I notice in one of the Sundays there is an article saying that car dealers in Ireland are now selling cars up to 20% off and that the AA is telling buyers to basically play hard-ball now as there are so few buyers. Here is a quote from the AA:
'Conor Faughnan of the AA said: ?What you have found corresponds with what people have been telling us. Dealers are desperate to sell stock because nothing is moving for them. The slowdown is astonishing. If you are in the market for a car, there is tremendous value and choice to be had.?
He advised buyers to be ?extremely aggressive in negotiating?. ?You should be unrealistic in how low you offer and try and get a substantial amount knocked off. If you don?t, go elsewhere.?
Faughnan?s tactics were used in the survey. Dealers were offered at least 20% less than the amount they were seeking and few refused to bargain from this starting point.'
Conor's name re-inserted - for some reason the swearfilter didn't like it !
Edited by Pugugly on 07/12/2008 at 17:31
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there is desperate and their is stupid...
Silly over simplistic statement by the AA.
If the car has been reduced already then no way the AA statement is valid.
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The pendulum has swung too far too fast. Maybe there was some truth in the "rip-off" Britain accusation but we are now at a stage where forcing retailers to sell at a massive loss can not be sustained. This will contribute to the downward spiral as the erstwhile employees of these ruined businesses drop out of the economic spending cycle and become simply a cost in themselves.
Every time we negotiate too hard for a bargain we are in fact shooting our own feet. Bargain for a fair deal by all means, but the consequences of preying on desperation will eventually come home to roost.
Unless of course you really do believe this is the last hurrah........
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The manufactureres via dealers can afford to sell at a loss for a while, and indeed need to to ensure they have cash-flow.
Once they have cut down their supply over the next few months, thus cutting their costs, you will likely see these 20-50% off deals drying up.
The loss of one or more manufacturers from the scene is also likely, but what we are seeing is an adjustment period where supply is hugely outstripping demand.
This has actually been going on for years with huge numbers of cars being sold at 30-40% discount to fleets, and the level of "pre-reg" cars being sold at second hand prices.
Get them while the going is good, it won't last for ever.
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can you get 25% off list price? yes probably
can you get 25% off the discounted sticker price? who knows depends what the discount already is.
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>>Unless of course you really do believe this is the last hurrah........
Fortunately the end of the world has been forecast many times - repeatedly, for many years.
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>>Unless of course you really do believe this is the last hurrah........ Fortunately the end of the world has been forecast many times - repeatedly for many years.
So, one day, by the law of averages and chance, one of them is going to be right? The trick then is to know which one.
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"there is desperate and their is stupid..".
You can `smell` a vulnerability in the motor trade though. As in the past, some dealers financially shafted us private non fleet motorists -now it`s payback time
Force them into a fire-sale through reduced `footfall` They will likely be gasping in mid January and banks wanting as much sold as possible before sending the receiver in.
Edited by oilrag on 08/12/2008 at 14:12
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>>They will likely be gasping in mid January and banks wanting as much sold as possible before sending the receiver in......
Alas this is very true for some dealers.
What goes around comes around .... treat customers fairly and they will come back time and time again if you shaft them then you get what you deserve.
The big PLC's will be the ones to loose out.
Bring on 2009 !!
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Most things I write are `tongue in cheek` I would`nt want any business to fail really...
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No you really dont want them to fail, because come the day when the crisis is over there will be less choice and they will screw you over worse.
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Just remember this:
a cheap secondhand car is great if the dealer survives to pay for any warranty work.
So if you have no third party warranty and he goes broke and anything goes wrong, tough.
Like evrything in life it's a balancing act.
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The dealer we bought our Sirion from is doing ok at the mo, I saw his sales board! Used only though, only a couple new this month. Apparently they are not trading out any decent px but retailing anything that has some margin in it as the cheaper cars are selling quite well.
They have recently gone from 3 premises to two, kicking Kia out of their long-time Daihatsu showroom and bringing their Ford franchise in instead - the old location for the Ford franchise was in a village off the beaten track so this works for both Ford in increased visibility and Daihatsu because Ford will have a greater footfall than any other brand, so it puts Daihatsu in the same showroom with Ford level of footfall.
The salesman reasoned that Daihatsu, being a purveyor of small, cheap to run cars and being a small importer with lowish overheads, is in a better position than most. We shall see.
We got about 16% off our Daihatsu which is a reasonable drop, esp given that ours is an auto, which arent often subject to offers what with their rarity. I would hazard that the Sirion 1.0 would be a great model to do a deal on right now.
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When i worked at Peugeot selling new cars there was very little profit in the cars, some of the models such as 207 etc had 600 - 800 profit in them. On the used side it was around £1000 - £1500.
There are bargains to be had an if you go in with a low offer and end up walking out they will call you back as its best to sell something and make a tiny profit than nothing at all.
As for 25 - 50% off there just isnt the margin for doing that. Im glad im not in car sales anymore I feel sorry for the guys stuck there for long hours and not earning a great deal at the moment.
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>If the dealer survives to pay for any warranty work ..
If the makers go under, who picks up the warranties? What happened with Rover?
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even better, if we all offer 50% below the asking price all the nasty horrible car dealers will be out of business by the weekend, and we can conduct all future deals with nice, honest, non-profit making private individuals. ... caveat emptor rules ok!
