Friend of my wife is very excited at the thought of picking up her new BMW 116se in a few days. I asked what deal she got and she was very pleased to have 12 months tax and a tank of petrol!!
Turns out she happily accepted £2500 for her 51 reg Pug 307 lx, paid full list price for the BMW and readily accepted the high APR rate on the finance deal.
I just smiled and said well done. I didn't have the heart to tell her she had been!
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Me I'd have done the same ! Seriously, for 2.5k I would have flogged the Pug private, got one of them offset Mortgages to get a cheap loan from equity in my house and gone punting around the brokers.
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It's people like that who make these dealers so arrogant. I once test drove a Compact at the local BMW dealer. They offered me £2500 below Glass' Guide on my part ex. When I told them I wanted at least Glass' value for my part ex plus a discount on the Compact (these were available according to What Car's Target Price at the time) they came back with an "improved" offer of only £1250 under Glass' value. I promptly told him to go forth and multiply and walked out. His face suggested customers didn't often do that.
It's unbelievable how some people are so swayed by the badge that they'll pay anything.
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I don't know how appropriate my observations are...
Isn't it rather fashionable in the UK to very loudly state that one does not understand basic arithmetic? If one even displays a very basic grasp of the subject, one is labelled a nerd. So why should we be surprised at this kind of behaviour/ignorance?
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Just bumped into a close acquaintance who is a well paid employed professional person.
He currently drives an 02 BMW 318i and has just replaced his wife's A class with a Freelander. He is getting a new 523i next week. He has gone to the same dealer who has supplier his last two BMWs and has not sought prices from alternative sources. The dealership messed him around about a test drive, promising him a 24hr drive but only giving him 1hr.
He got only £9,000 p/x for his old car (only done 26,000 in four years and is unmarked) and got £2k of list for the new one.
Who buys this sort of car with their own money (it's not used for business at all) and then hardly bothers to find the best price. Crazy!
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Espada III - well if you have a family and need a Lamborghini, what else do you drive?
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Espada - that 318i to 523i deal sounds about right to me. Perhaps he could have had a couple of hundred more for the p/x and/or £500 less for the new car from a broker, but it's really not far off the money and not bad at all considering he's only gone to one dealer. Personally I think he deserves more of a slap for buying a Freelander at any price...
The 307 to 116i SE deal is horrible though - there should have been £1k more for the swapper if it was any good, and another £1k off list.
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Don't discourage these people from paying top dollar. If everybody ended up getting discounts the price to 'those in the know' would have to go up. Dealers have to make a certain amount of money to continue to exist. If you take away the profit margin from a full price retail customer the brokered prices would undoubtably go up!
Whether main dealers should continue to exist in the current format is another story. The concept of factory run display areas, with local garages offering service facilities only, without glass palace display areas may have some mileage in it. Makro sells cars(or used to, it appears they now have a link with DC Cook) from its discount warehouses, when will the mainstream supermarket chains catch on?
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pmh (was peter)
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It's unbelievable how some people are so swayed by the badge that they'll pay anything.
Here Here akr. What people will do to get that badge. I wonder if 45+ years ago people were so desperate to drive BMW products then,namly bubble cars
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With the badge comes the association to a certain class in many peoples minds. Strange old world what people do to up their status, and for what exactly?
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I don't think she will be that happy with a 116 anyway - a bit of a slug by all accounts. Shiny, expensive, posh badge but still a slug!
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And the ugliest thing on the road to boot!!!
And nobody will ever let her out of a side road ever again!!!
So why do it?
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Surely being a friend it your duty to tell her that she has been well and truly had . . . . . . . Oh stuff it. If she's that naive then she deserves what she gets. Hope she enjoys her shiny new prestige-badged dog t*rd . . . .
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no, never try to save people money after they have done the deal, it will annoy them loads!
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I don't want to spoil her enjoyment at getting a new car. And the wife would kill me anyway!
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You should just stop and think about the deal that she has done.It is really a very good deal,both sides are very happy,what could be better?
If supermarkets like Tesco/Asda thought they could make money retailing cars they would,but as far as they are concerned there is not enough margin in it for all the associated problems.The only way i could see Tesco/Asda getting involved is if they had a special edition KA,Fiesta,206 or Picanto for instance,in stock and ready to go without any p/x or dealer facilities and a limit of perhaps 3 colours and without any cost options.
As the cars are special editions for the supermarkets they could offer them at very keen prices to sell plenty of them.
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"As the cars are special editions for the supermarkets they could offer them at very keen prices to sell plenty of them."
I've just had this vision of a Tesco's 'value' KA - sort of red, white and blue stripey thing.........!
Graeme
:-)
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Quite right.
Perhaps BRs are not a representative sample of the population; many of us are just no use at being deliberately aggressive, or at selling things, but we still want to buy cars.
All right, confession time! I (well, SWMBO mainly) paid full price for Sonia the Sonata, bar getting another five hundred on the first trade in offer; usual pantomime about going to see the manager, but I expect that was allowed for to dial in as a sweetener! They did admittedly have to trawl the dealer network for a V6, when the showroom was well stocked with fours. Anyway there was no aggro, which would have spoiled the day.
So there are those of us who are no good at going to war, and I hope those who see things otherwise will at least refrain from calling us stupid!
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So what really, I'm married to a number cruncher and she always gets me the best deal possible. Look at it like this the 1 series is a fine little motor. Keep for a few years and it'll be worth more than the equivelent Mondeo TDdddccdi. Rear wheel drive as well.
I part exed my own car in respect of the 535d. I lost a fair amount but SWMBO wisely worked out the tax deal. They pared off nearly 600 quid for us, tanked it up, loose mats. It was a good deal.
Enjoy the car, the only regret, possibly is not going for the diesel but you will either love it or hate it, there isn't a middle ground with BMW.
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smug, envious, superior, know-it=all, opinionated, never-wrong, ....
these are words that describe me. but i am sure none of the above contributors are like me.
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>.smug, envious, superior, know-it=all, opinionated, never-wrong, ....
these are words that describe me. but i am sure none of the above contributors are like me.<<
I agree but it's hard to see where you're going with this.
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Dalglish
5 out of 6 ain't bad, I'm not envious of anyone ! (only Ewan McGregor but that's another story )
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It ain't mine...and the lady who bought it wil never read this. It's not something I'd buy,but poor deal or not (not!), she's happy and that's what counts.
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I guess this underlines why some dealers seem disinterested when you go in and kick tyres and ask about discounts - they know the next person will sit down and be grateful for a free tank of gas and will gush if they're given mats at 'cost'. The salesman can then get all that back (and more) by selling them a Supagard (or similar) at full price.
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Lets be fair a 116 is not a bad car per se. It's not the best one series but so what.
If you have the cash and dont need anything bigger, its fine.
Sure you can do exactly the same thing in £500 N reg Escort but thats not the point, anyway some people want a bit of flash.
At the end of the day the residuls will just about save her.....
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