Car Shopping

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networkn

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#103623 12-Jun-2012 11:52

Hi There!

I am wondering about what specific tactics you guys either have seen used (By the seller) or use yourselves when buying cars?

Anyone have a rough idea what margins are in used cars these days? I know it's less than it used to be, but on a 30K ticket price, what would you reasonably expect as a discount? Would you expect more margin on an import than a NZ New?

Cheers

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#639578 12-Jun-2012 12:09

Say: I'm walking away... (and then take a few paces away from the yard).

In all honesty, they sell cars for a living. You probably don't buy cars for a living so they have the advantage.

Go with a budget and stick to it.

Try to get as much servicing and stuff like that thrown in as this is where they make money.

Don't impulse buy.

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alasta

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#639591 12-Jun-2012 12:20

I'm not sure about used cars but when I bought my car recently I found that I could use my trade in for a bit of leverage. The trade in was old and probably realistically worth $2500 at most, but I managed to get them to give me $3000 for it.

Other than that there didn't seem to be a lot of room to move as the industry is competitive enough that it seems to be favouring value adds over price competition.

networkn

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#639592 12-Jun-2012 12:21

Yeah well I was a little surprised when looking at a 38K car from one well known dealer they just stonewalled when we talked about a discount, I was wondering it's common to have no price movement these days?

alasta

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#639599 12-Jun-2012 12:25

networkn: Yeah well I was a little surprised when looking at a 38K car from one well known dealer they just stonewalled when we talked about a discount, I was wondering it's common to have no price movement these days?

In that price bracket are you sure you really want to buy a used car? For that sort of money you could get a decent new car with 3 year warranty, roadside assistance, and no need to worry about the state of tyres, brake pads, battery, cambelt, etc.

networkn

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#639601 12-Jun-2012 12:27

alasta: The equivalent car in new is going to be $20K+ more.

We have relatively specific requirements.

oxnsox

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#639618 12-Jun-2012 12:53

Dealers tend to offer large trade-in values to get you in their yard. These are off-set by higher margins on their used stock. So ask what you'd get for a trade (if you don't have one use a hypothetical vehicle) and use that as a guide. Then if you don't have a trade you should be able to argue a good 'discount' off the sticker price.

Dealers also make money out of the finance package, so being a 'cash' buyer doesn't always give the best discount.

Best way to buy used is to identify the vehicle, work out a realistic price, and make an offer. If they won't accept it leave them your details and walk away. Know who else in the same area (town) has similar vehicles too, and go see them as well... dealers know who's competing for the same vehicle type locally. If you haven't heard from them in a few days either call in or ring and see if they've thought about your offer. The closer you are to the end of the month (or the time they have to pay for their next shipments of imports) the better chance you'll get a lower price.

Key thing is to try and take the emotion out of it and stay in control of the purchase. Once they sense you're solely focused on their vehicle, they're the fisherman and you have the bait.

networkn

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#639624 12-Jun-2012 12:58

Thanks. Yah I have actually bought a number of cars in my life, but I'd never struck a situation where a number of dealers had indicated they no longer discount cars, they just sell them at sticker price. I don't tend to get emotional which is handy, and I am generally not worried about losing a sale.

I just called the dealer and said

"thanks for taking the time to show us the car, we thought about it and decided we can't justify the asking price and will need to continue looking till we find something within our budget, let us know if you come across anything else that might be of interest".

He then spluttered a little and asked why we didn't think it was worth the asking price and I explained it was just outside our expectation and to let us know if he gets a car $4K cheaper.

He has run off to his manager and will call back this PM :)

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#639627 12-Jun-2012 13:00

I had an interesting car buying experience, and I guess it helps during such difficult economic times all retailers are going through.

I was out looking for a new car. The dealer initially thought I would buy without much work as I did show how keen I was. When it came down to how much it would total after trade-in, I simply said it was over my budget. They didn't believe in giving discounts, let alone giving any freebies. I left them hanging for the next 5 or so weeks. They kept calling, and I maintained my stance.

