Do your research online using valuation sites and adverts for similar cars.

Value the car on WBAC, exact model, age, mileage but no defects - add £1000 which is what the dealer would have paid for that car in Grade 1 condition at auction, including fees. If it wasn't Grade 1 when traded-in, WBAC would have offered less on examination and the dealer would have got it for less at auction, but had to spend the difference putting it in Grade 1 condition.

Don't be afraid to make an offer and then sit in silence - salesmen hate silences.

Don't be afraid to walk out of the showroom or end a phone call.

Negotiation is a skill and salesmen are trained in it - you'll never even that gap (unless you're a trained negotiator yourself) but you can narrow it.

Don't ever feel sorry for a salesman.

In my opinion - and we bought a brand-new Z4 last year :

Arm yourself with as much information as possible. Get real prices and realistic discount ideas. Owners forums are great for this, and they can also give you a good idea as to which brokers can do you really good deals (and are reliable).

For example, in our case, BMW forums recommended coast2coast as a good broker, so I went there and specced my car, and spoke to them as well. they could do us approx. £7k off a £34k car.

Then I went into my local BMW dealer. Now, in my case, I'd bought off them previously, so they knew I wasn't just wasting their time. I asked what they could do, they replies (£2k off list), and I told them what C2C could do. He went off to have the obligatory chat with his manager, came back 10 mins later and said that they could get within £150 of C2C price.

Considering buying off C2C would have meant driving to London for the car, or paying for delivery to my home (N Wales), I went with my local dealer.

I'd endorse pretty much of all of the above, particularly the timing (of purchase) aspect, which can be critical/influential and how urgently you yourself need to change. If time isn't an issue then you have much more opportunity to walk away to consider your options, the deal offered to you at a distance away from the 'persuasive' salesman!

Most important however is to do your homework prior to even walking into a dealership. Yes, it takes time & stamina but if you are already 'armed' with broker (DTD), CarWow and WhatCar? target prices then it puts you in the position where you know precisely the range of discounted prices being offered. Use the best (lowest) of these prices as your starting-point until somebody bites!

If it's a mass-market/fairy common vehicle you're after, with a good number of suppliers around the UK competing for your business, then yes, your position is much stronger than for chasing a one-off/bespoke/special edition variant.

Determine EXACTLY the specification (colour, extras) of the vehicle that you want before commencing any negotiations and stick religiously to it. Send a few 'cold-call' emails with those requirements to dealers to see if they'll play. Get used to some of them not responding and move on to the next one!

In essence, there's an awful lot of available info out there for you to gather/digest. You just have to be prepared to seek it out, and stand firm, in order to maximise any/your discount, the price YOU wan't to pay.

Bon chance...

Its simple

Visit brokers websites, Carfile, Drive The Deal and Broadspeed are the only 3 I would consider trading with. To my knowledge only Carfile do PX's. I have had good prices from CarWow but never persued them, dealers tend to be too far away.

Armed with the info vist your local dealer.

When they suggest that you pay a stupid price tell them you are not prepared to pay that since you can get the exact same car from a franchised dealer via a reputable broker.

The dealer will either:

Say they cannot possibly match the price at which point you leave

or

They negotiate down towards your best broker price. At some point you will probably either have to walk out or accept paying slightly more locally.

Out of 4 recent purchases only one came via a Broker, all the local dealers claimed no discounts and only trade PX price. Broker deal saved me £3000. Of the others one dealer instantly matched the brokers price without being told what it was, in one case the local dealer bettered the broker by offering a higher grade and 3 years servicing for about £200 more than broker price for a lower spec car and in the 3rd case I was ready to order from the Broker but their appointed dealer began to mess me about before I signed the order. In one final attempt I told the local dealer to beat the broker price and I would sign there and then, he matched it so I signed.

Dealing this way has saved hours in showrooms each time.

Brokers offer the manufacturers finance offers in most cases so accept them if they suit.

I have had good prices from CarWow...

Yes, they can be a very good starting-point as you usually receive 5/6 fairly rapid relpies and you'll be surprised to see discounts offered ranging from say just over 10% down to, intriguingly, absloutely nothing!

