Buying a new car - advice on dealing with Sales person / purchase

WeegyAVLover

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Hi All,

As you may guess this thread is less about help with the car to buy and more about dealing with the buying process.

We have an appointment for Sunday and are planning on looking/buying an new Audi A3. The plan is to buy it out right rather than go down PCP route and then keep the car for quite a few years.

I am not very good/confident at negotiating/haggling on the price of a car and have been watching videos on YouTube for advice.

However I watched a video by Autotrader (granted it was 2017) with Vicky Butler-Henderson and a comment she made was (along the lines of) when it comes to the negotiating there is little room to move for the salesperson as the prices are pretty much fixed for new cars and they will want to give you a good price for a trade in of your own car so that you do business with them - is that a fair assessment?

So I am just looking at any good hints and tips on how to deal with buying a new car. Like I said I am not great at this stuff, my wife has much more of a brass neck :) but its knowing how or what to say to shave some extra £££s of the price if we can.
 
Try somewhere like Carwow.
 
Try somewhere like Carwow.
I have tried them to be fair but as I am in Scotland it would appear the dealers are mainly based down in the South, South East & South West of England, so all dealers were over 200 miles away from me, I was able to see the prices which was handy but not practical.
 
Try coast2coastcars also to get the best price. It doesn't the dealers are far away, get your local dealer to price match. They'll most prob tell you it'll be cheaper to buy on PCP then pay it off straight away as the dealers have discounts but they also get discounts from the finance company.
 
So can I take it then there is, as the AutoTrader YT vid said little scope for movement in the price for negotiating it down? My best bet is to, like you said do a price match comparison with someone like the site above and see if the deals they have are cheaper and get them to price match?
 
Try coast2coastcars also to get the best price. It doesn't the dealers are far away, get your local dealer to price match. They'll most prob tell you it'll be cheaper to buy on PCP then pay it off straight away as the dealers have discounts but they also get discounts from the finance company.
^^^ This x1000. I would also check on drivethedeal.com (as well as coast2coast cars). if the dealer won't price match or beat the quotes on DTD or C2C then simply walk away and order from the cheapest broker - don't bother wasting your time. Also you will almost certainly find the cheapest way for cash purchase is to use PCP and then pay off outstanding balance within 14 days - but don't tell the dealer that, they might go funny on you (nothing wrong or illegal with that practice).

Btw I bought my Audi A6 through drivethedeal.com in 2019, local dealer was £4k more expensive and wouldn't budge. I simply walked away and went ahead with DTD.
 
I have tried them to be fair but as I am in Scotland it would appear the dealers are mainly based down in the South, South East & South West of England, so all dealers were over 200 miles away from me, I was able to see the prices which was handy but not practical.
If you are saving £1000s by using an online broker then it’s well worth travelling to pretty much any UK dealer. I live in Inverness and had to travel to Grimsby Audi to pick up my A6 - the effort and time was worth it as I saved over 4000 notes versus buying it locally from Highland Audi. I ordered through drivethedeal.com and they gave me 2 choices where to factory order the car from: Grimsby Audi and an Audi dealer somewhere in Sussex.
 
I have tried them to be fair but as I am in Scotland it would appear the dealers are mainly based down in the South, South East & South West of England, so all dealers were over 200 miles away from me, I was able to see the prices which was handy but not practical.
It shouldn’t matter really. Heck they can even deliver the car to you.

We bought a new (well preregistered) car earlier this year that is no longer in production. So it was more a case of which dealer still has one in stock.

I ended up using BMW click and collect. I decided to take the train to get it.

I would have no problem using carwow and just buy via the telephone or interet with whoever provides the best price for your specification.
 
A quick look at What Car suggests that you could expect about 5% off list price if you are not trading in. There may be things like free servicing that mean more to you than to the sales person. I quite often take the financing from them as that can get more money off and then after the 1st month payment, I then clear it off. Also you are going towards the end of the month, if they haven’t made their quota, you may be able to get a good deal. Don’t be afraid to walk out if you think that there are not giving you what you want - tell them you need to sleep on it
 
A quick look at What Car suggests that you could expect about 5% off list price if you are not trading in. There may be things like free servicing that mean more to you than to the sales person. I quite often take the financing from them as that can get more money off and then after the 1st month payment, I then clear it off. Also you are going towards the end of the month, if they haven’t made their quota, you may be able to get a good deal. Don’t be afraid to walk out if you think that there are not giving you what you want - tell them you need to sleep on it
The online brokers (car wow, Drivethedeal, coast2coast etc) usually offer helluva lot more than 5% discount off list price on most cars. I got my A6 (factory ordered) with 20% off list price through drivethedeal.com. The local dealer refused to believe what I paid for my car...even with a Drivethedeal print out quotation!
 
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Regarding PCP, the dealer should care if you plan on paying it off early or not. They will get their bonus regardless. They will be an early payment penalty but it shouldn't be more than you save getting finance discount.

