I am considering buying a 3-year old car in a German franchised dealers' "Approved Second-hand Scheme".
What value is placed upon extras, such as Cd autochanger, Leather upholstery, etc., which might have cost an extra £1900 when the car was new? Do I have much haggling leeway here?
Is there anything special that I need to worry about, if the car is a higher than average mileage "Ex-Demonstration" car?
Thanks for any helpful replies.
Batty.
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Don't know if this will help. I have a Passat 1.9 TDI sport 115 bhp registered April 2000 W reg. (about 2 years and 5 months old)
Car is due for change (have ordered Audi A6 1.9 TDI 130 bhp) so, out of curiosity, I asked the well know car management Company for a driver to buy price. They want £8575.00 for a car they rate as 'A' for body, interior and mechanical. It is a brilliant car and has never been in the garage for anything but 10,000 mile services. Regularly get 55 mpg and can easily get 60 mpg if I tootle - which isn't often but it happens. It has a cd autochanger, met paint and the usual extras.
My view is that you shouldn't pay any extra for the toys but they might tip the balance if you were looking at a couple of options and one had it but the other didn't.
If there's ever a nuclear war, Passats will be the only cars left.
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Batty
My forthcoming purchase for SWMBO is a 1998 S reg BMW 318iSE Touring. I company owner but high mileage. Price I negotiated: £5700. Yes, £5700 !!!!
The SE spec is pretty comprehensive but the company technical director that ordered this car also specified the following extras:
sports suspension
heated door locks
leather sports stering wheel
passenger airbag
Colour coded mirrors
A few quids worth. Hasn't added much to the used vallue though.
Don't pay much, if anything, for extras, especially if you can live without them.
Regards
Pat
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Expensive extras that I could do without:-
Xenon headlamps - rarely get the chance to use their power
Alloy wheels - look nice but difficult to keep clean
Sat Nav - OK if you know where you are going
Leather seats
Sunroof - Assuming you have A/C
Cruise Control - in UK
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The emf from the nuclear blast will still render even a passat's electrics useless thereby making the car undrivable. :-)
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Extras generally cost a lot when the car is new but don't add much come sale/trade-in. This is great news for the secondhand buyer however.
OTOH, there are cars without certain extras make them hard to move i.e. BMW's and Mercs in non-metallics, lack of autobox on MBs etc etc.
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Depends on the car you buy as Phil said.. White cars are usually harder to sell because everyone thinks they are ex-police fleet (though might not be such a bad thing in the case of an MV6 for example!), metallics are always more desirable than solids though blacks will always do well. Air con these days is an attractive swayer when buying a car as it is something that can't really be added later on and its also an expensive additional extra when the car is first purchased .. BUT if its been neglected and not used for several months then it could be dead and an expensive repair job. Auto boxes arent so popular unless as Phil said its something like a merc, and although another initially expensive extra on a new car, 2nd hand auto boxes need to be working perfectly on a second hand car, else you could be faced with huge bills! Manual boxes will last much longer and can be neglected more so.
Electric windows are almost considered a standard feature by most drivers these days, I couldnt go back to manual winding windows for one! Again though ensure they work! They probably wont make much difference to the price though so get them if you can!
CD players and radios arent really worth paying over the odds for, as you can get a new one fitted very cheaply and usually a lot better. If a car does have a good audio system though it often sells to the younger buyers easier.
In summary, go if you can for the most extras on a car if the price differences are small , which in general they will be. Decide what you want, what you dont care for and find out what spec models have those features.
regards
Simon
_____________________________________
SVPworld (incorporating PSRworld)
www.svpworld.com
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The ONLY extra that has any value is automatic transmission although the difference varies greatly so Glass's needs to be consulted.
No dealer will give you a penny more for any other extras when you trade-in so why pay more for extras when buying.
New car buyers write off the cost of extras against their own use of the car and don't expect a higher residual.
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No extra has any value when coming to sell the car on imho. The depreciation will be roughly the same for a base model as for a fully loaded car.
The only difference is you'll get more for the fully loaded car than you would for the lesser equipped car but there again, you paid a few more thousand for it, anyway.
All the extras do is make it potentially easier to sell.
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The problem really is that some cars are actually almost unsaleable without leather, air and auto plus maybe metallic paint. A colleague of mine just bought a Signature second hand car and checked the stock thru the net. The only thing that seemed to affect price was age and mileage. The specs went from good to amazing without any price difference, or so he said.
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its emp actually...
It will be ok for cockroachs, because they will be the only things left to drive them.
Jonathan
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