Has anyone ever intercepted someone trading their car in, and bought it?

Pretty much as the title suggests,

A friend of mine has a car, which she bought from a main dealer. The car is a 171 and the friend has wandered over to the dealer to have a chat about trading it in against a 201.

Dealer valued her car, lowballed the bollocks off her, and pretty much said she always had the option of selling it privately for more money, albeit with more hassle, stress, potential scammers, etc. etc.


So I advised why doesn't she just stick it up for sale, for what the dealer offered her? To which she said that way she's just getting all the hassle of a private sale, with no real benefits. Which is completely understandable.


Dealer offered her in the region of 14k for her car. Similar model is sitting on their forecourt for 19k. Seems a big gap to me, but i appreciate these custom made dealership buildings, staff and utility bills etc. have to be paid for somehow.

But it made me wonder, is there a way of manipulating this for the purpose of privately buying? For example, if i wanted a 171 car, and someone is trading one in, if i offered a grand over what the dealer is offering them, I'd be getting a good price, they'd be up a grand and everyone's a winner (dealer excluded).


Has anyone ever bought a car in that way? Seems like a good opportunity (and i reckon if i were trading in against a new car, and was being lowballed, I'd surely try to sell privately first at a really keen price.. but when you look at cars for sale privately, lots of people seem to price pretty close to dealer prices for some reason, which I don't understand).

orm0nd

Yeah , I bought our last jeep that way. dealer wasn't too pleased as he had a victim lined up for the jeep.

There was no agreement reached on the sale otherwise I wouldn't have intervened.

waffleman

KKV wrote: »

But it made me wonder, is there a way of manipulating this for the purpose of privately buying? For example, if i wanted a 171 car, and someone is trading one in, if i offered a grand over what the dealer is offering them, I'd be getting a good price, they'd be up a grand and everyone's a winner (dealer excluded).

In my experience the price of a new car with trade in is higher than cash price. So you offering to buy for the same price as the dealer is still a win win for both of you.

mickdw

yep if someone sold privately for even the same price as offered, they would be winning as dealer is really offering about 2k less than that figure when all discounts are factored in.

Mini850

Happened my dad twice. He's car proud and the car was always cleaned and serviced. Happened once on the forecourt when he was in looking for his next car and once before he even went looking where someone approached him when his car was two years old, half knowing he may be trading in soon.

They were local and after a well looked after car.