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The irish car market is in an even greater state of distress than the UK market as sterling has collapsed against the euro.
Taking an 08 reg Passat TDI, for example, on offer at Motorpoint for £9000 last week, an irish driver could import this for ?15-16000, including paying Vehicle Registration Tax in Ireland.
A brand new Passat, from an irish dealer is north of ?28000, so there are huge savings for irish motorists if they are prepared to purchase in the UK, particularly for cars with low emissions. Most cars have a pan-european manufacturers warranty.
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The irish car market is in an even greater state of distress than the UK market as sterling has collapsed against the euro. A brand new Passat from an irish dealer is north of ?28000 so there are huge savings for irish motorists if they are prepared to purchase in the UK particularly for cars with low emissions. Most cars have a pan-european manufacturers warranty.
This is a complete turn around from 2000 when my wife got a VW Beetle imported from Ireland for £10,000. The equivalent car in the UK at that time was somewhere over £16,000.
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AFAIK, although cars are relatively expensive in Ireland, the pre tax price of a car is quite cheap relative to the rest of the EU, and the cars themselves tend to be poorly specced, in an effort by importers to keep the after tax price down.
A uk buyer looking for a new car when the pound was at its peak, could source one in Ireland at a cheaper pre tax price than in the UK. The UK was not called Treasure Island by the car manufacturers for nothing.
What is happening now is irish buyers are importing second hand uk cars in their tens of thousands, massively depressing the used car market in Ireland.
There are all sorts of stories being put out at the moment by various vested interests suggesting the majority of these cars have been clocked, or damaged, either in flooding or an accident.
It makes no sense for an irish buyer to buy a new UK car as it will be vatable and the base price of the car is more expensive. Major savings though on 2nd hand models, at least 6mths and 6000km old, as these are exempt from VAT.
Its just another one of these quirks of the so called EU free market.
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well really, whoever offered more money than they had to just because they thought it would help the economy? Last hurrah harrumph.
I bet there are a lot of deals now where someone offers a car at say £3000 cos Parkers says its worth that, and they have to succumb to £2000 because its in cash under their nose.
Yes indeed.
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true, right now everyting in Ireland is nearly double the uk price retail. This is because 1. the Euro. 2. Irish economy going wrong before ours. 3. Ireland having levels of corruption that make Zimbabwe look like, er, somewhere not corrupt.
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Therein lies the very seed of the problem. We emerge from a time driven by avarice, greed and aquisition at national, corporate and individual levels. All eager to feather our own nests and hang the effect on others. We have become so globalised and detached from any sense of collective responsibility. We can not see that our actions are circular. If we take from our community whether it be local or international then ultimately it will take something back. Nothing is without cost except the sense to realise that.
The ship is sinking and all we do is barter over the price of lifejackets instead of getting together to fix the ship.
I fear that future generations will see us as fairly primitive in our thinking.
Edited by Humph Backbridge on 09/12/2008 at 09:15
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> fear that future generations will see us as fairly primitive in our thinking.
as we think of our forebears.
Its called evolution
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>As we think of our forebears.
Indeed. In my rare philosophical musings I sometimes reflect that each generation might do better if it was less prone to carelessly discard its forebears' products, often on no better grounds than they are old-fashioned. Successive models of cars come to mind ...
In many cases hindsight makes it look just 'a good idea at the time'.
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Our house is full of the discards of our fourbears.
Some call them antiques. Personally I just call it old furniture (tat)
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the discards of our fourbears
That some kinda sequel to "Goldilocks" ?
:-)
Sorry.....couldn't resist, I'll ...um...do some work now.....
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Almost every dealer in Ireland is offering some sort of promotion at the moment. One local Saab, Chrysler, Jeep and Jaguar agency has a giant sign in the forecourt saying "we are doing deals" and inviting punters to make an offer on anything in the yard. Its mostly 4x4s and larger petrol cars that aren't shifting, though. Remember diesel isn't as popular here because the average motorist doesn't do the mileage for it to make economic sense.
They're caught on three fronts: 1) nobody can get car loans; those who have cash to spend don't want to 2) importing from the UK has become much cheaper with the drop in used prices and the improving exchange rate and 3) the new car tax rules mean 2-3 year old cars aren't selling because you'll either buy newer but lower spec to save tax (e.g. ?150 vs ?600 a year on an 08 BMW 2 litre diesel) or - again - import from the UK where the car will qualify for the new CO2 based tax rates because it was first registered in Ireland during 2008.
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"That some kinda sequel to "Goldilocks" ?"
Any more like that and you'll be doing porridge.
Edited by Dipstick on 09/12/2008 at 13:20
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Wooden spoon for the worst joke?
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No I couldn't .....bear..... it.
Actually, wooden spoons are not ideal for porridge stirring. Far better to use a traditional "spurtle" a simple stick smoothed and sanded, and in recent years sold as souvenirs at Scottish airports with "amusing" carvings on the handles.
Often discounted by as much as 25% similar to the cars mentioned in the OP.
;-)
( like Mornington Crescent sometimes this... )
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Oh put a sock in it..
(Adds a touch of flavour as oatmeal is virtually a taste free zone)
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