Haggling with dealers for used cars

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stefg

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Hi,

How much would you expect to able to negotiate off the price of a used car from a dealer?
I'm looking at a few cars and my budget is €18k, but I saw a few cars in dealers that are more expensive, between €21k and €22k, that really interested me.

Would it be possible to negotiate one of those cars down to my budget? I will not be trading-in and I'll be paying in cash. It's clear that dealers always mark the price of cars up so they can afford a bit of haggling, but how much of a discount would a dealer be willing to make?
Maybe some of you could post your experiences of haggling for used cars? I'd be very interested.

Thanks,
Stef

P.S. I thought I saw a similar post a couple of weeks ago but I couldn't find it today. If there is a post that covers this, then maybe someone could just post the link.
 
Some stuff here may be of interest:
http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=35250

Different dealers use different pricing methods.

The norm' for a dealer selling a car with an asking price of E20,000 is as follows; E1,000 is immediately discounted if you are not trading in. Many people call this a 'cash price' (irrelevant term today) or more accurately the 'straight purchase price'. Then you get to the haggling, most salespeople will split the difference if you ask for a further discount of E500, so use this as your finale.

Your best bet is to shop around, find 3 cars in 3 dealers that you would be happy to purchase. Then get them into a Dutch auction situation ('' Another garage will do it for 250 less, but i'd rather buy here...''). When 2 dealers finally say they can't go any lower on the price you know you are getting a good deal with the last man standing.

If you are bringing finance into the mixer, know what a good rate is before you enter the garage. Garages can be a cheap source of finance. This time of year rates tend to be higher. Try to keep finance a seperate issue until closing the deal. Always get APR, and always get a quote on the same amount of finance in each garage (eg on E15,000, you can always add to or take away later), this will allow you to compare rates with other garages etc. I think 6.5% would be pretty good at the moment.
 
Stef,

It all depends on how much the car stands the dealer versus how long they've had it......E.G. I once bought a Range Rover listed for €22,500 for €18,500 but conversely bought a 5 series BM and only got a €500 discount....I guess it also depends where the price is relevant to the true value of the car (often found in the dealers black book)....If you find a car that you like at a 20-22 price range....tell the dealer you'll pay him €18k in cash and see what he says, all he can say is no, in that case, thanks him for his time and walk away. You are in a great position in that you don't have a trade-in for the dealer to 'hide' the cash discount and we are approaching the last quarter and dealers won't want the registration to be another year older if they can avoid it !

Best of luck,

r2d2
 
stefg said:
I saw a few cars in dealers that are more expensive, between €21k and €22k, that really interested me.
Click to expand...
For a straight cash sale, with no trade-in, I'd expect any sensible dealer to come down to well under €20K on those (i.e. somewhere around a 6%-10% discount). And/or alternatively, get them to fit new tyres all round and include an extended warranty on the engine and gearbox.

The advice given above is all good, too.
 
10% is probably a bit optmistic. If you got 7.5% off the asking price you'd be doing ok imho.

It depends on how well the car is priced day 1.
 
There are a lot of 2nd hand cars around at the moment & I know that private sellers are having more trouble shifting them so I assume that garages are too.
You have nothing to lose by going in & telling them that you have a max budget of 18k and you cannot afford to go any higher - they can take it or leave it! Even leave your number with them & tell them to give you a call if they change their mind.
 
I was looking for a BMW 320d estate back in January, had no trade-in.
The first thing I did was search the internet for the same car all over the country, found two cars for around 25-26K (2002 models) some cars mainly dealers where looking for a lot more.
One of those cars I liked and was with a main dealer for 25750 list price.
When I told him "cash" he went to 24750, I pushed him for 24K he said "no way, the lowest price is 24500". I kept on pushing him over the phone for more, he gave me full tank of diesel, and price of transport to his garage (which was 100miles away!) and 12month full BMW warranty, including NCT which was due in a few months, the warranty covered repair in any BMW garage in the country.
So got to the garage and haggled some more when I saw a chip the front windscreen, and a small respray "patch" in the middle of the drivers door.

I haggled hard, he actually told me (to his expense) that the previous owner had traded the car in 6 months earlier. i.e. car sitting in forecourt for 6 months = eager for a sale!
Pushed for 24K and a replacement windscreen, got him down to 24100 +windsceen and did the deal there and then and drove it home.

A total saving of 1650 Euro which I thought was good in Jan 2006
 
Hi,

Thanks for all the responses. I found them all useful.

I think I will take the advice to play a few garages off each other to see how low they will go and if that doesn't work then I'll just tell them how much I can afford and hopefully someone will take it.

On a side note, Winnie mentioned that there is some difficulty selling used cars at the moment... Why is this? Is it the time of year? Are SSIAs affecting the market? Is the market expected to pick up again?

I'm just curious because, if this is the case, I guess now is a good time to buy, however, if the market is still going to slow for the next while I might wait a bit to get exactly what I'm looking for at the price I want to pay.

Thanks,
Stef
 
It's because Main Dealers have their ex-hire cars coming onto the market (Usually your more affordable makes such as Nissan, SEAT...). All these cars are about 6 months old with 15 to 18,000km on the clock. They have been let out to the likes of AVIS and HERTZ for the summer to meet the tourist demand. Many Dealers would have in excess of 100 of these in stock (not all on display at once) Then there are the usual demos and used cars for sale also.

So of course it all depends on whether your are spending your E22,000 on a nearly new Primera or a 4 year old Beamer.
 
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