[Closed] Why are all cars overvalued compared to guides?

Offer what you think its worth, if they don't like it walk away there's plenty of cars about. Showrooms seem to vary a lot, BMW harassed me to get finance (daily phone call) VW didn't seem to care. The price on the car is the price to start talking and you only go down from there.

Check auto trader for similar and add a bit on for showrooms.

Try a car auction.

I have bought 3 cars at auction and they have all been bargains compared to Autotrader and dealers.

You are basically getting a car for the "trade" price.

[url= http://www.british-car-auctions.co.uk/ ]BCA are a good place to start[/url]

same reason as they always offer £500 to a grand less on your trade-in too. £££££

Glass's Guide is what they work to, I don't know how close Parkers is to Glass's but I've found in the past that Parkers is only a very rough guide

Cars on forecourts are stickered high to give negotiation room or in the hope that a less educated buyer just pays the sticker.

A cars only worth what the buyer pays for it.
offer what its worth to you based on your research and comparibles.

All the guides are just that, they can be printed just as the market moves so will be out of date by the time you get them. Also at the moment there is a strong demand for cars & little stock out there to replenish whats being sold.
To give you an idea of the market at the moment yesterday I bid £1000 more for a car than the GG said it was worth & still got outbid by another trader, & that was on a £7k car, so percentage wise they are miles out.

There should be more stock about next month after the new reg so hang about for a bit.

HTH.

For that price check out drivethedeal.com as for your budget you can have a new diesel i20 for an exceptionally good £9400 or a petrol polo/fiesta. Having spoken to several dealers their 2nd hand prices are based on their desired selling price for new not the discount dtd price so all 2nd hand cars seem dear by comparison! Arnold Clark are a good starting place for sussing out achievable target prices imo....

depends also on where in the country you are- less populous areas have less choice for buyers so prices tend to be higher. The guide books can't take that regional variation into account.

I'd say I payed bang on book for mine. Which seemed steep at the time but I stuck with the car as the dealer seemed straight and the mileage was low

That was a good decision. We has som awful air con problems. Dealer stuck buy us for a year until it was sorted. We paid out a fw quid for repairs it was tiny fraction of what the repairs cost

So my advice is you want a good example from a good dealer at a fair price. Not a bargain from a crap dealer

+1 location

We've moved from near London to the Scottish Borders. Previously any car I fancied there would be a dozen of the wanted colour within 50 miles - here you are lucky to find one inside of 100 miles. So prices aren't as competitive - unless you want what other folk don't want 🙂

+1 for buying cars at auction. Lots of choice, but you have to be committed (typically, each actual sale lasts less than 60 seconds, but you do have plenty of time to look at the cars before the sale).

I've bought four vehicles at auction so far, not had any problems, although you have to remember that you don't get a warranty, so caveat emptor. Do your research on Honest John to get some idea of whether the models you're interested in are generally reliable.

I've used [url= http://www.manheim.co.uk/ ]Manheim Auctions[/url] for my purchases because they're nearest to me. If you register (for free) you can see what's coming up for sale (good search function), they've also been happy to tell me the guide price on vehicles I've been interested in.

Hope you find what you're looking for!

Hopefully picking up my new motor on Saturday. Couple of mates are dealers who both reckon its a buyers market and to haggle hard if you've got cash. However they also both said that a lot of dealers are not giving very good part ex prices at the moment as not much is moving. Especially reluctant to chop in performance/petrol guzzlers, which I can totally agree with.

Dealers always inflate second-hand prices a) to give them room to negotiate and b) on the offchance that some sucker will happily part with the asking price. Private sellers inflate the price because in the main they're idiots and think that their car is worth twice what it actually is.

If you're buying from a dealer, bargain hard. And I mean, be absolutely ridiculous. If the dealer's asking £7k for the car, offer him £5k and work your way to a compromise.

Example - my current car cost me £2750. The asking price was £4000. I knew that it was worth nothing like that so I offered him £2000. When he'd stopped swearing and come down off the ceiling I asked him what his best price was. He immediately dropped it to £3200. I offered him £2500 cash there and then. He said make it £2800 and it's a sale. I said £2750 and we shook on it.

Love it. Nowt like bargaining over a car!!

Yesterday I sold two used cars, both at full price, one £21995, the other £35995, not a penny off either & both customers will be happy as aftersales is second to none. Sometimes it's about the whole experience & not just getting a deal. In this day & age most retailers of pretty much anything with bricks & mortar premises know that the only way to make money is to give a value added service where people can feel confidant rather than buy cheap & hope for the best. Anyone can sell from their bedroom and survive making little profit as they have no overheads, but if you want support then you need to think longer term.

Last time I bought a 2nd hand car (2002) there was a huge North / South difference in prices for an identical car. I ended up driving to Nottingham to buy mine as it was about £1k cheaper than SE prices.

Yesterday I sold two used cars, both at full price, one £21995, the other £35995, not a penny off either & both customers will be happy as aftersales is second to none.

this is why they start with a higher price 🙂

http://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/doing-a-deal-on-a-used-car-how-much-will-i-get-off

But you *would* have negotiated. I can only imagine how much you laughed with your colleagues at the mugs who paid full price...

No, your wrong in this case, one had a 'profit' of just over a grand, so chances are if anything goes wrong we will give a fair chunk of that back, the other more, but given that it really does cost over £5k a week "just to open the doors" I don't think it unreasonable to make a few quid out of a deal, do you?

Private sellers inflate the price because in the main they're idiots and think that their car is worth twice what it actually is.

Craigslist out here is the biggest problem... lots of dealers listing (and multiple listing from numerous commission based salesmen from same dealer) their inventory priced well above book value - but below their forecourts window sticker value
Joe Private looking to sell his car, now has a comparible list of inflated priced cars available at dealerships and assumes theirs should be priced in line.
Dealer see's private listings similar to their inventory and up nudges the price. Depreciation on used cars almost doesn't seem to exist here once you purchase from a dealership!

Whilst dealers are rightly there to make a profit.. if they paid too much for a trade/used car and left no room for profit.. thats their fault.. the cars only worth what it sells for, not what they need to get back out of it. Seems to take 4months of sitting on inventory for some of them to figure that out though.

Glasses and CAP used to be the industry guides but they were typically only showing trade prices ie what the trade would expect to [i]pay[/i] for a car. The trade selling prices were then the guide to forecourt prices to account for the extra stuff a dealer has to do. They then have to clean it, service it, advertise it, store it, provide even some basic sort of limited warranty on it and then make some profit on it to pay the sales commission and some profit to ensure the business still keeps going. A private user would be very lucky to get book price for a car they are selling as they do not offer any of these things.

I don't think it unreasonable to make a few quid out of a deal, do you?