Ask a car salesman anything...anything at all.

[JimmyConwayNW]

Save Ferris said:

PSB1 said:

Ever had a customer (potential) check out a car with a paint gauge? Is that knob behaviour?

I've never had it happen once in 15 years of selling. (New & Used)
I would assume that kind of customer would be back with any problem, so I'd probably avoid them if I saw them on the forecourt with a gauge.

We deal with some utter knobs day to day and yet to have anyone do this. Hate people that try and plug in their own scan tool without asking aswell. Got to get up early to catch us out we clear all the codes before you go for a test drive punters its the modern day sawdust in the gearbox.


Question from a car dealer to the general public reading. Why does it not matter what time I try and eat lunch but as soon as I do someone turns up and wants to buy / test drive something

[HTP99]

JimmyConwayNW said:

Question from a car dealer to the general public reading. Why does it not matter what time I try and eat lunch but as soon as I do someone turns up and wants to buy / test drive something

Same with a showroom shuffle!

[talksthetorque]

JimmyConwayNW said:

Question from a car dealer to the general public reading. Why does it not matter what time I try and eat lunch but as soon as I do someone turns up and wants to buy / test drive something

Make yourself loads of tiny sandwiches. Sell more cars!

[JimmyConwayNW]

talksthetorque said:

Make yourself loads of tiny sandwiches. Sell more cars!

Cold lunches don't apply. Only hot food. If its a McDonalds hoardes descend upon you from nowhere

[colin2296fs]

i don't know if this has been asked yet, but do i have much of a bargaining position if i want to buy a car at this time of year, would i be able to give a lowball offer for a £28k 1 year old car, maybe offering £24k and hoping that they need to meet end of year sales targets?

[Ste372]

Anyone working for Honda able to tell me what the minimum deposit is for the 0% finance deals on a new jazz?

[shake n bake]

colin2296fs said:

i don't know if this has been asked yet, but do i have much of a bargaining position if i want to buy a car at this time of year, would i be able to give a lowball offer for a £28k 1 year old car, maybe offering £24k and hoping that they need to meet end of year sales targets?

Let us know which leg they use to kick you out with.
Logically, how would blowing five grand on a used car be good for end of year targets?

[shuzzy]

PSB1 said:

Ever had a customer (potential) check out a car with a paint gauge? Is that knob behaviour?

I've sold quite a few cars privately over the years. This year was the first time I ever had somebody pull out a paint depth gauge. He went over the whole car with a fine toothed comb (Toyota GT86) and was happy with it. I wouldn't say that this was 'knob' behavior at all, just somebody who is very thorough. The longest test driver ever too! Nearly an hour, family called to make sure I hadn't been kidnapped. Thankfully he did buy the car.

I wont even start the story about how the bank transfer didn't go through, it was 8pm. He came on a train and was 200 miles away from home.....

[xjay1337]

shuzzy said:

I've sold quite a few cars privately over the years. This year was the first time I ever had somebody pull out a paint depth gauge. He went over the whole car with a fine toothed comb (Toyota GT86) and was happy with it. I wouldn't say that this was 'knob' behavior at all, just somebody who is very thorough. The longest test driver ever too! Nearly an hour, family called to make sure I hadn't been kidnapped. Thankfully he did buy the car.

I wont even start the story about how the bank transfer didn't go through, it was 8pm. He came on a train and was 200 miles away from home.....

Some banks out of normal hours, takes like 30 minutes.
I had a couple sat awkwardly in my living room when I told my Dad's car.

[Cliftonite]

xjay1337 said:

Some banks out of normal hours, takes like 30 minutes.
I had a couple sat awkwardly in my living room when I told my Dad's car.

It can take some 24 hours with Barclays!

[anonymous-user]

xjay1337 said:

Some banks out of normal hours, takes like 30 minutes.
I had a couple sat awkwardly in my living room when I told my Dad's car.

