Used car haggling
Discussion
Integroo said:
12 month MOT and no advisories? Stop being a cheap ******* and give the guy 595 quid.
Interested in this thread as I've just sold a 1999 Toyota Yaris, with 94,000 miles and a fresh MOT (no advisories) for £495, stating 'priced for quick sale' (I originally asked £650 on a FaceBook for sale page). It was pretty tidy, with several paintwork blemishes and dinks, but fully serviced, with new tyres, battery, springs, alternator. Used Gumtree, but didn't get much interest, but thankfully no mouth breathers either.
The couple who bought it were very pleasant, no haggling and no messing about.
Similar examples seem to fetch more on eBay, but one dealer offered me £400 in p/ex for a 2007 X5, whilst the car I'm hoping to buy from a dealer tomorrow - a W211 Merc - that dealer offered me £50...
Edited by mellowman on Wednesday 9th August 18:02
mellowman said:
Interested in this thread as I've just sold a 1999 Toyota Yaris, with 94,000 miles and a fresh MOT (no advisories) for £495, stating 'priced for quick sale' (I originally asked £650 on a FaceBook for sale page). It was pretty tidy, with several paintwork blemishes and dinks, but fully serviced, with new tyres, battery, springs, alternator.
Used Gumtree, but didn't get much interest, but thankfully no mouth breathers either.
The couple who bought it were very pleasant, no haggling and no messing about.
Similar examples seem to fetch more on eBay, but one dealer offered me £400 in p/ex for a 2007 X5, whilst the car I'm hoping to buy from a dealer tomorrow - a W211 Merc - that dealer offered me £50...
Thats what it is worth to a trader, 50 quid, any dealer who is offering you 400 quid, is simply taking 350 quid out of the profit of the X5 to make it sound attractive to you.
Your car on his in sales invoice will still show 50 quid.
Used Gumtree, but didn't get much interest, but thankfully no mouth breathers either.
The couple who bought it were very pleasant, no haggling and no messing about.
Similar examples seem to fetch more on eBay, but one dealer offered me £400 in p/ex for a 2007 X5, whilst the car I'm hoping to buy from a dealer tomorrow - a W211 Merc - that dealer offered me £50...
Thats what it is worth to a trader, 50 quid, any dealer who is offering you 400 quid, is simply taking 350 quid out of the profit of the X5 to make it sound attractive to you.
Your car on his in sales invoice will still show 50 quid.
Edited by mellowman on Wednesday 9th August 18:02
[quote=mellowman]
...whilst the car I'm hoping to buy from a dealer tomorrow - a W211 Merc - that dealer offered me £50...
Unbelievable!
Dealer has just emailed me to say he's sold the car I was going to collect, to another buyer for £750 more. This was despite me having the finance agreement in place, just needing signing on the premises.
Should I ask for a goodwill contribution or just leave a bad Google review?
Yours fuming...
...whilst the car I'm hoping to buy from a dealer tomorrow - a W211 Merc - that dealer offered me £50...
Unbelievable!
Dealer has just emailed me to say he's sold the car I was going to collect, to another buyer for £750 more. This was despite me having the finance agreement in place, just needing signing on the premises.
Should I ask for a goodwill contribution or just leave a bad Google review?
Yours fuming...
Mexman said:
Thats what it is worth to a trader, 50 quid, any dealer who is offering you 400 quid, is simply taking 350 quid out of the profit of the X5 to make it sound attractive to you.
Your car on his in sales invoice will still show 50 quid.
Yes, of course that's the reality, but the thing is I haggled the X5 price down without ever thinking of part-exchanging, it was only afterwards I said it would be very convenient to just chop my old car and then he offered £400 (I wanted £650).Your car on his in sales invoice will still show 50 quid.
mellowman]ellowman said:
...whilst the car I'm hoping to buy from a dealer tomorrow - a W211 Merc - that dealer offered me £50...
Unbelievable!
Dealer has just emailed me to say he's sold the car I was going to collect, to another buyer for £750 more. This was despite me having the finance agreement in place, just needing signing on the premises.
Should I ask for a goodwill contribution or just leave a bad Google review?
Yours fuming...
'Hoping to buy'......sums it up really, dealer has sold it to someone else who got in there before you.Unbelievable!