When I finally had enough of this entire game, I simply said, "I am only going to spend x, and I want this, that and the other as add-ons". The add-ons totalled around $1500, on-top of another few grand to fit my x budget. I said if I wasn't getting this deal, that I would try another dealership.

Just like that, they decided to give me everything I asked for. It also helped that they were a few cars away from their monthly target, so they decided to sell the car at a lower margin to meet their sales targets.

So there you go, play hard to get, and stand your ground.

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#639638 12-Jun-2012 13:07

crackrdbycracku: ...
Try to get as much servicing and stuff like that thrown in as this is where they make money.
....

To which I'd add, "and get it in writing even if you feel silly asking for it".

We were offered 12 months free servicing when we recently purchased a new car, which was actually offered once we'd pretty much signed anyway, so was a very nice surprise and a bonus for us. The trouble is that they seem to have conveniently forgotten about that offer now, and at the first service we had trouble getting the salesperson to confirm he'd made the offer when we were presented with a bill. He finally admitted that an offer had been made, but that it was for the first service only. There were two of us there, and I'd never argue with my better half on a point of memory, but we both remember the same thing.

It's a shame really, 'cos up to the point where they made the offer of 12 months free service we were happy customers. We're now considerably less happy, despite being no worse off than we expected to be, but have significantly less inclination to deal with this company again as we've lost our trust in them.

(Subsequent dealings on another issue have exposed them to either be incompetent or out-right liars (probably both), but that's another matter)

So, my advice is to treat anything you're told as suspect, and to get everything important in writing. They might come across as your new best mate but they'll forget you before the ink is dry on the agreement.

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networkn

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#639643 12-Jun-2012 13:10

I did a deal a few years back on free servicing and they said they didn't want to do that, it made the deal too messy, so they said servicing for a year was $400 and gave us $600 off the price of the car.

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#639670 12-Jun-2012 13:50

Just a little anecdote of mine for you:

When I was looking at cars last year, went to Moyes Panmure and saw one there that wasn?t far off the kind of thing we wanted.
Car we wanted was $15k and the guy said that he couldn?t discount the ticket price since it was already really low, but once we told him about our trade-in car he offered to give us a straight trade on our car.
But we knew our car was worth, at best, around $12-14k on trademe, so a bit less as a trade-in to allow for reconditioning and margin. That is when alarm bells started ringing.

We went home, looked on trademe and found I could get the better model of the same car he wanted to sell us for only $12k with fewer kms and in much better condition from a different dealer. Told the guy at panmure to get stuffed and even managed to get $1k off the asking price from the new dealer.

surfisup1000

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#639698 12-Jun-2012 14:37

networkn: Yeah well I was a little surprised when looking at a 38K car from one well known dealer they just stonewalled when we talked about a discount, I was wondering it's common to have no price movement these days?

I went to buy a new car late last year, and asked for a discount . The salesperson said, 'we don't do discounts', so I walked off.

I now expect a discount, if I don't get one, I feel i'm being ripped off :)

I've always had discounts on any new car I've bought to date.

networkn

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#639701 12-Jun-2012 14:42

Well I think it's standard for them to use this line. I think my approach worked well as now they are discussing discounting. The problem is he wants me to go into the office to make a formal offer and I don't want to go in until I know we are at least in the ballpark.

BuzzLightyear

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#639718 12-Jun-2012 15:13

I bought a car for my sister recently and found trade me very helpful. It makes it easy to filter the car you're looking at by year, mileage etc. so you can pretty quickly get a gauge of private sale prices vs car yards. At the very least you will know the cheapest price for the model your after.

Armed with that info you should be able to tell what a good deal.

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#639729 12-Jun-2012 15:30

Depends on who you're dealing with. IIRC Honda out right won't do discounts on new and even advertise the fact that it keeps the value of the car higher.

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