I was sat in the middle of a forest in the pouring rain waiting for the bank transfer to go through when I bought my Land Rover. The chap got fed up in the end and let me take the car, but he kept the log book and spare keys. He'd already sent me a pic of the log book, so I didn't need it anyway as I had the numbers off it and being a soft top, you only need to undo a couple of knots to get in anyway

[Save Ferris]

colin2296fs said:

i don't know if this has been asked yet, but do i have much of a bargaining position if i want to buy a car at this time of year, would i be able to give a lowball offer for a £28k 1 year old car, maybe offering £24k and hoping that they need to meet end of year sales targets?

Used car sales will be about the profit retained, not units like new tends to be. So I'd say unlikely, how's it priced compared to others?

[BFleming]

shuzzy said:

I wont even start the story about how the bank transfer didn't go through, it was 8pm. He came on a train and was 200 miles away from home.....

I have a better one - a friend of mine in Sweden found a Porsche 993 he liked in the UK; he flew in, inspected it, did the deal, flew home, and wired the money. A week later he flew back with a friend to collect the car, but no funds had arrived. Much head-scratching, frantic bank calls (it was a Friday night). He flew back to Sweden (a la Ryanair Funeral Fare - more expensive when booking last minute) instead of road tripping through the continent. Of course the funds cleared first thing on Monday morning, so he asked me to collect it for him. I had to think about it for a nanosecond, so it was in my possession for 5 days until it found its way to Holland first, then Denmark. All very complicated. That was 2007 I reckon, he still has the car!

[amg master]

Do you guys think cars will become more expensive when we leave the eu or do you think there will be a big crash in prices as seen in the big luxury car market?

[Fast Bug]

I very much doubt there will be a crash. If anything they could become more expensive if there are import tariffs as the manufacturers won't swallow that cost themselves

[Gandahar]

Do you own a Corby trouser press and how much do you spend on washing powder per month?

[HTP99]

Fast Bug said:

I very much doubt there will be a crash. If anything they could become more expensive if there are import tariffs as the manufacturers won't swallow that cost themselves

Interesting though that we haven't been warned that there may be an increase in price due to any tariff, as we were before the initial leave date in March, it was all potential doom and gloom leading up to March, currently nothing.

Edited by HTP99 on Friday 13th December 15:41

[Court_S]

Blakewater said:

Butter Face said:

StescoG66 said:

Blakewater said:

I've noticed a lot of manufacturers are charging the same price for solid paint colours as for metallic now. Emocion Red on Seats, for example, is the same as Velvet Red and every other paint colour. Manufacturers used to offer a range of solid paint colours as no cost options, but it seems their perceived desirability has led to manufacturers charging a few hundred pounds for them.

Are people really proving to be willing to factory order a solid paint option and pay extra for it over the metallic paint option they could have had for the same money?

Hold on a minute. So if I read that correctly, paint is a cost option........

Every manufacturer has one or two colours that are free, most others are cost. Metallic and non Metallics.

It’s the way it’s been for a long time.

Usually the only no cost option is a Doom Blue or Pavement Grey.

Yup - VW have urinal grey as the only free colour now. You even end up paying for boggo white / red (or at least that was the case when I last looked).

[Sheepshanks]

HTP99 said:

Fast Bug said:

I very much doubt there will be a crash. If anything they could become more expensive if there are import tariffs as the manufacturers won't swallow that cost themselves

Interesting though that we haven't been warned that there may be an increase in price due to any tariff, as we were before the initial leave date in March, it was all potential doom and gloom leading up to March, currently nothing.

They'll say you should have known, as you were told before.

[SO27]

Sheepshanks said:

HTP99 said:

Fast Bug said:

I very much doubt there will be a crash. If anything they could become more expensive if there are import tariffs as the manufacturers won't swallow that cost themselves

Interesting though that we haven't been warned that there may be an increase in price due to any tariff, as we were before the initial leave date in March, it was all potential doom and gloom leading up to March, currently nothing.

They'll say you should have known, as you were told before.

It's different this time though. Back in March there was no deal in place and the prospect was just to crash out of the EU. This time there will be a deal, that's going to sail through in the next week or so. On 1st Feb we'll be in the transition phase where essentially nothing has changed.

The next deadline is at the end of 2020.