Online car brokers

MaturityDodger

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Hi. I'm looking at getting a new car, so hope I could get some advice from the AVF community.
I've looked at a few places, and at the moment broker4cars.co.uk have produced a cracking quote, that my local dealer can't come close to matching.
I'm not going to put the price or even the model I'm after here to avoid going off-topic with "why don't you get a ***** or buying through ***** instead"

Lots of things about the broker check out:
Companies house confirms they really have been in business a long time, and the directors don't have a string of bankrupt firms behind them.
I can pay the deposit and fee by credit card (which I think protects me for the whole lot)
I'll be the first name on the reg docs
It's a UK model
Full manufacturer's warranty
Comments on various forums (honestjohn etc) about them go back a long way
The only negative experiences I could see all came from newly-registered forum users, and all at the same time.

The only warning signs are:
They take the money themselves, rather than passing me to a dealer (although they source the car from a franchised dealer).
They're cheap.

Has anybody used them before, or know somebody who has? Are there any other questions I should be asking before going ahead?

Thanks in advance.
 
It's cash. Going through other dealers, I was tempted by a finance option due to 0% and a deposit contribution promotion (pcp, fairly flexible on deposit amount), but this broker gave its good quote for cash.

As an update, I've done a lot of further research myself, and I think I'm going to make my order tomorrow. So speak up quickly if anybody's spotted anything fishy!
 
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Are you sure you won't get a better offer for taking the finance and then clearing it a few days later with your cash? I was led to believe dealers make more from you buying a car via finance of some sort.
 
Absolutely certain. This broker was offering his own finance instead of the dealer's one, and at the same OTR marked price as the cash deal. I think I've worked out the dealer he's using so I could potentially save a small amount by bypassing the broker at this stage, but I've been happy with his service so wouldn't do something like that. But I contacted a couple of other local dealers and even with their 0% finance and deposit contribution, they wouldn't match this cash price.
 
What timescale did you get for delivery and is that set in stone?

Just asking as they could string it out whilst having your money?
 
I don't have a date set in stone. I have a rough date when it'll arrive at the dealership (2-3 weeks from when I ordered). Then when it arrives we will set an exact date for them to deliver it, or me to collect it. They only needed me to pay a very small amount at this stage.
They said they'll let me delay delivery and registration until the new year if I want, in case I'm busy over Christmas, and so that I get a 2017-registered car. I haven't decided if I'll take that offer or just do it straight away.
 
A little followup here... It all turned out fine.
I ordered the car for mid-January. There was a 2-day slippage in the delivery date, but it turned up in perfect condition.
I delayed posting a success story until I'd seen the v5c too, and that just arrived yesterday (just about within DVLA's advised 6-week period). No funny business there, I am indeed the first registered keeper.
And I'm still delighted with the car. And the price.

As a bonus, I managed to sell my old car privately too with no hassle - got lucky in that somebody at work wanted a new car for his wife, and she had come from a much older model of the same car. So I avoided getting ripped off a WBAC, which is where I was going to go for a quick and easy disposal.
 

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