Used car buying - premium for Approved Used dealership?

[DitheringCarBuyer]

I need to buy a new (used) car - this is something I'm not very experienced at and after a bit of help. I've found the car model I want and settled on the price range I am happy with etc.

I want to use a dealer rather than private seller - this is non-negotiable for me (reasons are how I'll be paying for the car, risk aversion to private, etc). I know you can almost certainly get a better price privately, this isn't what I want to do.

So my options are to go through the 'Approved Used' official car dealers, or through a general car dealership.

For me, the Approved Used have the advantage of certified service history, a full 12 month warranty and the dealership for me is very nearby if warranty/service issues required.

But they also seem to be about 10% more expensive than generic dealers.

I can't find a generic dealer less than 50 miles away so warranty issues would be a pain if incurred. Hopefully they are unlikely.

I'm just wondering how people think about Approved Used vs standard used car dealerships?

Also whether you can successfully negotiate on price in the 'official' places like you probably can at a general dealership?

Experiences and thoughts welcome :)
Thank you thank you!

Sorry just to clarify some poor wording, there are no general used car dealerships within 50 miles with the specific make/model car I've settled on.
There are many used car dealerships within 50 miles of me of course.

@DitheringCarBuyer We always haggle on price. Last year I got a 24 plate iX3 BMW ev. £68,000 list price. 8 months old, 8000 on the clock £45,500. Of course you negotiate. You can look nationally at all the cars available and check specs and prices. Ours was 100 plus miles away but so what? Nearest one was £49,000. I’d make a shortlist and travel for the best deals. For a decent brand, you get the warranty and peace of mind. We rarely buy used but you need to do your research from what’s actually available.

Approved used comes with a premium price and mostly, not that much higher quality. There are many companies who do the bare minimum and sell you a barely compliant car and this is manufacturer dealerships and used cars alike. Most get their car from BCA and do a few basic checks and whack an MOT on it.

ask on Facebook local groups fir recommendations of garages nearby
get reviews on the specific garage you’re looking at
check the mot history of any car you consider on gov.uk and gauge previous ownership - if lots of work each MOT then it only sees a garage once a year when legally required
search the specific vehicle and engine and “common faults”

I used to buy cars regularly and didn’t always do a great job but I followed the above. Also do a HPI check.

The big dealers often sell their demonstrators and cars serviced and known to them. It’s really not difficult to check prices. Plus you know the servicing has been done and it’s a decent car. People like BMW aren’t sourcing through auctions. Car Wow could be? Or Cinch? I don’t know but they aren’t the same as a decent local dealer or one in a group advertising through their nationwide search engine. We’ve not found any issues when buying nearly new cars this way, but we are discerning and buy decent cars. The big dealers send older cars to auction that are part exchanged and they can end up anywhere. I’d avoid these cars.

All dealers do it. Manheim are massive. They may do it less but still will.

most cars are through lease cos that will go to manheim bca at the end of their contract. So at best VWFS will have cars that were given to their staff for a quarter, thrashed and put on the forecourt. Maybe they’ll have gone to a customer for 3 years and come back but this is no different to the same age car at car wow instead of VW. They are all demons for a quick buck.

What exactly does known to them mean? it’s simply not like that anymore. At most, they did a service on it once every 10/20k but in today’s financial climate most will be simply go to kwik fit or another generic mechanic.

The one piece of advice I am going to give you is no matter where you buy your car from pay for the AA or similar to do an independent check on the car. Even if the garage says it does its own checks. It will cost you about £200, they are experts and can check paint thickness, the vehicle history plus check the car over mechanically. This report is gold if you have issues identified and you can then get them to sort it before you buy the car.

I bought from a dealer, had an issue on the test drive which should have been an easy fix. Turns out it wasn't an easy fix and clearly a problem with the car from day one when it was manufactured. Luckily I had the AA report to back up the fault not just my word on a test drive and I was able to get a full refund. It was a fight but they couldn't fix the fault.

I would also say choose a garage relatively close to you as as you have rightly said yourself if there is an issue you do not want to be trekking miles to deliver the car back. Fortunately for me they picked mine back up and left me with a courtesy car but it was still a complete pain in the arse to have bought from a garage further away.

Thank you so much for everyone's advice - it really is much appreciated.

Cars are a big purchase and I can be a bit of an over-thinker so I'm finding it very stressful!

I'm of similar mind about going local if I can, and also the idea of independent check over is a really good idea, I hadn't thought of that. I wouldn't really know if something was minor or major on a car if it had any kind of issue, I think £200 is worth it for the assurance.

I've just found a local dealer who has the car I want after incessant refreshing of auto trader etc, it's exactly what I want just without the parking camera (I was really hoping for that hahaha) so I'm going to see them tomorrow morning, and the approved used dealer in the afternoon.

I'll let you know how I get on!!

Best of luck! There are local mechanics who will check a car over for less than the AA etc (and in my opinion do a better job) so ask for reviews and if they will come.

@ProfessionalWhimsicalSkidaddler Sold and serviced by them! Not every car sold is ex lease or company car. Plus a lease car is not an ex demonstrator. The demonstrators or factory used cars have much lower mileage.

A local garage might have virtually no diagnostic equipment for a sophisticated car. These days computers do all this so I’d use a dealer for the make of car. Then you get a proper service before you buy it and you won’t be waiting for parts.

I’ve got 360 degree cameras. Can be a bit mind boggling. Reversing cameras are good though.

Was that finance or cash?

