Time wasting dealers (non Merc)..

[gaz_l]

So today I went to look at a Fiat 500 as a replacement for the Ypsilon. Mrs. Gaz has always had a thing for the 500, I like them too and she has a significant birthday coming up soon so it would have been part of her birthday present.

Having spotted a likely candidate, I made an enquiry on the dealer's website on Sunday (they were closed) and got back a basic valuation for the Ypsilon as a part ex, which didn't exactly set my pants on fire but was in the region of what I'd accept. I'm not stupid, I know you never get the best price but it's a convenient way of getting rid.

Got in contact with them this morning to arrange an appointment, & I rock up at the garage this afternoon. We look round the car which is very nice, and go for a quick spin. It drives fine and is generally a nice place to sit, and all is good with one minor blemish in the fact that the towing eye cover on the rear of the car is broken and hanging out of the chrome insert strip in the rear bumper. The sales weasel tells me he'll get that sorted but they'll only change the cover and not the whole rear strip. I mark that down as a basis for negotiation and we move on.

We then go over the Yspilon, he gets his tick list out and marks out every single blemish on the car. To be frank, it's in exceptional condition for a 7 year old car and the only real mark on the paintwork is a little (1/2 an inch long) mark close to the petrol cap where someone's opened a door onto it in a car park. I've just used a touch up pen to cover it up, and yes it's gloss appliance white so it's not a perfect match. Boo hoo. There's also a small scratch on the N/S headlight glass, right in the corner so it won't affect the beam pattern, which I didn't even know was there but I concede that.

So, cllpboard at the ready, he goes through the standard questions, will you be financing the car (no), blah di blah di blah. Would you consider leaving a deposit today? Well actually, I was ready to hand over the cash and drive off in it.

We then go back to the showroom where we have to go through the inevitable upsell regarding GAP, wheel protection, paint protection etc., none of which I have the slightest intention of taking out but I smile and nod politely whilst he goes through the spiel.

Finally, his colleague comes across with a printout of my "personally prepared" quotation. This is where it all starts to come off the rails.

The sticker price for the car is £6880. That's not bad, TBH, and I wasn't going to attempt to knock much off that. I got three basic figures on mine for part ex:

Clean £2975
Average £2650
Below Average £2375

As I said, there's barely a mark on mine, it had a full service in May, was MOTd in June and had 2 new tyres (OEM Goodyears, not cheap ones) at the same time. It wants for nothing and they could have put it on the forecourt tomorrow if they'd have so chosen.

Well, I start to read the "personally prepared' quotation. Base price £6880, by the time they've added on all the upsell the price has risen to over £8600. Really? £1800's worth of stuff I'm prepared to self-insure for? I mentally strike a line through that and move on to my part exchange valuation. Which is where my smile turns upside down. Far from the £2975 opening offer, apparently mine is worth £1750 and needs a further £250 of "correction", bringing their offer down to £1500.

As you can imagine, I am less than impressed with this and politely request they justify the shortfall. Cue lots of blathering about "well the initial offer doesn't always reflect what the car is worth", "the car needs some rectification", bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. They even said they'd need to fit a new headlight because of the mark on the glass. Yeah, right, of course they would. At that point I stand up, shake the sales weasel's hand, express my sorrow that we couldn't reach a deal and leave the showroom. I noticed a bloke a couple of desks along who was in the process of filling out his paperwork looking on in alarm, I hope it made him think twice. Chancers.

Well, that's it, rant over, but today has been a reminder as to how some car dealers operate. The last car I bought from a dealership was actually the Ypsilon, and it went smooth as silk. No pss-taking on either side and the whole deal from turning up to shaking hands took about 30 minutes. That's the way to do it. Oh well, another one to put down to experience..

Cheers,

Gaz

 

[E53AMG]

So today I went to look at a Fiat 500 as a replacement for the Ypsilon. Mrs. Gaz has always had a thing for the 500, I like them too and she has a significant birthday coming up soon so it would have been part of her birthday present.

