In the current climate there a lot of car dealerships putting on what seem to be amazing deals. With people trying all ways possible to save money some dealerships are advertising more aggressively than ever before.

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This is no dig at Audi just love the cars…

After working in car sales for just under two years there are a few things I have learned about how to get the best deal…

Some of you may already know how these deals work. For the lesser experienced in buying cars I hope this sheds some light and helps you with your next purchase.

A couple of deals you may see on offer to day:

1. Minimum of £1000 part exchange for you car – A lot of people fail to see through this way of marketing because if your car is worth £200, £1000 sounds to good to be true. The way companies do this is by inflating the price of a car by an amount to cover any amount of money they will lose. This deal works very well on impulse buyers.                                                                                                                       What if i haven’t got a part exchange? Simple, the car you are looking at must have at least £1500-£2000 profit in it. If its the car you really want and you can’t find it elsewhere haggle like there’s no tommorow. Many people feel uncomfortable with the concept of haggling but this saves people £1,000s per year. (I will be writing a small article on haggling very soon). In most cases when the company cannot do any better on the deal a sales manager will come out and that’s it. If you still don’t like the deal… WALK AWAY! It’s the second biggest purchase of most peoples lives, there’s no point rushing into it.
2. 0% Finance – Another good marketing gimmick. The company offers 0% finance to you. This works on the same concept as the part exchange. They inflate the price and with the extra profit they have will pay the interest for you. You will find that if you checked the same car for less elsewhere, there may be interest to be paid but the monthly payments would be less. There is a finance calculator here to help figure out the amount of interest you would pay. 

I don’t want finance! – You may be getting finance from the bank or elsewhere. In this case the same applies. Haggle like there’s no tommorow. One thing I will say is do check car dealerships finance rates. One way the majority of dealerships will beat bank loans is on the credit protection. A bank will charge an average of about 20% of your loan repayments for protection. Whereas the dealership I worked at would charge 6.8%. It makes a massive difference to your payments.

When a sales manager comes out they may try and make you feel embarrassed, or be quite rude for your haggling ways. Don’t let this phase you as it is all part of the process to them. Remember these people deal with car sales every day and the managers are managers for one particular reason above all others… They can sell cars.

Hope you find this short blog of use. Any comments welcome as this is one of my first blogs…

Just to put a smile on your face I’v included this short video. It’s basically what people expect from a car sales person.

Remember the sales manager will have the last say on a deal, this is not down to the sales person. The more experienced sales people will actually work for you and hello you get the deal as this results in them getting paid. After all the manager doesn’t pay their wages… you do.