True, they can be located in either Scotland or Plymouth, but as I mentioned to Dealer A that I was negotiating with at the time – "I'm this close to getting a single train ticket to Dealer B 160-miles away in order to seal the deal as his price is the price that I want to pay."

In the end I didn't have to, but, clearly, all of our individual circumstances/situations are different and it may not be possible for you to do that. Therefore, 'tuff it out' locally...

Thanks everyone! Fantastic advise, a few tricks I would of never thought of.

I like the sit in silence, and arm yourself with as much info as possible and play them off each other until you get the desired result.

Thans again, all great info.

if you are buying new and dealing with a volume marque, you may be offered a choice of vehicles matching or close to your spec in national stock. Often they will show you a list on screen or a print out. Try to find out where any car that catches your eye is located. It may well be shown on screen or the print out, or you can often work it into the conversation by asking if it is nearby. Do your haggling using points made above but walk away, saying you just want a day or two think it over to discuss with you husband or wife, or whatever. Then use the internet to find the dealership holding the stock and call them. Say you've been offered the car locally and are going to deal today but wondered if they might like to beat the price. Be serious and ready to deal and make it clear if they can make you a big enough discount (to make it worhtwhile you letting down your local dealer) you will pay a deposit today (make sure your ask them to quote including delivery). They will ask you what you've been quoted - your call as to whether you be honest here or not! - and then they might well decide to beat it. I did this with a Ford c-max and secured a good chunk off an already heavily dicsounted price including free delivery on a small transport. I think this only worked for me as I wasnt offering someting in Px.

Edited by Eddy56 on 28/01/2016 at 11:36

...when you show you are a serious buyer...

I absolutely concur with the learned gentleman on this aspect!

Showing (my) intent has benfited me twice in the past 15-months. In the first instance I fired-off an email outining my precise requirements and illustrating the best (broker) price that I'd been offered. My only question to the local dealer (one day before I was going to proceed/place an online order) was could they match or better it? After receiving a confirmation phone call from them I presented myself at said dealership to do the deal.

I was 10-mins into completing the paperwork when matey said he just had to go out the back. Quelle surprise then when he returned and said sorry, he'd made an error, they couldn't actually match it and it would be £600 more. I gathered my stuff together, stood up and said "not an issue, I'll purchase from the interweb tomorrow" and bade him farewell.

40-mins later the home phone rang. They could do the deal after all and get slightly underneath my best online price as his sales manger was annoyed that he'd let me walk. Yes, they were going to lose money on the car but as it was an 'end of month target/volume sale' they were prepared to play this time. My heart, naturally, bled for them...

...my most recent deal (late Dec '15 – a very good time to buy a new motor in my view) was a bit more straightforward, but I still had to play some games! Dealer A (very local to me) had EXACTLY the model in the right colour I wanted in the showroom but clearly didn't believe that I was a serious purchaser and said he couldn't get within £500 of what I wanted, even after I pushed the opposition's prices (in B&W) in front of him. I then resurrected negotiations with Dealer B (20-miles away), secured my 'happy to pay' price and immediately bought from him.

24-hrs later Dealer A called to say he'd had a word with the owner and they WERE now willing to match my best price! "Sorry, I''ve already placed my deposit with Dealer B..."

In BOTH instances there was no requirement for part-exchange or manufacturer finance. That may/may not help your case?

CONCLUSION – MY FINAL WORDS ON THE MATTER – HONESTLY...

...So, it can be a tedious, tiresome and a little soul-destroying exercise – repeatedly going over old ground with different businesses, but if you're keen to keep some of the OTR RRP in YOUR pocket and have the stamina, tenacity & intent then there's a very real possibility that you can achieve it.

Generally I think you get a better deal if you can negotiate directly with the person making the decision. Sales managers should either let the salesmen do their own negotiations, or have the courtesy to come out themselves and meet the customer. They should also let the customer see the computer screen they are working from.

You DO negotiate with the person making the decision - the "word with the manager" is just one of their sales tactics - and all the more annoying for that.

Although on my last car-purchase, it was the manager/director who ran after me in the carpark when I walked away - and then made a basic arithmetic error giving me a better deal than I asked for in the first place - you couldn't make it up!

Edited by RT on 28/01/2016 at 17:52