Hi all,
First time poster, long time reader!! I just wanted to share a recent experience I have had with getting a trade-in price for my Seat Leon, and ask some questions. Its 6 years old, and in decent shape - needs a bit of work, but nothing major. Went to a local VW dealer (I was looking at a 2.0 GT TD) who offered me £3500 for my car. Laughingly all they'd offered me was 6 months road tax and a mat set - mines still got 8 months road tax on it so I'd lose out there as well. I had checked Glass's, Parkers, and What Car, all of which had it around the £4500 - $4800 mark.
When I mentioned this to the salesperson, they stated that Glass's valuations were a joke, and they were quoting retail value rather than trade-in values
Out of interest, I went to a SEAT dealership who said they would offer around £5000 for it, give or take the negotiating on the cost to change and stuff - I told him what VW had offered, and he nearly fell off his chair!!
Anyways, I wanted to ask the question about how accurate are tools like Glass's, Parkers, etc. and why are VW so way out? Also how do you deal with a salesperson that just won't budge on the cost to change?
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When trading in your car at a dealership for a new one, the trade in you are offered has nothing to do with the value of your car but on how much they want to sell you a new car.
This salesman does not want to sell you a car except on his terms. From the sound of it he has full order book and does not need to scrape around for sales.
Another garage, another month, you will get a totally different deal.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Anyways, I wanted to ask the question about how accurate are tools like Glass's, Parkers, etc. and why are VW so way out? Also how do you deal with a salesperson that just won't budge on the cost to change?
All the guides are precisely that - a guide. In my experience Parkers values tend to be on the optimisitic side for P/X and private sale values. The trade will use either Glasses or CAP - don't be afraid to ask for a look at the book price for your car and make sure they're using the value for the correct model, year and mileage. Any car is only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it, regardless of the value published in any guide.
As for your second question - walk out and go somewhere else. I find it astonishing the number of people who will spend tens of thousands of pounds on a car from the nearest dealer without shopping around other dealers and online brokers.
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I had a similar experience to yourself Grommit. I was offered a very low p/ex (Mercedes) because of its colour and no discount against the new car (Audi) that I wanted to buy.
The simple solution was that I took my business elsewhere, even though it meant going out of the County to do so. The upshot was I was given £2000 more for my p/x and a 5% discount on the Audi.
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The thing to do is, check in the View More News link, to our right, here & look into the This Weeks Best Deals.
You'll then have up to the minute REAL WORLD selling prices, so all you'll have to do next, is get the dealers, TO DAEL!!
You'll soon arrive at the TRUE value, for your old car.
VB
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Van,
from personal experience and as TVM pointed out, some of them don't want to deal. Maybe they've sold that month's quota but whatever it is, they're not interested. Simple answer, walk. I won't buy if I'm not happy with the price and the service.
JH
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Thanks for the answers so far. To add a little detail I was looking at a second hand golf - surely they'd want to get through as many of these as possible? Anyway, its a moot point as the salesperson called me yesterday and I explained about the offer from SEAT. She stated that they flog all of their trade-ins via auction, and make a loss, so she was doing me a favour. She said she'd call again in the week, but I don't think I'll be doing business with them unless they're willing to look at a fairer price for my car.
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Dont get too hung up on the p/x value - cost to change is the most important figure.
I bought my last car from a car supermarket where I was offered £750 less for my p/x than at a nearby main dealer. However, the supermarket new car was £2000 cheaper and a facelifted model so was a far better deal overall.
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Although the Seat and VW are closely related, your always going to get less if your swapping franchises. Most dealers sell very few non-franchise cars.
In your case, it could be the VW and Seat dealers have different policies - the VW may send all 5 yr+ cars to auction, whereas the Seat dealer might be quite happy to try to retail a 6 yr old car, especially one that's a Seat.
I wonder what the auction price of your car is - a 6 year old Lean, that 'needs a bit of work' doesn't sound like it's going to worth a lot? The VW dealers offer sounds pretty good for an auction price, and they don't make much on the cars to enable them to close the gap.
A different VW dealer may well have different policies and be prepared to retail your car so you may get a better offer.
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