Having spotted a likely candidate, I made an enquiry on the dealer's website on Sunday (they were closed) and got back a basic valuation for the Ypsilon as a part ex, which didn't exactly set my pants on fire but was in the region of what I'd accept. I'm not stupid, I know you never get the best price but it's a convenient way of getting rid.

Got in contact with them this morning to arrange an appointment, & I rock up at the garage this afternoon. We look round the car which is very nice, and go for a quick spin. It drives fine and is generally a nice place to sit, and all is good with one minor blemish in the fact that the towing eye cover on the rear of the car is broken and hanging out of the chrome insert strip in the rear bumper. The sales weasel tells me he'll get that sorted but they'll only change the cover and not the whole rear strip. I mark that down as a basis for negotiation and we move on.

We then go over the Yspilon, he gets his tick list out and marks out every single blemish on the car. To be frank, it's in exceptional condition for a 7 year old car and the only real mark on the paintwork is a little (1/2 an inch long) mark close to the petrol cap where someone's opened a door onto it in a car park. I've just used a touch up pen to cover it up, and yes it's gloss appliance white so it's not a perfect match. Boo hoo. There's also a small scratch on the N/S headlight glass, right in the corner so it won't affect the beam pattern, which I didn't even know was there but I concede that.

So, cllpboard at the ready, he goes through the standard questions, will you be financing the car (no), blah di blah di blah. Would you consider leaving a deposit today? Well actually, I was ready to hand over the cash and drive off in it.

We then go back to the showroom where we have to go through the inevitable upsell regarding GAP, wheel protection, paint protection etc., none of which I have the slightest intention of taking out but I smile and nod politely whilst he goes through the spiel.

Finally, his colleague comes across with a printout of my "personally prepared" quotation. This is where it all starts to come off the rails.

The sticker price for the car is £6880. That's not bad, TBH, and I wasn't going to attempt to knock much off that. I got three basic figures on mine for part ex:

Clean £2975
Average £2650
Below Average £2375

As I said, there's barely a mark on mine, it had a full service in May, was MOTd in June and had 2 new tyres (OEM Goodyears, not cheap ones) at the same time. It wants for nothing and they could have put it on the forecourt tomorrow if they'd have so chosen.

Well, I start to read the "personally prepared' quotation. Base price £6880, by the time they've added on all the upsell the price has risen to over £8600. Really? £1800's worth of stuff I'm prepared to self-insure for? I mentally strike a line through that and move on to my part exchange valuation. Which is where my smile turns upside down. Far from the £2975 opening offer, apparently mine is worth £1750 and needs a further £250 of "correction", bringing their offer down to £1500.

As you can imagine, I am less than impressed with this and politely request they justify the shortfall. Cue lots of blathering about "well the initial offer doesn't always reflect what the car is worth", "the car needs some rectification", bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. They even said they'd need to fit a new headlight because of the mark on the glass. Yeah, right, of course they would. At that point I stand up, shake the sales weasel's hand, express my sorrow that we couldn't reach a deal and leave the showroom. I noticed a bloke a couple of desks along who was in the process of filling out his paperwork looking on in alarm, I hope it made him think twice. Chancers.

Well, that's it, rant over, but today has been a reminder as to how some car dealers operate. The last car I bought from a dealership was actually the Ypsilon, and it went smooth as silk. No pss-taking on either side and the whole deal from turning up to shaking hands took about 30 minutes. That's the way to do it. Oh well, another one to put down to experience..

Cheers,

Gaz

We buy.com then return and give them their own "personalised" offer of £5500 cash?

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

 

[alabbasi]

Long and short, they're not interested in buying your car. All they're going to do is take it to the auction and roll it onto the block. For this reason , they want to buy it cheap because they're going end up selling it cheap. I get the same trade offers when I'm trying to sell my cars. Whether they're offering to trade cars, boats, guns or bikes. The consensus is seems to be that they're interested in the car i'm selling because it's cheap, but they want a fair market price for what they have.

I tell them what i'm telling you now which is that if you think that your car is worth more, sell it yourself and take cash to the deal. You'll get better leverage.

