Haggling Prices With Dealers

Doctor J

Newbie question here - what, realistically, can you expect to knock off the showroom price of a new car when haggling with a dealer? I'm looking at buying my first car and have narrowed it down to Renault Clio/Toyota Yaris/Hyundai Getz - all around the €14/15K mark. I don't have anything to trade in, is this good or bad?

Thanks.

silver_p

Why dont you go and buy an aul banger for a few hundred €. Then you can visit most dealers who will give you a far better price on a trade in. This way you get best of both worlds

Guy:Incognito

i bought a clio a couple of years ago (2000) and saw a pretty ig diff in price between dealsers even w/o haggling, I went to Newlands renault who wanted £11700 plus extra for metallic paint, i had been in liffey valley renaukt a day r 2 earlier and they quoted £10700 for the same model inc met paint, so needless to say i bought in liffey valley, cant remember what the recommended price was at the time, it was the le sport model with alloys and all extras, 1.2l

padraigmyers

I'll be honest, I've never understood why poeple splash out so much on a new car for when
its their first purchase. My advice to you would be to buy a car a few years old, keep the
money you save and put that towards your next car. My reasoning for this is....chances are,
with your first car that you will have a few minor tips, this can be really annoying when they
happen to the brand new car you saved up for so long to buy...another reason is that for
your first car, you really have no idea what you really like in a car cause you havent enough
driving experience, you spend all that money and then realise you don't really like what you
got.

Buy something with a late 90's reg, NCT'd, for around €5'000 or less, drive that for a year or
two, then when you know what you want and you are more used to driving, use that extra
€10K thats been building up intrest in the bank and spend it on something you've really had
your've eye on, also when your selling your €5'000 car, its probably still going to be worth
about €3K, losing only about €2K as oppossed to more than double or treble that for a new
car.

To be honest I really can never justify buying a new car, there is no new car that doesn't had
a much nicer alternative at the same price a few years older. This is just my opinion, but I'd
much rather a '99 Lexus IS200 (can be got for as little as €15K) than a brand new Yaris.

Anyway, thats just my 2 cents.

Doctor J

Thanks for that, but I've been driving as a named driver and company cars for over 6 years, so I think I should be able to keep it in fairly decent nick

To be honest, I don't really want a Lexus IS200, I want a small car. I don't buy into the bigger is better thing, the car is merely to get me from A to B 'cos I'm sick of waiting for buses which never come, so a small car is just fine. Plus, I don't want to be rode up the ass (any more than is necessary) on insurance.

silver_p

Doctor j
Sounds like you like the idea of it being "NEW" but if you buy new your gonna lose money (depreciation) straight away.

Would you not consider buying an almost new '03 car, there is some saving money in this respect and who is gonna know it's respectifully a 2nd hand car.

By the way, if your living in dublin, theres a dealer in Inchicore/Bluebell (Bluebell Motors) who have advertised that any reasonable offer on all 2nd hand cars will NOT be turned down. Can't be fairer than that!!!

padraigmyers

OK, fair enough. I thought you were a teenager who was about to run up a big loan! Sorry
about that. Its not necessarily Bigger is Better I meant, I was just making the point that there
is often very little except price to seperate a well-cared for 2nd hand car from a new one,
actually often the new one can have maufacturing flaws that will have been sorted out in the
2nd hand one. As I'm sure you noticed I'm just a big advocate of buying nice 2nd hand cars.
But, I guess someone has to buy the car new so people like me can buy off them!!

A good idea to save a few quid is to buy a demo car (one that was used for letting people
test-drive a model of car), usually less than 100 miles on the clock, my dad saved €2K on a
€25K car doing this.

As for the insurance thing, once you go over 25, the engine size of the car actually makes
very little differnce, worth checking our a few different combinations. I know that for me
(25 year old) the differnce between a 1.0Ltr and a 2.0Ltr was only about €100.

Sorry again if my other post came across as patronising.

BrianD3

Why dont you go and buy an aul banger for a few hundred €. Then you can visit most dealers who will give you a far better price on a trade in. This way you get best of both worlds

What?! That is the WORST thing you could do!

Here's how it works: Lets say a car has a list price of 20k. That 20k includes a large profit margin for the dealer. Most of the time it's possible to haggle away some of this margin i.e. get a discount on the list price. On a 20k car you could easily get a discount of 1200-1500. That's with no trade in, no scrappage, just a straight deal. People get conned by this all the time. Lets say you turn up at a dealers with your old banger which is worth at most 250 quid in a private sale. You ask how much you'd get if you traded it against a new car and the dealer says he'll knock 1200 off. You think "great! He's giving me 1200 for that POS! I'm getting a great deal" But you aren't. You're just getting the normal straight deal discount......plus the dealer is also getting your old car which he may sell on for a few quid.

