I know that cash buyers are no longer the preferred customers but how much of a garages profit comes purely from the car sale?

Just looked at a BMW 5 series at a national chain garage. After a lengthy test drive and chit chat we started talking about price.

I offered £11000 , it's marked at £12000. After half an hour of back and forth including the sales manager coming over for a chat I couldn't get more than a token discount (less than £100). We therefore left.

Knowing that this car has been in trade since (at least) December last year, has been with this garage since (at least) early February and on our arrival it was in the rear car park, not priced and un-valeted I felt like a reasonable discount was very achievable.

The only reason I can think of the lack of interest in giving me a discount (not to suggest the staff weren't professional, polite and not at all pushy) is that I had no interest in finance and no part ex and my conservative guesses suggest that profit from these would dwarf the profit from the car.

Is this common in garages? Are cars now just a tool to sell finance packages? Or did I just have a bad day?

Apologies for the long post :)