 

[Doodle]

Perhaps I'm in a minority here but if a dealer doesn't want my car, I'd rather they just said so. I won't hold it against them, whereas artifically lowballing me is more likely to make me think they're a twunt and scupper a deal.

Gaz, not sure how far you are from Portsmouth but I found the Perrys dealer there to be very fair if their Fiat dept has anything that takes your fancy.

 

[MWCLS]

So today I went to look at a Fiat 500 as a replacement for the Ypsilon. Mrs. Gaz has always had a thing for the 500, I like them too and she has a significant birthday coming up soon so it would have been part of her birthday present.

Having spotted a likely candidate, I made an enquiry on the dealer's website on Sunday (they were closed) and got back a basic valuation for the Ypsilon as a part ex, which didn't exactly set my pants on fire but was in the region of what I'd accept. I'm not stupid, I know you never get the best price but it's a convenient way of getting rid.

Got in contact with them this morning to arrange an appointment, & I rock up at the garage this afternoon. We look round the car which is very nice, and go for a quick spin. It drives fine and is generally a nice place to sit, and all is good with one minor blemish in the fact that the towing eye cover on the rear of the car is broken and hanging out of the chrome insert strip in the rear bumper. The sales weasel tells me he'll get that sorted but they'll only change the cover and not the whole rear strip. I mark that down as a basis for negotiation and we move on.

We then go over the Yspilon, he gets his tick list out and marks out every single blemish on the car. To be frank, it's in exceptional condition for a 7 year old car and the only real mark on the paintwork is a little (1/2 an inch long) mark close to the petrol cap where someone's opened a door onto it in a car park. I've just used a touch up pen to cover it up, and yes it's gloss appliance white so it's not a perfect match. Boo hoo. There's also a small scratch on the N/S headlight glass, right in the corner so it won't affect the beam pattern, which I didn't even know was there but I concede that.

So, cllpboard at the ready, he goes through the standard questions, will you be financing the car (no), blah di blah di blah. Would you consider leaving a deposit today? Well actually, I was ready to hand over the cash and drive off in it.

We then go back to the showroom where we have to go through the inevitable upsell regarding GAP, wheel protection, paint protection etc., none of which I have the slightest intention of taking out but I smile and nod politely whilst he goes through the spiel.

Finally, his colleague comes across with a printout of my "personally prepared" quotation. This is where it all starts to come off the rails.

The sticker price for the car is £6880. That's not bad, TBH, and I wasn't going to attempt to knock much off that. I got three basic figures on mine for part ex:

Clean £2975
Average £2650
Below Average £2375

As I said, there's barely a mark on mine, it had a full service in May, was MOTd in June and had 2 new tyres (OEM Goodyears, not cheap ones) at the same time. It wants for nothing and they could have put it on the forecourt tomorrow if they'd have so chosen.

Well, I start to read the "personally prepared' quotation. Base price £6880, by the time they've added on all the upsell the price has risen to over £8600. Really? £1800's worth of stuff I'm prepared to self-insure for? I mentally strike a line through that and move on to my part exchange valuation. Which is where my smile turns upside down. Far from the £2975 opening offer, apparently mine is worth £1750 and needs a further £250 of "correction", bringing their offer down to £1500.

As you can imagine, I am less than impressed with this and politely request they justify the shortfall. Cue lots of blathering about "well the initial offer doesn't always reflect what the car is worth", "the car needs some rectification", bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. They even said they'd need to fit a new headlight because of the mark on the glass. Yeah, right, of course they would. At that point I stand up, shake the sales weasel's hand, express my sorrow that we couldn't reach a deal and leave the showroom. I noticed a bloke a couple of desks along who was in the process of filling out his paperwork looking on in alarm, I hope it made him think twice. Chancers.

Well, that's it, rant over, but today has been a reminder as to how some car dealers operate. The last car I bought from a dealership was actually the Ypsilon, and it went smooth as silk. No pss-taking on either side and the whole deal from turning up to shaking hands took about 30 minutes. That's the way to do it. Oh well, another one to put down to experience..

