Its time to replace the current car, and its about 9 years since I last went car shopping. Back then it was car yards, Autotrader magazine or car fairs, and if you saw a particular make, model, year and milage you liked you had to make a decision fairly quickly, with limited comparisions.
Now with Trade Me there is a large selection of cars within a similar criteria and its fairly easy to get a rough idea of price based on the chosen range.
I am looking at replacing a 1999 Honda Civic with a Honda Jazz. I tend to keep a car until it has a major fault and so far the Civics I have had have done well, with the current one just having clocked 200k. I can't justify an updated Civic, as it is only for urban commuting, and the Jazz's are now much better spec'ed than my current Civic.
The range I am looking in is 2009 or newer and less then 75000k's, and these tend to fall between $15 - 20K+.
My first question is what sort of discounts has anyone obtained from car yards that use TradeMe? I seem to remember I managed to get from about $15K to just over 12K 9 years ago from a card yard, but I am guessing with the better visibility of pricing it has gotten sharper?
Are private sellers more likely to set there pricing similar to dealer pricing on TradeMe?
Any tales of recent car buying (or selling) experiences would be appreciated!