Drive the Deal and other discount brokers

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Red C220

MB Enthusiast
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Jul 30, 2011
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Kent/Surrey Border
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2021 Mazda MX-30 EV, 2014 FF
Do any of the members here have any dealings with brokers of this type?

Farther in law is buying a car new within the next 3 weeks and the discounts these people offer look very appealing. So:-

Are they real?

Are any better than others? Lots of feedback please.

Are there any downsides of going through a broker?

Have you got a quote from these people and found your local dealer matched it?

This is to buy an E220cdi SE Ed125 Auto. Purchase will be outright, no finance at all.
 
A friend, with considerable help from me, bought a Renault Clio through Broadspeed. They found the dealer who would offer the discount - in this case Renault corporate sales in Brum, we then dealt exclusively with Renault who were (unlike Renault West London) very helpful, payment was directly to Renault and the whole thing went very smoothly indeed.

Their price was £3000 below the dealer. We didn't bother to ring around the price was so good.
 
My father bought a new Seat Leon 2.0Tdi through Drive the Deal in 2007. As far as I can remember the deal was very good, the car came from a main Seat dealer in Kent and was delivered on the back of a truck to him in Bristol. The broker sets up the deal and the money is paid direct to the dealer, the cars are UK supplied with full 3-yr warranty and exactly the same as if you walked into your local main dealer, except usually a fair bit cheaper.

Only downside is not building up any kind of loyalty/ relationship with your local dealer which might help either at trade-in time or with servicing - but frankly that's nit-picking and arguably irrelevant to most people.
 
I bought an E350CDi through Drive The Deal a few weeks ago. Everything was exactly as described - I placed the order online and received a phone call from DTD to confirm the details within 24 hours.

About 24 hours later I got a phone call from the dealer who confirmed the price (exactly as quoted on the website) and took a deposit on a credit card. All further communication was directly with the dealer - DTD didn't get involved again apart from enquiring after I had got the car whether I was happy with the service I had received (I was). The dealer made one mistake but that wasn't anything to do with DTD and the deal I got ended up being even better than originally quoted.

I had used the DTD quote to try to get my local dealer to match the price, but they said that they simply couldn't and didn't understand how DTD were doing the car at that price.

Only downside was having to sell my old car privately rather than trade it in.

Would I use them again? Yes.
 
I bought an Audi A1 via UK New cars earlier this year and they put me straight in touch with a dealer who would give me a real discount on the car ....which was very rare at the time.
All comms from then on were with the dealer and we were delighted with the service, price and car.
Don't understand why you wouldn't use a broker:D

Unless you have the time and influence to talk to them all yourself...
 
Excellent thread, I am looking to use DTD but was a little unsure whether the process was as easy as they made it look.
 
Having recently priced up an SLK 30 using the MB car configurator, I've just visited Drive The Deal's website to see what they'd quote. While I don't doubt that they can broker a genuine discount (based on the testimony of other members), I have to say I don't like the way the quote process has been implemented. You go to the trouble of specifying the car the way you want it, and only then told that they are 'legally obliged' to take your name, address and email address before they can give you a quote. This is clearly bunkum, as they will accept any name/address/email address you choose to enter, without requiring confrimation.

So then you get your quote, but with no confirmation of the specification it comprises. OK, I thought, there's an option to print the quote - that's bound to include the full specification. Click the button and, lo and behold, they need to take my payment card details before they can allow me to print it out. Hmmm. No thanks.

Oh, and their website also presented me with a pop-up window for life-quote.net, trying to sell me insurance. Another black mark from me - professional, reputable operations simply don't do this kind of thing.

As for the quote itself, that came to £59,879.43, which they say represents a £1565 discount; that's not enough to outweigh the downside of not maintaining the relationship with my dealership, especially as I'd be relying on them to confirm the configuration of some of the options I'd be specifying.

The fact that they can offer £3000 off a Renault Clio suggests that they are more tailored towards handling orders for mainstream, off-the-shelf cars that dealers are keen to offload.
 
I used DTD when I bought my last car and I can say only good things.

The process is exactly as per their website and the service I received from their dealer was better than my local dealer.

I did take my quote into my local dealer asking them only if they could match it and I was escorted off the premises!

I did vary the process myself which didn't cause any problems as I collected my car so I could check it at the dealers premises, rather than having it transported to me. Very happy dealer as it saved them money and they filled the tank up for me.
 
As for the quote itself, that came to £59,879.43, which they say represents a £1565 discount; that's not enough to outweigh the downside of not maintaining the relationship with my dealership, especially as I'd be relying on them to confirm the configuration of some of the options I'd be specifying.

The fact that they can offer £3000 off a Renault Clio suggests that they are more tailored towards handling orders for mainstream, off-the-shelf cars that dealers are keen to offload.

I can understand the unease if you havn't used a broker before, but as all the others have said your dealings are all actually with a dealer, maybe not your local dealer, but one who is prepared to offer a great deal.
I haven't bought a car from my local dealer since 2004, but they still service all my cars very well, and have undertaken warranty work to a very high standard (for which they are well paid by Mercedes GB) and it has made them try harder to sell me a car in future:D
My local dealer is not my best mate, nor do I want them to be, it is a cordial buisness relationship and I find it works best that way......and I have saved about £20k over the past few years;)
 
Having recently priced up an SLK 30 using the MB car configurator, I've just visited Drive The Deal's website to see what they'd quote. While I don't doubt that they can broker a genuine discount (based on the testimony of other members), I have to say I don't like the way the quote process has been implemented. You go to the trouble of specifying the car the way you want it, and only then told that they are 'legally obliged' to take your name, address and email address before they can give you a quote. This is clearly bunkum, as they will accept any name/address/email address you choose to enter, without requiring confrimation.