Cheers,

Gaz

It sounds standard! Cap low is what they will offer on a PX on a 500 guessing a 12 reg 500 pop/star, they always have the damaged or missing rear tow eyes even when I was selling new ones!

Maybe easier to hold on to try selling privately.. great little car for first time driver.

 

[neilrr]

"sales weasel" made me smile.

 

[grober]

I'm going to guess that the motor trade isn't very fond of the Chrysler Ypsilon and the sales guy just recently became aware of that! Quite often there's only one salesman who is experienced enough to have his "finger on the pulse" of the motor trade and the junior staff get their valuations from him rather than do them themselves. This often involves "the valuer" phoning round a few traders further down the buying chain and asking them to bid on the car which then forms the basis of any offer. Still no excuse to piss you about mind!

 

[markjay]

The 'Chrysler' Ypsilon is in fact a Lancia - right? So made by FIAT?

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

I suspect many customers part-exchange, and perhaps some even whince at the offer, but do the deal anyway, thinking that the difference will be small when split across monthly payments.

For those customers who say that the lowball part-exchange offer blows their budget, then I suspect the sales person’s answer is typically:

“Good news I can reduce your monthly payments by £11, by extending the term by another two years”.

 

[grober]

The 'Chrysler' Ypsilon is in fact a Lancia - right? So made by FIAT?

The most recent model is based on the same platform as the Fiat Panda and 500 and built in their Tychy Plant in Poland and as such would likely be on a par with them reliability wise. I''m not trying to run the car down but I get the impression its market penetration is poor meaning its a bit of an unknown quantity to both trade and public.

p s you are right about the name, they are marketed as LANCIAS in other markets, however the name Lancia was reckoned to be bit toxic in the UK market due to perceived rust problems in previous models which caused all models bearing the name to be withdrawn from the UK market in the early 90's. Hence the Chrysler "rebranding"
Lancia - Wikipedia

 

[Scott_F]

I get the same trade offers when I'm trying to sell my cars. Whether they're offering to trade cars, boats, guns or bikes. The consensus is seems to be that they're interested in the car i'm selling because it's cheap, but they want a to the deal.

So when you're selling a car you get people offering you guns in part exchange ??

Are these people normal punters or are they good ol' boys called Bubba ?

 

[alabbasi]

Are these people normal punters or are they good ol' boys called Bubba ?

Regular folks. Lots of people conceal carry here in Texas, it's normal. Acid attacks , moped gangs and street muggings? We don't have that here.

 

[Doodle]

No, but you do have a lot more shooting incidents in schools. Do mopeds actually exist in America?

 

[clk320x]

So when you're selling a car you get people offering you guns in part exchange ??

Are these people normal punters or are they good ol' boys called Bubba ?

Guns are legal over there so what’s the problem?

 

[alabbasi]

No, but you do have a lot more shooting incidents in schools. Do mopeds actually exist in America?

Not so much in DFW which has more of a motorcycle culture but in other cities like San Francisco. In the last 20 years, more and more people are moving back into cities from the suburbs and relying more on personal transport like mopeds or bicycles and public transport to get around.

 

[PenelopePitstop]

It's probably best to sell Lancia privately and buy Fiat cheaply somewhere else. There must be plenty of them on a market.

 

[gaz_l]

It's probably best to sell Lancia privately and buy Fiat cheaply somewhere else. There must be plenty of them on a market.

500s are everywhere so there will always be another one. Just annoyed at the dealers attitude, they don't deserve customers when they treat people like that. Anyway, I've voted with my feet..

Cheers,

Gaz

 

[Scott_F]

Guns are legal over there so what’s the problem?

So are bananas but if I was selling a car I wouldn't expect people to be offering them in part exchange.

 

[Deleted member 6183]

The retail car sales business model really does remind me of financial services back in the 80s before regulation when it was all smoke and mirrors and 'slipping' cross sales into a monthly payment.

 

[alabbasi]

So are bananas but if I was selling a car I wouldn't expect people to be offering them in part exchange.

As with old Lancias, it's kind of hard to re-sell bananas easily so car dealers don't want to deal with them. Furthermore, they tend to depreciate quite heavily over a short period of time.