Drive the Deal and other discount brokers

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Yes, my new vehicle was sourced through carfile.net. They are excellent, what they do is sort the deal with their MB main dealer and then they connect you. You do not pay carfile a penny once the dealer has sorted things with you and sold the car the dealer pays carfile a fee. This protects you as there is no intermediary and you deal direct with an MB main dealer but carfile sorted the deal. Got more than 10% off. The MB dealer they use was one of the best I have ever used. I also needed no finance so it was a very easy process.
 
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I feel that the current car retailing model will need to change in the near future.

Manufacturers will not be able to sell unless you can touch and feel first, I wonder if they will need to take the showrooms on from dealers to be able to offer test drives etc. The dealers then converting to just after care and used car sales.

It might be that if it looks like the business model will need to go this way that they will stop it by clamping down on brokers?
 
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.

We did have a chat with four Mercedes Dealers - three of whom made it clear they didn't want to talk to us as soon as DTD was mentioned, they all said they would be selling under invoice to match the price.

FIL even expained to Croydon MB he was happy if they could get within £500 - £600 then this covered the time for test drives etc. They couldn't get within £2200 which is too much of a discrepancy.

I do agree with you though, I was expecting to use DTD as a bargaining tool for FIL, then get a local dealer down close to it (not necessarily match it). It just didn't work out that way.

I'll post more details in a couple of months when the car arrives so at least we have a start to finish history of the order.

I'm not sure it would be ethical to post which dealer it's coming from on open forum, but if anyone wants to know - then send me a PM.
 
I feel that the current car retailing model will need to change in the near future.

Manufacturers will not be able to sell unless you can touch and feel first, I wonder if they will need to take the showrooms on from dealers to be able to offer test drives etc. The dealers then converting to just after care and used car sales.

It might be that if it looks like the business model will need to go this way that they will stop it by clamping down on brokers?

I've folded a business only a few months ago for similar reasons.

Coupled with a shocking economy I found my own suppliers undercutting me, effectively removing an entire wholesale level from the industry I'm in.

Profit has become a dirty word in the UK and I'm not entirely sure where this is going to end up.

The car manufacturers have now effectively become banks. Porsche and Ferrari excluded, they seem to make little or no money at all on the sale of the actual car itself, they make money on finance, options, servicing and parts. The entire industry has become back end subsidised.

An equivalent is computer printers - the printers are sold as a loss leader and the money is made on ink and consumables - which gram for gram costs more than gold.
 
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.

One reason for this is the nature of the contracts between the manufacturer and dealer/franchisee. My local parts supplier said recently that they have been trying very hard to keep parts sales high as their new car buying deals are linked to parts sales, and probably vice-versa. In a declining market that means the vans are going further to deliver to customers, diesel costs are £15k / month and margins are thin

Manufacturers also link models - for every popular model you buy you have to take a bunch of slow-sellers. This is why every MB dealer has a couple of AMGs nailed to the showroom floor and the 200 CDis have been & gone

Nick Froome
the independent Mercedes Estate specialists
 
Don't forget though that the dealer doesn't just make money on the car he sells.

The dealership gets additional bonuses (in some cased many hundreds of thousands of pounds in one month) for shifting X number of cars in a given period. Quite often the best deals are to be had at the end of the month where the dealer is a couple of cars short of hitting that bonus. On a £30k car, he will do whatever it takes if it actually means MB giving them an extra £100k plus.

But they also get commission on finance (again several percent on things like the Agility package) and on GAP insurance and so on and so on.

So whilst the dealer has to make money (or he won't be here when you need him next year) the actual profit on the car itself may be a secondary concern to them.

Of course if you walk into a dealer who has just hit his monthly target, you will simply not get a good deal so just walk away and find another dealer.

It's this finding dealers who "need" your business the the brokers are good at but as I said, you should be able to find them yourselves if you don't mind spending a few hours on the phone.
 
can anyone advise which part of the country the Mercedes dealer that DTD use is located. ?

My preference would always be to collect the car.

Thanks
Kiwi
 
i used several broker sites to get quotes then just got my local dealer to match the lowest one which they did.
 
can anyone advise which part of the country the Mercedes dealer that DTD use is located. ?

My preference would always be to collect the car.

Thanks
Kiwi

They use different dealers depending who needs to shift some metal.

You're paying DTD to do all the legwork phoning round etc.
 
Are DTD discounts subject to you taking out the manufacturers finance ?

I am sure the last time I got a quote it said in the small print it was for a finance deal only, but I might have misunderstood.
 
Depends normally on the manufacturer, it is needed on some of their special deals which are mainly cancelled orders a dealer needs to shift.

The Jaguar XF deals in September were very good as the dealers needed to shift all their old model stock.
 
Personally used DTD as have 2 mates. Nothing but praise. Excellent service. Discount no main dealer could match. Car came from main dealer and payment was between me and the dealer not DTD.

I would have no reservations on using them again.
 
Are DTD discounts subject to you taking out the manufacturers finance ?

I am sure the last time I got a quote it said in the small print it was for a finance deal only, but I might have misunderstood.

No - this is a cash outright purchase, no finance tie in required.
 
can anyone advise which part of the country the Mercedes dealer that DTD use is located. ?

My preference would always be to collect the car.

Thanks
Kiwi

The DTD Terms and Conditions say that you're not supposed to tell people where the car has been sourced from, so I won't. From reading messages on here I can tell they have used more than one dealer anyway.

I would suggest that you give them a call and ask them for an approximate area.
 
The DTD Terms and Conditions say that you're not supposed to tell people where the car has been sourced from, so I won't. From reading messages on here I can tell they have used more than one dealer anyway.

I would suggest that you give them a call and ask them for an approximate area.


I was not asking you to name the dealer just an indication of which part of the country they are in ? eg South East, Midlands, NorthWest, Wales etc ?

I am away at the moment so cannot contact them
 
For Mercedes they have a number of dealers when I last spoke to them, the nearest to me was an hour away. When I bought my golf through them it was just over an hour away.
 
Distance was not an issue for me as the car was delivered to our house. Most painless car purchase ever. No smarmy dealers to negotiate with. Felt great
 
Quite often the best deals are to be had at the end of the month where the dealer is a couple of cars short of hitting that bonus..

The theory is true there, and especially at end of quarters, but I'm never sure how the timing works - to qualify the car has to be registered so it needs to be immediately available and be ready to be put on the road.
Some people think they can go in on the last day of the month and the dealer will basically give them a car. I guess in reality the cut-off point must be a good number of days before the end of the month.
 
Email today from DTD with their latest offers - thought it might be of interest to some:-


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]drivethedeal
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[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Saving[/FONT]
Audi A3 Sportback 1.6 TDi SE 5dr* £17,295 Save 14.5%
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FIL's car was delivered this afternoon as arranged by the Mercedes Dealer in question.

Delivery on a flat bed truck.

It's an E220cdi SE Auto Ed125 - but came with a few things which were not expected such as Daytime running lights, artico interior and column gear shift.

It must have been right on the cusp of a model change/facelift when the order was placed and it came with all the up to date bits.

Paid £28,513.00 - Quite a saving.
 

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