Haggling when buying from UK?

gaillimh

Question for ye about buying from dealers in the UK generally - is there much leeway for price haggling?
For example - if I were to see a car I liked on autotrader.co.uk with a price of say £14K sterling (trade listing) - could I expect to get much off this price?
Cheers


Ps I know this is an old thread but as it is related to the thread title I'm hijacking it.
I can create a new thread if mods feel it's needed.

NIMAN

Having looked at various UK sites for cars recently, I have found that some makes you would not save at all by buying UK and paying VRT, and thats not taking into account having to travel over to the UK and drive it back.

I was looking at 2013 Golfs, Focus, Civics and to be honest buying in Ireland is as cheap as importing, often cheaper.

kefir32

maybe if sterling moved to near parity with the euro as it did in 09 then sales would dive here, wish it was cheaper to import here as the UK cars are much much better generally.

gaillimh

Ya I think I might save a small bit of money but not much by importing.
The thing I have found though is the choice of spec over there is much greater.
If you have a specific model,spec,colour etc in mind - you are more likely to find what you are looking for in the Uk.

NIMAN

gaillimh wrote: »

Ya I think I might save a small bit of money but not much by importing.
The thing I have found though is the choice of spec over there is much greater.
If you have a specific model,spec,colour etc in mind - you are more likely to find what you are looking for in the Uk.

Simply due to the fact that there are more cars sold in the UK.

Some people slag off Ireland's range of cars, but forget that the UK has more than 10x the population of Ireland.

I would also take the belief that the UKs cars are always better looked after with a pinch of salt. Apparently there are loads of Cat D and Cat C writeoffs being imported into Ireland. Floods over recent years in the UK might mean we are getting UK cars that might never have been involved in a crash but which might have suspect engines. Also, I'd say there is a good chance that clocking is rife in cars being exported out of the UK.

Atlantic Dawn

NIMAN wrote: »

I would also take the belief that the UKs cars are always better looked after with a pinch of salt. Apparently there are loads of Cat D and Cat C writeoffs being imported into Ireland. Floods over recent years in the UK might mean we are getting UK cars that might never have been involved in a crash but which might have suspect engines. Also, I'd say there is a good chance that clocking is rife in cars being exported out of the UK.

Ireland has no official rating or register for crash damaged cars and only recently made car clocking an offence so far riskier buying a car here. Yes some UK cars sold by dealers here may have suspect history but this is easily verified by a car history check pre purchase, something most people seem unwilling to spend €20.

Gazzmonkey

I went to Belfast about a year ago & bought an 08 B8 A4 2.0 TDI in top nick verified by history check & mechanic, was able to haggle the owner down to €10,400 and if you look on donedeal the same car today is going for anything up to €17,000 !! After VRT was paid it cost me a total of €13,000 and lets not forget the chape tax. :pac:

Savings can be made if done right.

biko

Moved out from an old thread

Yes, savings can be done in UK. It's a larger market and it's easier to get lucky with a nice car since more are available.

About the haggling, it's same as over here. Be prepared to get a no answer and walk away.

Marcusm

Car supermarkets such as CarGiant don't allow haggling, branded dealerships rarely allow much more than £500-1,000 leeway to sales staff. Smaller dealerships try to limit haggling and with private sales it's open season. That's my experience, ymmv.

edburg

gaillimh wrote: »

Question for ye about buying from dealers in the UK generally - is there much leeway for price haggling?
For example - if I were to see a car I liked on autotrader.co.uk with a price of say £14K sterling (trade listing) - could I expect to get much off this price?
Cheers


Ps I know this is an old thread but as it is related to the thread title I'm hijacking it.
I can create a new thread if mods feel it's needed.

If its a garage you might get upto a 1k sterling off price if your good but in my experience 4-500 been the average.

As chap above I got my Insignia from up north and with vrt saved in reality 2.5k euro best irish car I could find. Nearly 6k compared to advertised price of the irish equivalent.

Mc Love

Not much in the way of haggling going from what I can see.

Tibulus

Gazzmonkey wrote: »

haggle the owner down to €10,400 a

.

What was the dealer's list price?

What iv found from dealers here is if a car is listed for 15k. Then there is always 500-1000 as a discount and another 500 discount it there is no trade in.

But always 1000 minimum for a straight sale.

Would this be the same in Belfast? Heading up tomorrow.

Henry Ford III

Like everywhere the ability to haggle varies.

The key is to establish what the car's actual value is. Do some homework and approach it from a position of strength.

Gazzmonkey

Tibulus wrote: »

What was the dealer's list price?

What iv found from dealers here is if a car is listed for 15k. Then there is always 500-1000 as a discount and another 500 discount it there is no trade in.

But always 1000 minimum for a straight sale.

Would this be the same in Belfast? Heading up tomorrow.

Should've mentioned it was a private sale, nice old man that didn't know what he had. The service history was mostly main dealer but I noticed there was no mention of timing belt, water pump, DMF or clutch been replaced so I hammered those four points until I got him down a good bit.

Also there was a stone chip on the bonnet and it had a really ugly tow bar which I also complained about, I was lucky that he was so easily persuaded as my haggling skills are really not that good.

dingding

Timing can be everything also. If you are near the end of a month / quarter there may be a bargain to be had when a dealer needs to shift some stock for a bonus.

Done well previously where I got a discount if I had it paid for by the end of the month.

Hachiko

the hpi and car verification checks in the UK are good, anyone who puts some time and effort into searching for a car can get a very good one without much hassle, yes there is a huge population here in England and the cars for the most part have specification far greater than anything sold in Ireland, most BMWs in Ireland have paddy spec seats for instance, the Lexus i got has all the bells and whistles (Mark Levinson unit, memory seats, adaptive HIDs etc), you cant get this in Ireland.

the MOT check is good too, put in the car reg and v5 # and it will bring up every MOT that exists for a car.