Also if you buying new from a dealer then end of quarter or even end of the month is the ideal time as dealer will be getting volume bonus which means that if you are flexible and buy what's in stock you can get silly discounts.

Also the way most dealers are financed, they have a set period to pay the manufacturer (usually around 90 days) so sometimes if the car is approaching that payment date they will try and shift it to help their cash flow.

My last car, we went from £220 a month quoted at beginning of month to £160 if we bought the car they had and it was s better spec just because the dealer was trying to get rid of stock and get volume bonus.

Will say at the moment you might find it difficult to get discounts and even delivery on some models due to global chip shortages.
 
However I watched a video by Autotrader (granted it was 2017) with Vicky Butler-Henderson and a comment she made was (along the lines of) when it comes to the negotiating there is little room to move for the salesperson as the prices are pretty much fixed for new cars and they will want to give you a good price for a trade in of your own car so that you do business with them - is that a fair assessment?

No that's a blanket statement that doesn't hold up. Audi tend to discount their cars as they often have PCP interest rates that are 3-6%. Some others offering 0% APR won't do as they need to be careful as if you discount then there is an argument that 0% is costing you more money and that would be on dodgy grounds.

I appreciate that you are not wanting to buy PCP but as others have stated it usually gives a better deal and then repay within the 1st month, there shouldn't be a penalty other than a small amount of interest as it is a protected agreement.

Like others have used Car Wow etc. I also use Autoebid.com as that allows you to spec the car and get the price with or without finance. Though randomly on A3's you seem to get a better deal on some buying cash. The Audi A3 40 Sportback quattro 5Dr 2.0TFSI 190 StopStart EU6 Sport Comfort Sound S Tronic model I randomly picked is showing as a discount of 12% for cash yet only 8.9% for PCP.

A similar spec A6 though is getting a cash discount of 21.8% or PCP of 23.3%, which makes it cheaper than the A3... :clap:
 
I have tried them to be fair but as I am in Scotland it would appear the dealers are mainly based down in the South, South East & South West of England, so all dealers were over 200 miles away from me, I was able to see the prices which was handy but not practical.
Travel to wherever the deals are. I’ve never picked a car local and my last one was a trip to London which for me is a round trip of 520 miles. Carwow will give you a great starting point on deals to be had
 
Regarding PCP, the dealer should care if you plan on paying it off early or not. They will get their bonus regardless. They will be an early payment penalty but it shouldn't be more than you save getting finance discount.
There is no penalty if you pay off the balance within the 14 days cooling off window, which is what the OP should be looking at doing.
 
There is no penalty if you pay off the balance within the 14 days cooling off window, which is what the OP should be looking at doing.
Yes and no,

Paying it off early will have early payment charges even within the first 14 days. Cancelling the agreement within 14 days cool off period means no charges for early settlement but you will need to check if it affects any discounting or other benefits given due to taking out PCP. In my experience the answer is probably no but the finance company does have the right claim any benefits back.
 
so been looking at drivethedeal and their prices are the cheapest and a lot cheaper than the dealer.

A query I have is the offer from drivethedeal is that set in stone if you go for it? or is it subject to change?

I have not went beyond the quote page just curious if there are any changes when itnclmes tompulling the trigger on the purchase.
 
I nearly bought a car through them, the challenge was my current car wasn't in the right place in terms of its finance.

If you go ahead with them a broker will ring you up and go through the details. Prices won't normally change unless for example something happens with the government changing vat etc.

Once you are happy they will do the paperwork and you get told the dealer and then as far as I know it is like any other deal. Just go and pick the car up when it's ready. If you are factory ordering that could be some time though. You might get a better deal from in stock
 
A lot of the online brokers will use dealers to place the order through and offer delivery to your house.
 
so been looking at drivethedeal and their prices are the cheapest and a lot cheaper than the dealer.

A query I have is the offer from drivethedeal is that set in stone if you go for it? or is it subject to change?

I have not went beyond the quote page just curious if there are any changes when itnclmes tompulling the trigger on the purchase.
Correct, vehicle price is fixed by drivethedeal if you decide to go ahead, irrespective of when your factory ordered car is delivered to the dealer. This was the process when i ordered my A6 through DTD:

1) Placed order on drivethedeal.com and paid £1000 deposit using credit card. For an A3 i suspect the deposit will be £500.
2) Got automatic email confirmation from DTD with the options I had selected and receipt for £1000
3) A few days later got a call from DTD customer services, just confirming what i had ordered, the price, and giving me a choice of 2 Audi dealers who would supply the car. I chose Grimsby Audi (nearest one). This was my last contact with DTD.
4) A few days after, got an order form and contract/finance agreement from dealer, which i signed and returned by email.
5) A week or so later, was given an Audi order number which i could track on the Audi website - was given a timeframe of 12 weeks. Once you are given an order number, you can create a MyAudi account on audi.co.uk which lets you track the build progress of your car.
6) Car arrived at dealers in Feb 2020 (actual delivery time was 10 weeks), took a flight from Scotland (dealer was quoting nearly £1k for delivery to Scotland!!) so was cheaper to pick up the car and drive it back.
 
