I collected my new Picasso 1.6HDi 92 Desire this afternoon straight from a main dealer.
Bought through www.drivethedeal.com at a discount of over £5.5k on the list price, (but standard discount is actually £3.4k, so I only really saved £2.1k!) and a free £250 Garmin c320 thrown in ( but on back order) and half a tank of diesel.
I started the process on monday afternoon, so less than 4 days from placing order to delivery. And that includes the car coming from Citroen allocated stock in my color of choice.
I would have no hesitation in recomending the broker - ask for Laurence and mention the hj site.
I just hope the car is as good as the delivery process. Time will tell and I will keep people updated on its progress. Initial reaction is of a competent and comfortable performer, possibly lacking character, but lets see what happens as it loosens up a bit.
If anybody wants the BX (see classifieds) I am open to offers.
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pmh (was peter)
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We had a picasso and just parted with it, but bought at a huge discount which left us after 2.5 years and 41K with a surprisingly low level of depreciation. Not an exciting car, and there are better performers, but for the money cant be beaten. We had the 2.0HDi and it took at least 5K to loosen up a bit - was initialy very tight.
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I had a picasso for 3 years and it did everything it should have done and did it very well but it had no soul. 1.8 petrol, did over 120 mph (once), did 37mph consistently and had loadsa room for a old settee. Just no soul.
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pmh,
Interesting post, especially since I have just been into a Cit main dealer about the possibility of updating my present 3 yr old Berlingo to a 1.6HDi Desire with a/c pack, pearlescent paint etc. They quote £11,745 (with 3 yrs interest free credit). Drive the deal quote £9975.47.
Pardon my ignorance, but how does this work? How can I order at lower price through Drive the deal and pick up from main dealer and get it £1800 cheaper? Why can't I go to main dealer and order from them at that price? What is in it for the dealer? Would they welcome my custom via DtD? Any draw backs to buying from DtD?
Sorry if the answers are obvious- but despite my advanced years I have yet to buy a brand new car!! Thanks for any help!!
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Phil
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Are both deals the same (ie exact same engine, trim etc)? Do both include the 0% credit?
Take the DtD offer to the Citroen dealer and see how near they can get.
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pmh,
Interesting post, especially since I have just been into a Cit main dealer about the possibility of updating my present 3 yr old Berlingo to a 1.6HDi Desire with a/c pack, pearlescent paint etc. They quote £11,745 (with 3 yrs interest free credit). Drive the deal quote £9975.47.
Pardon my ignorance, but how does this work? How can I order at lower price through Drive the deal and pick up from main dealer and get it £1800 cheaper? Why can't I go to main dealer and order from them at that price? What is in it for the dealer? Would they welcome my custom via DtD? Any drawbacks to buying from DtD?
Sorry if the answers are obvious- but despite my advanced years I have yet to buy a brand new car!! Thanks for any help!
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Phil
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Dont worry about how it works, it just does! Some dealers are prepared to work on volume business, and benefit from 'dealer incentives' offered by Citroen. All money goes straight to the main dealer, altho you pass the CC details for a £500 deposit via the broker. If you have any doubts you can do what I did, visit them in person to hand over CC details. (They were local to me and dont encourage this, but a sale is a sale.....).
The current offers are for registration before 31/3, but Citroen seem to have ongoing promotions every quarter.
They include delivery to your address, but to get a quick deal I was prepared to collect from 50 miles away.
You will have to sell the Berlingo privately tho.
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pmh (was peter)
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Thanks pmh - will ponder the pros and cons (I hate buying and selling cars!)
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Phil
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Lots of interesting points here. My impression has been that brokers are great (the reputable ones anyway, like Drivethedeal) but not if you want to PX your old car. Drivethedeal specifically don't want to know - they recommend you sell privately.
I'm sure I'm not the only one to dislike the hassle of selling privately - not to mention the risk of going through a period with two cars or none. But if you don't mind it, even regard it as a challenge, or have no car to sell, then going via a broker has a lot in its favour, provided the cars are UK-sourced.
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Broadspeed will take your old car as p/ex.
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Broadspeed prices look interesting! Altho theDesire price is higher than I paid, (when you include metallic), the discounted Exclusive and and Desire pricing appear to be the wrong way round. It maybe that Citroen have a special deal on Exlusives for the forthcoming sales quarter which has not yet made the press. If that is correct, they represent very good value!
Would be interesting to know how generous the PEx prices are.
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pmh (was peter)
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As a former main dealer who sold cars through brokers i think i'm well qualified to answer a few of the questions here.
Theoretically every dealer can sell you the car at the broker price but they choose not to. All the broker's dealer is doing is using up the full margin in each vehicle - for example toyota's recomended maximum discount on something like a corolla is 5% and you will have to haggle very hard to even get that from most dealers, however the actual margin is more like 11.5%.
We gave a 10% discount on the vehicle, 1% went to the broker as his commission and the remaining 0.5% was our profit. The pure volume of deals via the broker would guarantee that we would hit our dealerships sales target and ensure we got the back end VRB's. Also it means the retail guys can pick nad choosethe deals that they do knowing targets are already secured.
PX is pretty much down to the individual dealer, a lot view it as a major hassle so choose not to. We did and there were several problems - the first is that you are bidding blind on the vehicle so generally you have to err on the side of caution. A customers definition of mint is very rarely the same as my definition! Secondly because there is zero margin for overpricing the PX we have to give what appears to be a very low price but it's actually what the car will fetch at auction.
Because you are still dealing with a retail dealership albeit through a broker you are still eligible for any offers on things like finance, which can often make the purchase even cheaper.
If any of you have any more queries please whack them up here and i'll do my best to answer as many of them as i can.
Kev
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P/ex price was reasonable - obviously less than dealer trade in, but the cost to change was lower. We did have one of these "try us last, we'll have the best price" ones and he didn't offer as much.
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