Even if you're trading up a relatively decent car the same thing applies. Lets say your old car is worth 5k in a private sale. So the dealer offers you 5k to trade up to a new car. But in fact you only got 5k MINUS the discount. You'd be the price of the discount better off if you sold your old car privately for 5k and did a straight deal for the new car.

Back to the original poster's question I know for a fact that the standard discount given by LV Renault is 8% off list. This applies to Meganes and Lagunas, not sure about Clios but probably the same. And you may be able to haggle a bit more off. Other car manufacturers probably have fairly similar discounts. I'd guess that you'll get less of a discount on a Yaris than a Clio though. A lot depends on how popular the cars are and how easy they are to selll. Unpopular car = big discount. As your probably aware Toyotas are held in very high regard and are always in demand so you're unlikely to get much off. In contrast I would expect you'd get quite a lot off the Hyundai - because that make is less popular etc. To answer your oterh question, yes it's very good that you have no trade in - as I explained earlier.

BrianD3

unkel

Agree with BrainD3

I would expect a 5-10% discount off the list price on a cash deal with no trade in, depending on make.

This would be the same if you do trade in a banger. The garage will get rid of these and will not receive a cent for them usually. They are happy for traders to take these away for free.

Most makes would be nearer the 10%, on some popular makes and / or models you won't get much (BMW classic example)

If you are into extra's this can get even better, e.g. if you want airco, alloys, sunroof, cd, alarm, mettalic, the usual suspects. This is because there is a very high dealer margin on these. Do take into account that a lot of these are an economic write-off as soon as you leave the forecourt with your new motor. They will make it (a lot) easier to resell the car in the future. Also they all attract VRT and VAT. You would get a lot of list price worth of extra's on a new car. This might go anywhere up to 15% of the value (3k on a 20k car)

milltown

Most dealers will give you a good deal if you aren't trading anything in, exception is if they think they have a buyer for your trade-in as soon as the deal is done.
Worth noting that finance companies give commission to dealers so play along, say you might finance your new purchase and get them licking their lips. They might come down another few quid at the prospect.

silver_p

_____________________________________
What?! That is the WORST thing you could do!
_____________________________________

If your to look at the CBG website, theres a section in it that gives tips on how to haggle, within this, it explains what i was saying about getting the most from your own car (trade-in) which is to haggle a cash price for the car you want and when satisfied with the dealers bottom dollar deal, then talk about your trade-in model, that way you are in control and can get the best deal possible.

It's all about how thick skinned you are.

Remember..... the dealer WANTS & NEEDS to sell you the car.

Doctor J

Thanks everyone, I appreciate it.

As Padraig said "there is often very little except price to seperate a well-cared for 2nd hand car from a new one" - I dunno about you guys but I don't see many cars being well cared for on the roads of Dublin It seems to me like people are driving the sh*t out of new cars knowing they'll be passing them on in a year or two.

I'm not going to buy one and sell it in a couple of years. I'm buying a car to keep. I'd rather know personally how hard the gearbox and engine have been pushed in the first 500 miles rather than find out the hard way in a few years.

I had a test drive of a Citroen C3 a few weeks back and, when the dealer found out I wasn't trading in, knocked 1k off the asking price straight away, without me asking... which kind of prompted me to ask this question in the first place. As I said, I'm new to all this so I'm just trying to find out how much there is to bargain with. Thanks again.

Victor

Originally posted by BrianD3
Here's how it works: Lets say a car has a list price of 20k. That 20k includes a large profit margin for the dealer. Most of the time it's possible to haggle away some of this margin i.e. get a discount on the list price. On a 20k car you could easily get a discount of 1200-1500. That's with no trade in, no scrappage, just a straight deal. People get conned by this all the time. Lets say you turn up at a dealers with your old banger which is worth at most 250 quid in a private sale. You ask how much you'd get if you traded it against a new car and the dealer says he'll knock 1200 off. You think "great! He's giving me 1200 for that POS! I'm getting a great deal" But you aren't. You're just getting the normal straight deal discount......plus the dealer is also getting your old car which he may sell on for a few quid.