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When we bought the Nissan Leaf last year the best CarWow offer was about 150 miles away. The most local dealer had the worst offer.

We just went to the local, showed him the best CarWow offer and said we would buy from him if he would match that deal, otherwise, although a little convenient we would make the 150 mile trip. He matched without even having to leave the desk to ’speak to his manager’.

Cheers,

Nigel
 
Been dealing with Ford for a long time and used the same sales guy probably for the last 5 or 6 purchases. Went to a dealership looking to change a EcoSport to a Puma and had a to deal with a new sales guy. F*cking hell, absolutely the worst experience I've had with a dealer.

I know there is a shortage of cars but stop using that excuse every 5 seconds to avoid discounting. Every change we made, from spec to colour, oh I have to go see my manager and he would disappear for 10 minutes. WTF, if you aren't authorised to make deals why the hell are you on the sales floor.

And took my son who had just passed his tested, he was quiet excited and had been watching youtube vids and trawling forums the last week so I let him lead the negotiations. Thank fudge he did his research because this tw*t was trying to pull every trick in the book and treating my son like he knew nothing and needed to be told how car buying works. He tried to offer us a grand under trade in value, what a joke.

To cap it off, blatantly lies about an optional 1 year check-up affecting trade in and voiding our warranty. Don't give me that BS. Mate it says in the hand book its optional, ecosport like most cars these days is 2 year / 18,000 mile service interval. I ended up walking him over to the service desk and they said it was optional and had no effect on warranty. Was causing such a scene that ended up talking to the 'manager'. Its only that my mrs was with me that I didn't lay into him any more than I did. Suddenly I was like royalty, here sit down and we will do you a great deal. Surprised I managed to say no thanks so politely.

Honestly, 2 hours wasted and just got me very angry. I know why the market is heading to online sales and not having to deal with dealers. Suffice to say, not just all my future sales lost but I will be telling everyone I know never to go there.

Anyway, the only good news is I found out my older dealer has move to another dealership, its about 20 minutes further but I will be paying him a visit next week instead.

/sorry, rant over.
 
Went to dealers on Sunday & apparently there is a semi-conductor shortage for new cars. We gave him tye spec we wanted & took his car for a test drive as it was A3. Very nice car to drive.

came back & he told us there is about a 5 to 6 month wait for our spec we want & its the same issue for all Audi dealers. Now when you looked at their forecourt I coukd believe it as there was very little out there.

their opening gambit was about £2K more than what we had found online. So my wife went into bat & said this the offer we have & after a little talking she got them down by about £700. Then she hot them to throw in about £500 worth of extra toys (including audi lights that light up the path when you open the door… total not needed but cool nonetheless). Then once we calculated travelling down to stockport, maybe stating over, etc we were only going to be saving couple hundred quid so we signed up & bought a new car.

just waiting for a build/delivery date now 👍
 
Honestly, 2 hours wasted and just got me very angry. I know why the market is heading to online sales and not having to deal with dealers. Suffice to say, not just all my future sales lost but I will be telling everyone I know never to go there.

Some dealers just don’t appreciate how far good service goes in keeping your loyalty, and just how easily that loyalty can be destroyed.

Many years ago, we had a terrible time at a LandRover dealership - it had been taken over by a new company, and their attitude changed along with the new management.

They lost our service book during a service, and then tried to tell us that they never had it, and it must have been us that lost it! They even had the audacity to charge us for a replacement! WTF!

At the time we were looking to move up from our V6 Freelander to a Disco, but there was no way we’d ever give them our custom again, so we switched, and bought our first XC90 - and the difference in service couldn’t have been more marked. Brilliant!

Unfortunately, just a couple of years ago, the Volvo dealership was taken over, and a similar ‘pushy’ attitude is now prevailing (trying to upsell new tyres - err, these were only fitted a couple of months ago - it needs new discs - it didn’t, and so on) - a real shame, as they’ve had our loyalty for 17 years now - but I feel it’s time to move on once the mutual respect has been eroded.

It may well be time to give Tesla a try.
 
Went to dealers on Sunday & apparently there is a semi-conductor shortage for new cars. We gave him tye spec we wanted & took his car for a test drive as it was A3. Very nice car to drive.

came back & he told us there is about a 5 to 6 month wait for our spec we want & its the same issue for all Audi dealers. Now when you looked at their forecourt I coukd believe it as there was very little out there.

their opening gambit was about £2K more than what we had found online. So my wife went into bat & said this the offer we have & after a little talking she got them down by about £700. Then she hot them to throw in about £500 worth of extra toys (including audi lights that light up the path when you open the door… total not needed but cool nonetheless). Then once we calculated travelling down to stockport, maybe stating over, etc we were only going to be saving couple hundred quid so we signed up & bought a new car.

just waiting for a build/delivery date now 👍
Did they try, did you buy any of the extras like Gap insurance or paint protection as you can normally get this if you want at a fraction of the price
 

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