Do car dealerships expect to sell used cars for the asking price?

[anyquestions]

I'm asking re the authorised dealers for a particular make. Will they generally hold out for the asking price, or will that be a deliberately inflated price because they expect to have to knock something off? If the latter, how much would you reasonably expect to negotiate off the asking price?

You can negotiate the price, or to add extras that are of value for you but would only cost them manufacture.

Start lower than you think they will go for. If you are able to pay cash (well, not get a loan) you can negotiate based on that too.
Don't seem too interested, and act like you have a good back up plan elsewhere.

I'm not good at this, tbh, but a friend once negotiated a laptop for me at PC World, where I didn't think they would.

If you are able to pay cash (well, not get a loan) you can negotiate based on that too.

Cash payments are not a benefit to a dealer any more - they'd rather get an extra commission from selling a finance product.

Agree, they would rather sell you finance than take cash. We walked out of a showroom very very close to signing, as the bloke agreed to the price, and then insisted we needed all sorts of insurance plants, and payment protection style things that we didn't want. He said the price had to go up if we weren't going to take the extras (despite us never asking for them). He rang back 2 days later with a fab deal, but we'd already bought else where!

We found there was little movement on price where garages said they wouldn't be beaton (even on second hand cars), but a little more movement when the place was smaller (ie not a regional or national dealership)

I always negotiate a discount, along with mats, mud flaps, full tank of fuel and what ever else I think I can get!

And I never buy on finance, ever!

Thanks all. HelenF, have you managed to negotiate a price reduction with main dealers (on used cars) or were you buying from a smaller dealer?

Also, if I'm going for getting something extra thrown in for the price, what does anyone think is likely to be an "easy win"?

I find car dealerships pretty hard to negotiate with (but I'm a pushover). They make out that they're not making any £ on the car at all . Then they try to sell you a huge number of extras (stain guards, cleaning products, weird insurance products that you've never heard of). Then they hound you for weeks afterwards, asking how your experience was . God, I hate buying cars.

You probably find more room for negotiation on new cars, including extras and so on. Last few used we have bought have been much tighter.

I'm like you Outwith. Car buying is a once a decade experience for me! But I'm trying to rise to the challenge!

I have negotiated mainly with big dealers such as Arnold Clark but also with smaller ones. Smaller ones are easier but big dealers will do you a deal. They tend to do this by increasing your trade in value and using it to offset the cost of mats, fuel, mud flaps etc and to give you extra 'off' the car you are buying. Mats are usually an easy win, so is full tank of fuel. When we bought DPs car from Arnold Clark I got £350 off the price, free mats and full tank of fuel. I had a voucher for an extra £300 off so wasn't a bad deal all in all. My mum once walked away from a deal because they refused to give her mud flaps, I learnt all I know from her!

And never buy and of the extra crap they try to sell you if you don't want it. I make it very clear I only want the car.

The last car salesman that I dealt with indicated pretty clearly that he thought I was a idiot for not buying their alloy wheel insurance .

I hope you told him to sod off?! They get extra commission on all that crap which is the only reason he was miffed. If he'd done that to me i'd probably have told him to shove his sale. Hate being patronised.

I always haggle on the price. I will get up and walk away if I don't get a deal I am happy with and they always call me back and suddenly the manager has agreed to what I wanted!

Thanks for the advice! I don't now have one to trade in, so the route of getting a better trade in value won't work for me.

DH has negotiated discounts on used cars from main dealers. It's one of his hobbies

A friend also accidentally negotiated a discount simply by mentioning he was undecided between one car in dealership A and a different car in dealership B. The salesman in A automatically discounted by hundreds of pounds. Friend was

They should give you a 'discount' for no trade in. I am pretty sure you could negotiate this in a similar manner. Don't take any crap and make it clear you want a better deal. Go hard or go home I used to get embarrassed watching my mum haggle but it's a great skill to have.

DH and I do an act. We know which car we want and what we want to pay. We know exactly what extras we want and don't want. We then play off each other and I walk away a lot. It's a company car so we have to lease. Here in the US we got a Mazda CX9 MSRP reduced from $42k to $37k and got the lease payments down so it was 100% paid off in 3.5 years. We then neigotiated a fully loaded Q5 from $53k to $41k and the car will be paid off in 3 years thanks to the increase in allowance DH was given. They also gave us $28k cash for the Mazda.

Consider leasing with an agreement that doesn't have a prepayment penalty. With my old car I leased it for one year to build a credit score and then paid off the remaining balance. I got my golf reduced from $19k to $15k with my hunk of junk traded in for $3500. I did the deal in the days before the new car year came in so I was buying a new car for the price of one a year old

We just bought a new car and managed to get £750 off the sticker price and an extra 6 month warranty once manufacturers warranty runs out. Always worth asking what extra they can through in!

I think that being prepared to walk away, and actually doing it are key. And having no shame (because, actually, you will just pay over the odds otherwise).

I plan to try to take my advice the next time I buy a car. Although at this stage, I'd consider a free tank of petrol an unmitigated success.