Ask a car salesman anything...anything at all (Vol. 2).

[NMNeil]

robsco said:

The art of selling is in the buying.

Like the old saying "Buy junk, but sell antiques"

[catfood12]

dontfollowme said:

Is this last week of Jan going to help me secure a decent deal on an approved used VW? It's 2015 plate if that makes any difference.

Likewise. I'm stalking an approved used VW, 20/2020, Ex-Demo, nice spec, 5.5K miles. They've had it on since November, dropped it about £1K in all in three increments. It will soon be on the 90 day stock book. What will happen? They obvs got an allowance for a demo reg, it did have 4K when first advertised, now 5.5K, so someone is still tooling about in it. Do they drop until it sells, put in back into the network or trade it ?

Showrooms closed, numbers must be down. When do I stick or twist ?

[Fast Bug]

Only the dealers concerned can answer that. Not all dealers have the same policies in place, some will sit on stock until it's sold, some will trade it out at 90 days, some at 180. There are no hard and fast rules with used cars sadly.

[dontfollowme]

Thanks Fast Bug. I usually buy privately so it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

[Fast Bug]

It's worth asking the question if you can pay for it before the end of the month. It might just push someone to target

[jason61c]

What do car dealers think of ‘carwow’?

One local dealer offered to match a price and another said they couldn’t match it, why would one do it and not another?

Both on brand new cars. I can’t see the logic of not trying to get near a price when we live in a global/national market now anyway.

Car in question was a Landcrusier.

[Fast Bug]

jason61c said:

What do car dealers think of ‘carwow’?

One local dealer offered to match a price and another said they couldn’t match it, why would one do it and not another?

Both on brand new cars. I can’t see the logic of not trying to get near a price when we live in a global/national market now anyway.

Car in question was a Landcrusier.

Quite often dealers will advertise loss making deals on Carwow, and then pay carwow for that lead making an even bigger loss. From time to time you might sell something at a loss, but why would you if you don't have to?

[spikeyhead]

Fast Bug said:

jason61c said:

What do car dealers think of ‘carwow’?

One local dealer offered to match a price and another said they couldn’t match it, why would one do it and not another?

Both on brand new cars. I can’t see the logic of not trying to get near a price when we live in a global/national market now anyway.

Car in question was a Landcrusier.

Quite often dealers will advertise loss making deals on Carwow, and then pay carwow for that lead making an even bigger loss. From time to time you might sell something at a loss, but why would you if you don't have to?

If it means you make the quota to get the manufacturers kickback for selling enough cars to be a "good dealer" then that loss making sale can make a lot of money

[rehab71]

jason61c said:

What do car dealers think of ‘carwow’?

One local dealer offered to match a price and another said they couldn’t match it, why would one do it and not another?

Both on brand new cars. I can’t see the logic of not trying to get near a price when we live in a global/national market now anyway.

Car in question was a Landcrusier.

Honestly? - s!

[rehab71]

[quote=buyer&seller]

Bemmer said:

Cap is used more for buying and referenced throughout the trade and Auctions. Selling is more reliant on Autotrader now especially for pricing stock retailing upto £50K.The price bands,Low,great,good,fair and high means the retailer really has no choice but to follow the market to which they dictate,Love it or Hate it Autotrader has the monopoly and the dealers can't ignore it so it doesn't matter what Cap says you can retail at it's what Autotrader tells you what you can ask for it.

True enough, but when I was using Autotrader to advertise I'd use their retail price and work my margin back from there, so ignoring the CAP trade figure too, although I wasn't doing huge numbers.

That's what I do when buying from Motab as they're so expensive, had some good wins with them

[dontfollowme]

Fast Bug said:

It's worth asking the question if you can pay for it before the end of the month. It might just push someone to target

Good idea but I'm more than likely not taking the finance. I didn't dismiss it entirely. I hope all the rapport building doesn't go to waste

[jason61c]

rehab71 said:

Honestly? - s!

I've just realised that when you quote someone it shows the work PH have hidden

What makes you say that? does it not help speed up sales, push buyers who to know what they want?

[Fast Bug]

Why sell at a loss if you don't need to? If another dealer wants to sell a vehicle at a loss, then thats their perogative. It doesn't mean that others have to do the same

[ToastMan76]

Fast Bug said:

Why sell at a loss if you don't need to? If another dealer wants to sell a vehicle at a loss, then thats their perogative. It doesn't mean that others have to do the same

Simple - rebates & bonuses. Selling a car for a 1k loss may mean hitting a volume target and bringing in 10k of back end margin from the manufacturer. These figures can sometimes be hugely inflated too so dealers may order a ton of cars for showroom with no customer orders to hit rebates, then push them out cheap - especially true with special clearance models with ‘night packs’ that are using up manufacturers last components before the line gets swapped to a new model!

[Fast Bug]

I'm fully aware of how bonus schemes and volume revates are structured. My question still remains though, why sell something at a loss if you don't have to?

[Bemmer]

ToastMan76 said:

Fast Bug said:

Why sell at a loss if you don't need to? If another dealer wants to sell a vehicle at a loss, then thats their perogative. It doesn't mean that others have to do the same

Simple - rebates & bonuses. Selling a car for a 1k loss may mean hitting a volume target and bringing in 10k of back end margin from the manufacturer.

Simple - If the dealer is already on track and hit targets why sell at a loss? I remember if we were close to volume target we would just pre reg a cars anyway.

[HTP99]

Bemmer said:

ToastMan76 said:

Fast Bug said:

Why sell at a loss if you don't need to? If another dealer wants to sell a vehicle at a loss, then thats their perogative. It doesn't mean that others have to do the same

Simple - rebates & bonuses. Selling a car for a 1k loss may mean hitting a volume target and bringing in 10k of back end margin from the manufacturer.

Simple - If the dealer is already on track and hit targets why sell at a loss? I remember if we were close to volume target we would just pre reg a cars anyway.

Dealers/dealer groups who sell at a loss to hit targets tend to always be playing catchup and invariably have issues themselves which means they can't hit target naturally. When we were on CarWow (dropped them early last year) it would always be the same names that would constantly crop up and you'd just think "they must be in trouble, constantly doing business like this".

[jason61c]

I can see it being annoying if everyone can see they're looking at £5k off a car before they walk in the showroom.

[jonnywishbone.]

jason61c said:

I can see it being annoying if everyone can see they're looking at £5k off a car before they walk in the showroom.

I get that it's human nature so I wouldn't necessarily blame an SA for getting annoyed, but it's pretty unjustifiable. Or at the very least they should be getting annoyed at the suits upstairs rather than the punters. Yes, if the customer is looking for 20% off and you're selling 911 GT3's, that'd get old quickly. However the list prices of BMW's, Mercs and the like exist seemingly to fleece the unsuspecting because anybody who knows anything about these marques knows you don't pay full price for pretty much any of their volume models.

[anotheruser]

I'm rubbish at negotiation.
I'm not really a conversationalist.

The prices of two similar cars aren't particularly inflated when using Auto Trader's car valuation tool.
The prices are £10,450 and £9,650.

Without being rude and without having to get into the nitty gritty swinging prices back and fourth, what sort of offer should I make?
Should I then agree to meet in the middle and be done? Or swing it a little more my way?
I know I should be prepared to walk away and will do as there's others I can go and see but these two seem pretty good for the money (others I have seen are priced £1000 higher. I'd be looking to buy that day if possible.