To ask you how cheeky you are

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When it comes to buying cars? I'm a people pleaser and as such feel stupid or scared to offend people!

If you were going to look at a car and you liked it, what would you offer if it was priced at say 6k, had done average miles for its year and came with standard spec? From a dealer.

I'm a pushover in this respect too - largely because I know very little about cars! My DH knows marginally more and picks up in every bump, scratch and stain. He'll go in with a price he feels is fair and will negotiate around that. Then he asks them to throw in a load of freebies, like new mats and stuff like that. He also makes sure he gets every last drop of value out of the warranty.

They must groan whenever he calls!

I would go on auto trader etc and see how much they were going for. Then offer for example £500 less and haggle- Leah's haggle- the worse that can happen is they say no............

Just haggle- ( not Leah's )

I can't haggle. I wish they'd just put the real price on and be done with it!

Oh God I'm totally not cheeky and I live in fear of being taken advantage of in situations such as these. I couldn't haggle if my life depended on it.

Oh, and get them to agree to any work you'll need done before you part with any cash! Even if it's a shiny-badged dealership they'll still loose interest in you as soon as you've paid for the car!

I'd offer £3800 and negotiate up.
About a quarter of the time you'll be dealing with 1. An idiot (normally private sellers) or 2. A salesman desperate for commission.
Whenever I'm in a position to be buying a house or car I always go with an embarrassingly low offer. Even if neither of those things apply still start low and negotiate up. Theyll (in my experience) become exasperated and just want to close the deal.
I bought my first flat at £14,000 when it was priced at £28,500....

my last car had an asking price of $22,000AUD I paid $13,750AUD...
I'm doing something right

Ika My aunt is like that and I really admire people who can be that upfront! I would say I know a little more than your average Joe about cars and their value/worth etc. simply as I look online a hell of a lot and cross reference everything! Unfortunately I'm not so good at getting that across in person when I'm actually there on my own (don't really have anyone to come with me).

I think a good idea would be to have a figure in my head and be prepared to walk if they don't meet it - I've found that walking away in the past has done the trick and they've phoned a few days later.

Definitely haggle OP. There are SO many cars - you don't NEED this one.

I haggle. Hard core. I usually pay about 2/3 of the price tag. You should not be desperate and prepared to walk out. If dealer A doesn't want to go down/negotiate, just go to dealer B, C, etc. One of them will give in. I am always gobsmacked about people who pay the full asking price for a car or are happy with £100 discount or doormats thrown in.

some good stuff in here:

www.moneysavingexpert.com/car-finance/buying-used-car

Definitely haggle. They expect you to. I had a dealer who said was 'I prepared to lose this car for £xxx' I said 'absolutely there's another I've got my eye on elsewhere' (admittedly I couldn't be bothered with that one but I didn't let on) I also added 'do you want to lose this sale for £xxx' I got the car at the price I wanted.

I'm glad it's not just me then!

Merry That's amazing and hilarious!

I've already let the dealer know I'm interested in two others. The convo went like this:

Dealer: Can I ask if you're looking at anything else?

Me: I am yeah, I'm going to see two tomorrow, both of which are cheaper

Dealer: Ok. What year are they?

Me: 2011

Dealer: AHHHHH! That's why they'll be cheaper then!

No way, never could have worked that out for myself

I’m the cheeky one in this house . We were buying a new car and knew the spec we were going for. It was a 4 week delivery time so we asked what spec they had with a lower lead time. They were all higher spec and more expensive. A week later we picked up a ‘fully loaded’ model at the same cost as the original cheaper model we went in for thanks to my bargaining skills.

Same when our phone contract was up for renewal, both were under my husband’s business account. The renewal costs were really high so my husband called them up and put me on speaker and he said he wanted to cancel. Back and forward on hold after repeatedly saying the offer was too high compared to elsewhere. We ended up getting 2 iPhone 7 Plus with good data packages for a fiver more a month. Sent off the 2 old iPhone 6’s to Music Magpie and got 400 quid for them.

So definitely haggle, they always have discounts on offer if you negotiate.

there is nothing cheeky about negotiating when buying a car. but not doing so is stupid!

I’m pretty good at bargain hunting and usually manage to negotiate a discount
However am just buying a newer car and struggled to get £500 off (asking price was 7.5k) I did do my homework though and it was priced low to start with
I did manage to negotiate a longer and better warranty out of them though

I honestly don't think it's that easy to get much discount off a car unless it's a brand new order. I'm pretty hard of face and have done it a few times over the last few years for used cars, and it just hasn't worked, more than £500-1000 getting knocked off. Even when I've said I'm prepared to walk away (and have).

One thing to be prepared for, which every dealer has done to me recently without fail, is to go in about one particular car you've seen online priced at say £5999. In you go, and during the conversation they profess shock at that price. Oh dear, there's been a typo online! It should actually be £6500 but as a 'goodwill gesture' they will honour the cheaper price. Happens in every fucking dealership. It's all about blocking any negotiation.

I've just looked at cars of the exact same spec and this one is on average 1.5k more expensive than others so I won't be buying it unless they knock about 2k off the price. Merry I think your expertise are needed here!

Warranties don't mean much to me, the last warranty I had was all but useless and didn't cover ANYTHING. I ended up having to negotiate with the dealer I bought it from to get him to pay for some of the work.

Agree with making the warranty a negotiation tool as well. My current car had 3 months warranty, but despite only being 3 years old when I bought it, has had to have a dick load of work doing to it within my first year of having it. Really fucking annoying. I'll never let myself have such a short warranty period again.

ItsNice That's a good thing to watch out for, thanks. I don't have a problem with walking away from anything, unless I desperately want it!

cappuccino

There is a car supermarket place called Car Giant which I have bought most of my cars from for that exact reason - no haggling, and the price they ask is the price they want

ItsNice What went wrong and was it covered under the warranty?

It seems for them to actually shell out it has to be some super niche thing that is going to cost £50 to fix. For thing like diesel particulate filters and pipe issues, surely that's never covered under warranty as it's classed as wear and tear?

I'd always haggle a bit. Last year DH bought a new car and he was too embarrassed to haggle but I did and I got E500 off plus they took out old banger off our hands.
It's always worth a try