€12,500 cash offer refused?

GaGa21

We are looking at upgrading our 02 VW passat to a 10 or 11 passat or skoda. After looking at a good few, we found one we liked that was on sale for €13,450. I presumed this would be the trade price and even though our budget was €10,000 we were prepared to stretch to €12,500 cash absolute maximum. But dealer would only go down to €13,000. Now i know it's only 500 in the difference, but we were at our absolute limit at €12,500. €500 is a lot of money to us. So the dealer let us go with no sale?
Is it just me or is this normal? 2-3 weeks later, the car is still up for sale. Is it worth making the offer again or surely they would have contacted us as they have our details.
Any advice welcome as we don't have a lot of experience buying cars. Thanks.

Toyotafanboi

GaGa21 wrote: »

We are looking at upgrading our 02 VW passat to a 10 or 11 passat or skoda. After looking at a good few, we found one we liked that was on sale for €13,450. I presumed this would be the trade price and even though our budget was €10,000 we were prepared to stretch to €12,500 cash absolute maximum. But dealer would only go down to €13,000. Now i know it's only 500 in the difference, but we were at our absolute limit at 12,500. 500 is a lot of money to us. So the dealer let us go with no sale?
Is it just me or is this normal? 2-3 weeks later, the car is still up for sale. Is it worth making the offer again or surely they would have contacted us as they have our details.
Any advice welcome as we don't have a lot of experience buying cars. Thanks.

seems somewhat the norm from a VW dealership.

we viewed an €18k scirocco at the start of the year. cost to change was 12k (we had a trade in valued at 6k). started haggling at €11k just to try get a bit off. he wouldn't budge, so we offered 11.5k and he refused so we walked. he had 4 other people interested in it apparently. we bought an astra gtc around 6 weeks later (got €750 off of an €11k cost to change and genuine mud flaps and mats thrown in) and the scirocco was still on sale at that point.

maybe we were acting too keen on the car, maybe he used all his negotiating power offering too high a "value" on our trade in, maybe he had no room to move or maybe he was just an asshole.

everybody expects a bit of a haggle when buying second hand, nobody is setting out to pay the window price.

that said, in your case, maybe €1k was too much, who knows except the dealer.

Trojan

I was asking a similar question recently, thread here.

bazz26

My advice is shop around, there are a million second hand Passats for sale so you can afford to be patient. Actually patience is the thing here, it's now approaching late into the year so the longer you leave it the better chance you have of getting one within your budget.

Summer wind

Maybe try going back very near to the end of the month. The salesman will have a sales target to reach and may be easier to deal with then. If this doesn't work don't worry just cast your net a bit wider and the right car will come along.

unfit2006

Go back at the end of the month and offer him 12,250.

delly

Every dealer and sales team have different ways of approaching the sale OP, so what seems an obvious good offer from your side may not be for the salesperson. How much the car is standing them, how much they are on target for the month, how desirable the car is and likely to be sold at a higher price, how much they could pass the car onto the trade for are just some examples. Like any transaction business, cars have their nounces but members of the public have an expectation that they can bargain dealers down. I'm not saying that the dealer in your case had a sane reason for not doing the deal, but somewhere on their system the figure you offered did not tick the box, but you are not going to know the reason why not.

bazz26

Just to add, with the launch of the new Passat in January there will be a glut of existing models being traded in with prices taking a hit. If you have time on your hands then wait.