So then you get your quote, but with no confirmation of the specification it comprises. OK, I thought, there's an option to print the quote - that's bound to include the full specification. Click the button and, lo and behold, they need to take my payment card details before they can allow me to print it out. Hmmm. No thanks.

Oh, and their website also presented me with a pop-up window for life-quote.net, trying to sell me insurance. Another black mark from me - professional, reputable operations simply don't do this kind of thing.

As for the quote itself, that came to £59,879.43, which they say represents a £1565 discount; that's not enough to outweigh the downside of not maintaining the relationship with my dealership, especially as I'd be relying on them to confirm the configuration of some of the options I'd be specifying.

The fact that they can offer £3000 off a Renault Clio suggests that they are more tailored towards handling orders for mainstream, off-the-shelf cars that dealers are keen to offload.

I hate to be presented with pop-ups, spurious legalities and insurance selling. Barring the first, it is one of the reasons why I hate main dealers (we had none of this from Broadspeed, they just weren't interested in that, neither were Renault Brum). When you pick up the car at a main dealer since the FSA regulation of insurance selling, all of them pretend that because they are FSA regulated for the sale of insurance they have to take you through a new client take on procedure - 'to ensure they understand your needs properly as the FSA requires) during which they try to flog you warranties and gap insurance. I had to point out on each occasion I have been buying a car that I am not interested in insurance, they are under no regulatory obligation to go through the charade of trying to understand my needs as I understand them perfectly well, and that doesn't include over-priced policies.

By the end of which I definitely don't want a relationship with them, salesmen normally have disappeared by the time I want a new car, and they with me. My experience of all dealers is once they have flogged you a car, they aren't interested, especially if there are niggles to sort out.
 
Excellent thread, I am looking to use DTD but was a little unsure whether the process was as easy as they made it look.

They are as good as they claim. But we all need to bear in mind that if we keep buying on line there will be less and less dealers. Nowhere to go and see the car. Nobody to give us demonstrations, do guarantee work, do updates etc etc.

Drive the Deal and others like them do nothing other than take your order, pass it to an MB dealer and collect a fee from you. The dealer does all the work and is given a price on which he makes almost nothing.

It is one of those sad cases where doing the rational thing in the short run leads to long run consequences few if any of us want -no dealers.
 
Manufacturers will continue to wish to sell cars, and they will continue to need to be serviced. I am quite sure that dealers in some form will continue. I am not sure that a model based on some uninterested person trying to flog over-priced cars and needless insurance is a particular sustainable one. Perhaps if they stopped needing to cross-subsidise new car sales with grossly overpriced servicing, they might have a better future.
 
Having recently priced up an SLK 30 using the MB car configurator, I've just visited Drive The Deal's website to see what they'd quote.

As for the quote itself, that came to £59,879.43,

How did you manage to get an SLK up to nearly £60K?

Are the seats made from myrrh?
 
Pal of mine, Al, is Vehicle Sourcing Ltd and is a very genuine very experienced trader/broker. He can and does secure trade fleet sized discounts because he buys a lot of new cars from a number of different sources including dealers. In the event of buying through VSL you would benefit from getting most of the discount which will still be more than an individual can secure.......you still have all the warranties associated with buying a new car.
I think VSL have found their trading model less easy since the advent of the Internet and consequently they are trading more used cars than used to be the case.......I would always use VSL as my broker for selling a used car on my behalf.

Mic
 
Update on Drive the Deal.

Father in law ordered with them this week.

E220cdi SE Auto Ed125 Auto
Tenorite Grey
Split fold rear seats


And that's it - he doesn't like spending on options!

Paid £28,517.00 OTR delivered

Price was exactly as stated on DTD website - made phone call - details taken - Mercedes Dealer called a few days later and took the deposit.

Car will be ready end of November.

Our friendly dealer (Croydon) did their best to match the price but couldn't (wouldn't?) get within £2200 on a car already built and ready to go with exact same spec except in Palladium.

Even 6 month old ex demo's are this money.

I have to say, next time I buy I'm going this route, I'm probably not even going to discuss it with the dealer.
 
Our friendly dealer (Croydon) did their best to match the price but couldn't (wouldn't?) get within £2200 on a car already built and ready to go with exact same spec except in Palladium.

Even 6 month old ex demo's are this money.

I have to say, next time I buy I'm going this route, I'm probably not even going to discuss it with the dealer.
Don't ignore your local dealer based on this one example.

After a bit of negotiation, my local dealer was just a couple of hundred adrift from what I could get through Broadspeed or DtD on my E350CDI earlier this year. Frankly, it would have been very rude to have bought elsewhere after all the work that the salesman had put in to help me get the right car for me. I wanted to do Factory Collection too, and I did the honourable thing and did the deal with him. He even picked me and my wife up fom home and took us to the airport for the collection flight. The buying experience and service I received was worth the extra couple of hundred :thumb:

Price isn't the only factor.
 
My 335D was bought via Brokers 4 Cars.

They got me the best deal on the car then on the finance package and then on the service package. Ultimately the car was supplied via a North London BMW dealer.

So this time round I had already got them to quote me before I walked into my local MB showroom.

The deal I got on both the cash price of the car and the finance package was better than the broker had given me.

But if the broker can get the price (and remember the car will come from a main dealer somewhere), then ANY MB dealer can match it IF THEY WANT TO.

So by all means get a quote from a broker. You need to speak with them though. The headline deals online are not always the best price and with some brokers, there are extras.

But yes they are legit and yes they can get you good dealers and they can save you doing all the leg work but you should be able to get as good a deal (if not better) on your own (or as I found, better).
 

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