Our recent experience has been that main dealers have been no better than regular dealers. DH has had 2 faulty cars from main dealers. The first resulted in a car that had to be written off after about a week of ownership and it took months to get a refund - mediated through the head office. The second had to be returned, which was a pita. He had to get the fault diagnosed by a main dealer and they have low availability for servicing. He's now got another through a regular dealer and it also has faults. The warranty only pays out up to £1k per fault, but the faults are less than this. They have been fine with him getting it fixed locally and them paying. They won't pay for branded parts, that he has been advised will last better, so he will pay the difference. But they have been much easier to deal with than the main dealers, probably because their reputation means more to them.

@PlaceIntheClouds Cash. Always cash. Even so, you would get a big discount and take finance for nearly new. It’s a case of looking at prices in detail.

I have struggled to get much discount for cash.

Unsurprisingly there always seem to be big discounts available by taking the dealer finance. I am thinking of taking the finance agreement next time then cancelling it a few days later and paying off the balance. I have read that this is the best way to get a lower price.

No, not all but last I saw it was 50% of registrations were business cars which nowadays are typically leased. Some of the demonstrators are just that but others are 3-6 month short contracts for staff, business users. Most people who work for a manufacturer or dealer get new cars every quarter for themselves and/or their families which won’t have much mileage but also won’t have been looked after.

i find local garages typically sell cars that have had a 60 (insert random number here) point inspection covered by the AA or RAC. This doesn’t differ too much from approved used 60 point inspections (4 points cover the tyres). there’s a level when it comes to local garages - one near me is called billing car centre or similar and everyone raves about it because they look after they buyers. Another spent the test drive telling me how he’d escaped a big city to avoid jail and then Realised he had forgotten the trade plates and was perturbed when I asked him to switch instantly to avoid any police penalty - the car also had 0 miles fuel and a flat tyre. They’re the type to avoid.

I think in the past they absolutely would have been better and more cared for but nowadays, they’re all out to make the most money for doing the least.

reversing cameras are amazing. 360 is fancy!

@ProfessionalWhimsicalSkidaddler Yes we’ve had staff bmws with around 2000 on the clock. What’s not to like the right price? This bmw had more on the clock but had been with the sales manager at the dealership and we liked the huge discount. Great car so far!

@OhDear111 8k is nothing is it, for that saving! Very sensible.

Main dealers most certainly do buy at auction and it's no guarantee of a good car. I work at a small independent dealer. As with anything, there are good and there are bad companies. For example we took a part exchange in last week from a gentleman who had unwittingly bought it from what he thought was a reputable dealer. Turned out a quick look at their reviews showed us they regularly bought cars that had been sold through salvage auction and hadn't been categorised as a written off car, as was his. It made it worth £2000 less for us and we had to trade it on rather than retail it ourselves, making sure we told the trader who bought it from us. Some of the worst tales I have heard from Customers have been about main dealers. And rather than focus on the length of the warranty I would be more interested in the quality of it and what it covers. Regardless of the length of the warranty you have your usual consumer rights for the first 6 months anyway, and even more rights if you buy on finance. So my advice would be find the car you want for your budget that doesn't look overpriced, then check out the dealer online and read all their reviews, look at how long they have been in business etc, check out the warranty available and if you can extend it. Read the terms and conditions of the warranty. Then I would pay them a visit in person and see how you feel about the people and the place and the standard of the cars. Trust your gut. Ask to see the service history, ask what provenance checks they carry out on every car they buy. You mentioned it being local for the warranty but that isn't relevant as most warranties aren't 'back to base' you can go to any VAT registered garage that's happy to deal with warranty work. Test drive the car, also check out the MOT history yourself online. Finally regardless of what checks they tell you they do you need to be doing your own checks for a one off fee, we use Motorcheck and I find it excellent. There are a surprisingly large number of cars being sold with accident damage or which have been stolen and then recovered that should be showing as insurance write offs but they aren't. However they will show up on more extensive checks as they have access to salvage auction data. These checks have saved my business from buying about 5 or 6 cars like this in the last 2 years. And lastly i would say the motor trade has a terrible reputation and in my opinion sadly it is justified a lot of the time. There are a lot of very very unscrupulous motor traders about. There are some good ones too though like us 😊 HTH.

Fantastic advice @toomanydicksonthedancefloor1 thank you

And you can definitely negotiate at a main dealer. In fact even though I work at an independent dealer and have the tools to buy at trade money my last car was a bought from an Audi dealer. It was over age stock (I knew this froM the dealer portal of Autotrader, most people wouldn't have known that) and they were selling it at not much over trade price so it was cheap already, presumably as overage). We still negotiated £1000 off the price. Due to this and the timing it meant I owned the car for 16 months, did 5000 miles in it and then I contacted them and unbelievably they bought it back off me for the price I paid. The only thing it cost me was a minor oil service, fuel and new tyres in 16 months. So yes definitely is worth asking. Sometimes they say no sometimes they say yes.

For example if we had a RR Sport for sale and you asked for money off it would be a hard NO. Due to the very likelihood of issues after sale it isn't worth us selling them at a discount, Land Rovers are not reliable and expensive to repair. We are almost at the point of stopping selling them in fact. If it was overage boring stock we could replace easily it might be yes. If it was a top spec 5 year old Mercedes CLA with full dealer history that would be hard to re-buy and we had loads of enquiries the answer would be no. So it is always worth asking. I would also advise buying a week before month end as they will want to get more deals in to that month without a doubt and may be more flexible on price. Or pretend you want to pick up next months and you will probably hear 'if I can do X,Y or Z would you take it this month'.

last point, I promise, I agree don't buy private as you have no rights whatsoever.