Dealer has just emailed me to say he's sold the car I was going to collect, to another buyer for £750 more. This was despite me having the finance agreement in place, just needing signing on the premises.
Should I ask for a goodwill contribution or just leave a bad Google review?
Yours fuming...
It happens, you can only sell the car once.
Did you leave a deposit on it?
Bad review??? For what?? Dealer sells car to man sitting in front of him ready to deal.
What if he had told this other person, 'sorry sold it' and then you don't turn up, don't buy for whatever reason, dealer has then lost 2 buyers.....
Snooze and you lose.
Mexman said:
'Hoping to buy'......sums it up really, dealer has sold it to someone else who got in there before you.
It happens, you can only sell the car once.
Did you leave a deposit on it?
Bad review??? For what?? Dealer sells car to man sitting in front of him ready to deal.
What if he had told this other person, 'sorry sold it' and then you don't turn up, don't buy for whatever reason, dealer has then lost 2 buyers.....
Snooze and you lose.
Given the current climate for old used cars, finance and big diesels I can well understand the dealer getting twitchy and wanting the quickest way to get a return on his money.It happens, you can only sell the car once.
Did you leave a deposit on it?
Bad review??? For what?? Dealer sells car to man sitting in front of him ready to deal.
What if he had told this other person, 'sorry sold it' and then you don't turn up, don't buy for whatever reason, dealer has then lost 2 buyers.....
Snooze and you lose.
I used the word 'hope' in the sense that I'd committed to finance from the dealer (all arranged online) but hadn't seen the vehicle in the flesh so it's always subject to seeing it before the deal is done. As for deposit, a deposit was never asked for - I was happy to give it, but it was from the sale of my car which as his p/ex was low made sense for me to sell it privately. We were in communication about picking up the car so the dealer could have insisted/reminded me that it was still for sale and a deposit was essential.
I'm also struggling to see how the dealer could sell it for £750 more than the advertised price? Export perhaps?
steve-5snwi said:
Did you put a deposit on the car ?
No...but I was never asked to as I'd arranged finance with that dealer and was bringing my deposit as cash from the sale of my old car, which the dealer was fine about. Having said that, I do understand the pressure to sell if someone offers you money there and then.By way of contrast, I may be a fool, but I sold my old banger to a lovely couple who waited a few days to collect and pay. I didn't ask them for a holding deposit as they were clearly decent people, and I turned down keen buyers in the meantime.
The Spruce goose said:
for me anything under 2k i buy private as trade take a bit and in essence you get more in private sales, in theory. just remember an mot means nothing nowadays.
Why does it mean nothing "nowdays" and why did it mean something in the past but doesn't now? What has changed is that they have massively clamped down on dodgy ones and included a lot more in the test so why has it been devalued?Integroo said:
12 month MOT and no advisories? Stop being a cheap ******* and give the guy 595 quid.
That was my thought. If it is a decent one then to lose it for £50 or so then spend the next 4 weeks looking at 20 crap examples which will all be as much money seems a poor value on time (not to mention fuel going around seeing them all) and a bit mad. It is a £595 car - if it drives OK and is sound and a good example if he won't move then just pay it. Cheap, decent cars are actually quite thin on the ground at the moment - particularly with a long MOT. If you want something with 3 weeks MOT, 4 bald tyres and doesn't run right the world is your oyster however.
confused_buyer said:
Integroo said:
12 month MOT and no advisories? Stop being a cheap ******* and give the guy 595 quid.
That was my thought. If it is a decent one then to lose it for £50 or so then spend the next 4 weeks looking at 20 crap examples which will all be as much money seems a poor value on time (not to mention fuel going around seeing them all) and a bit mad. It is a £595 car - if it drives OK and is sound and a good example if he won't move then just pay it. Cheap, decent cars are actually quite thin on the ground at the moment - particularly with a long MOT. If you want something with 3 weeks MOT, 4 bald tyres and doesn't run right the world is your oyster however.
Bodily it was wasn't brilliant (what do you expect though) and it had had some welding in the usual places, there had been failures on past MOT's but nothing serious, it ran and drove brilliantly.
I went with £500 in my pocket, it was worth £500, I got them down to £440, however I would have paid £500, it has run faultlessly since.
If it fails it's next MOT in a big way then I'll look at it as having cost only £40 pm.
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