I recently bought a Hyundai i30 via a car broker New-Car-Discount.com in Warrington, saving over £3800, and with a reasonable /businesslike trade in allowance too. This far beat any dealer prices I could get to. The broker I dealt with was also much more knowledgable about the car spec (changing as "2011" model) than dealers I spoke to. I paid £500 deposit by credit card, the balance by debit card on collection of the car (I chose to go & get it). Car was factory ordered, arrived promptly (via a dealer), was perfect with 20 miles on it, and I got it on its day of 1st registration. The only fly in the ointment is that I am the 2nd owner of the car (I knew all about that), but when I recently received the V5 it shows that the broker /fleet company owned "my" car for 6 weeks as they put the wrong date on the V5 when despatching - so I have written off to DVLA to get that put right.

I am a "nervous" trader online and a proud car owner, and so buying unseen like this was very adventurous for me. The whole experience was relatively painless, and yes, I would do it all again with same company.

I would only give you 3 points of advice that MUST be followed:

1. Only deal with a company that is actually a genuine business with infrastructure> their are many websites out there where they are just one man bands working from a spare room at home. They have no premises you can visit or genuine business infrastructure to deal with you proffesionally in the case of anything that goes wrong.

2. Make sure the company does not hold onto the V5c (log book) for a long period of time. Many internet sites pre register the cars to a fleet company and as part of this do not release the V5c to you for anything from 6-12 months. THIS IS ILLEGAL and both the supplier and the purchaser could be fined by DVLA for an amount of up to £5000 each. In addition, you may not be insured correctly as some insurance policies state you must be the registered keeper of the vehicle.

3. The big one...NEVER EVER EVER pay for your car until you have recieved it. NEVER. If a company are asking you to do this then this really means that they dont have the money to pay for the car themselves and are using YOUR money to pay for it. These companies are often reffered to as pyramid companies as they take other peoples money to pay for other peoples cars. If this company collapsed you would lose all your money. NEVER EVER EVER do this. EVER.

PS. forgot to say that we handed over the draft to the delivery guy upon receiving the new car.

Thanks for the replies. I've tried to get the dealers to drop their prices to no avail....

No way I am stumping up cash before getting the car, on transaction that makes sense either switch or bankers draft.

Apprciate the replies :)