Discount on a new car?

billy few mates

Thinking of buying a new car, is it unreasonable to expect a discount on the brochure price or do the sales people have any leeway on this? I've had a look at one or two that I like but when I asked the salesman for his best price he's sticking rigidly to the exact brochure price. This is on a €40k approx car, with approx 50/50 trade in, cash not PCP/finance. Main VW dealer.

JoeA3

So are you buying straight or have you a trade in?

If you've got a trade in, Irish dealers, in my experience, do not talk about discounts off the top of the new car. They focus on the trade in value they are giving you for your car or the "Cost to change".

So, for example, he might be saying he's giving you 20k for your car - which to you sounds good (maybe better than you expected). This means you need to part with 20k plus your car. The reality is, he's probably valuing your car at 2-3k less than that (e.g. 17.5k). The 2.5k is the margin/discount he has to play with on the new car.

The number you really need to focus on is the cost-to-change. Every other number is misleading.

dil999

Different brands have different discounts. You should be getting somewhere between 8% to 12% off the list
JoeA3 is spot on on the trade ins. The other dealer trick to watch out for is that they always try to sell add ons. The metallic paint is the obvious one, and most people go for that. But you will look at a particular model, and they will tell you we have one in stock but it has the "something" pack and that is only another €1500. but we'll do it for you for €1300. So you end up spending €1300 on something you didn't really want in the first place

Like anything shop around. It can be fun.

Just spotted VW dealer, they tend to be the lower range of % discount.

billy few mates

dil999 wrote: »

Different brands have different discounts. You should be getting somewhere between 8% to 12% off the list
JoeA3 is spot on on the trade ins. The other dealer trick to watch out for is that they always try to sell add ons. The metallic paint is the obvious one, and most people go for that. But you will look at a particular model, and they will tell you we have one in stock but it has the "something" pack and that is only another €1500. but we'll do it for you for €1300. So you end up spending €1300 on something you didn't really want in the first place

Like anything shop around. It can be fun.

Just spotted VW dealer, they tend to be the lower range of % discount.

Funny you should say that, I did my budget estimate based on the on the road price from the website/brochure, when we were haggling over the trade in/cash price the numbers didn't add up, it turns out that the salesman had already decided to 'opt me in' on a number of optional extras (including metallic) to bump the price by another approx €2.5k...! He somewhat reluctantly conceded I didn't have to take them...

bazz26

Forget the brochure price as it doesn't include the cost of metallic paint or dealer delivery. Focus should be with the "on the road" price plus different brands and models will have different rates of discount. There is no one size fits all discount formula. Once you establish that then try squeezing the different dealers by playing their prices off each other.

If you have a trade-in then that changes things and most dealers will apply the discount on the new car to your trade-in to bump it up to make it a more attractive deal.

billy few mates

The problem is I'm not getting a great trade in price, it's almost like he's doing me a favour by taking it at all. I've been offered more realistic trade in prices by two other cheaper brands of car. I could live with that if there was the possibility of a discount to bring it closer to the price I have in mind. The salesman doesn't seem to want to haggle and doesn't seem that interested in at least trying to clinch a deal.
He hasn't actually said it but the feeling I get from him is 'its there if you want it, no skin off my nose if you don't'.

bazz26

Go to a different dealer of the same brand, some dealers are more keen for business than others while others might find it more difficult to sell your trade-in on so offer a lower allowance on it. Remember that your now approaching the end of the year so some dealers will value your trade-in at next year's price in the event they anticipate they may have it for a while. The alternative is to take the trade-in out of the equation and try selling it privately.

la ultima guagua

bazz26 wrote: »

...... The alternative is to take the trade-in out of the equation and try selling it privately.

Do that and then contrive to get VWs Durty Daysul trade in promo with some banger ?