy anything that I can't afford to buy outright - puts you in a much better position.
markmullen said:
Cooling off periods exist far more frequently in the minds of PHers than real life, they are right up there with the mythical SOGA magic wand warranty. There is a cooling off period on the finance agreement but he'd still have to arrange finance to pay the balance required.
Why tell your mate? What good will it do? He's buoyed up that he's got a new car, all that will happen is you'll take the edge off this, you won't actually help him, and the chances are he'll see you as a smartarse.
Help him next time he's buying a car but leave him to enjoy this one.
He could save £2k on the finance deal though, and the OP could easily steer him that way without sounding smug about it. Assuming he doesn't actually hate him Why tell your mate? What good will it do? He's buoyed up that he's got a new car, all that will happen is you'll take the edge off this, you won't actually help him, and the chances are he'll see you as a smartarse.
Help him next time he's buying a car but leave him to enjoy this one.
sandman77 said:
Someone buys a new car and is as pleased as punch with both the car and the deal he got. Why would you want to come along and piss all over his chips?
Leave him be.
Exactly this.Leave him be.
If he's happy, why do you think he gives a flying f*ck what your opinion is? Why the need to point out an error and potentially belittle him? Life is just too short...
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