There was actually a case before the courts where I think it was a Toyota was relabelled a Lexus(? I'm not sure, one of the Japanese manufacturers sell **some** of it's luxury models under a different name) by a dealer. The car depreciated from £60,000 (second hand as a "Lexus") to £40,000 (third hand as a Toyota) in less than a year. An excessive depreciation rate largely attributable to the Toyota / Lexus fudge

Not only had the dealer done the above, but also screwed around with trade in values on the original sale, so while it looked like the buyer was getting say £20,000 for the trade-in it was written up as £10,000 and a sale of £50,000.

Let the buyer beware.

Never trust a car sales man.

Guy:Incognito

everyone knows that a lexus is a toyota, theyre basically camry's with added luxury, but still a toyota nontheless

Victor

Originally posted by Stekelly
everyone knows that a lexus is a toyota, theyre basically camry's with added luxury, but still a toyota nontheless

No they don't, especially when the tag was specifically changed from Toyota to Lexus

Guy:Incognito

they dont change the badges they have completely different lines and models that r lexus and toyota

Victor

Originally posted by Stekelly
they dont change the badges they have completely different lines and models that r lexus and toyota

I know, this case was fruad where the dealer changed the tags.

unkel

Originally posted by Victor
No they don't, especially when the tag was specifically changed from Toyota to Lexus

Agreed. Also remember (vaguely) the case with the rebadged Toyota. Was this a Japanese import of a car that is badged Toyota in Japan, but Lexus in the US and in Europe?

Most people know Toyota's in general are well built but boring cars. A thing most people don't know (here in Europe) is that a Camry is built to pretty much the same standard as the Lexus range.

You can pick up a second hand Camry for very little. A recent survey in the UK showed iirc that the Camry was among the fastest depreciating cars in the market. Other end of the scale: BMW 3 series (smaller engine petrols and the 320D) and Mercedes C220CDI (losing only 30% in 3 years)

Conclusion: if you want a cheap second hand large size family car and want it to go forever without hassle apart from annual service and you can stand the totally unremarkable design and driving characteristics (to put it rather sympathetically imho) the Camry is your man

Note: Toyota Camry is the best selling car in the US and has been for some time

padraigmyers

Yeah, every Lexus here has an equivilant Toyota in Japan. Here the list:
Lexus IS200 = Toyota Altezza (badged as a Pursuit IS200 in some places)
Lexus GS300 = Toyota Aristo
Lexus RX300 = Toyota Harrier
Lexus LX470 = Toyota Land Cruiser Cygnus
Lexus SC400/SC430 = Toyota Soarer

So, yeah, Toyota = Lexus in every way. The Lexus badge has definetly helped their sales
in Europe, but pretty much everyone knows that its a Toyota you are buying, but in most
people mind thats a good thing, Toyota reliability mixed with a very very nicely finished car.

Da Man

That thing with the trade-in pricing mentioned above is a tax technicality to minimise the VAT liability when selling a used car. As far as I know it's perfectly legit. All dealers do it.

To say that a Lexus is a Toyota is a bit simplistic. That's like saying an Audi is a Skoda, an Aston Martin is a Ford, a Nissan is a Renault, blah blah blah. Component sharing is everywhere. Toyota created Lexus as a Merc competitor and they use bespoke platforms mostly. There are a couple of examples in the US where there's sod all difference between a Lexus and a Toyota. The Lexus ES300 which is practically identical to a Camry. That LX470 is a more luxurious Land Cruiser (called something else in the US I'm pretty sure).

Anyways to get back to topic, dealers in Ireland tend to price fix so it's difficult to get a discount on a new car.

padraigmyers

Originally posted by Da Man
That's like saying an Audi is a Skoda, an Aston Martin is a Ford, a Nissan is a Renault

No, thats completly different, you cannot buy say an A4 badged as a skoda, you can buy an
equiviilant but its a completly different looking car. But if you get say a Toyota Altezza and a
Lexus IS200, there is NO difference except the badges, its the same body, engine,
everything is the same. Thats why I say that Toyota = Lexus, because its not that there is an
equivilant Toyota (in Japan) for every Lexus, in Japan all the Lexus's are Toyota's. There is no
such thing as Lexus in Japan, all the Lexus models are badged Toyota and have a different
model name (as I gave above).

Blitzkrieger

Originally posted by Stekelly
they dont change the badges they have completely different lines and models that r lexus and toyota

r not!

I don't know much about the Lexus range, but afaik a Camry is built on the same platform as one of them (GS?), and has many more identical parts than not.