After diesel gate - diesel or petrol Mercedes?

[Droverunner]

Bit of an over a coffee story here but might add to the good dealer vs nightmare dealers discussions...

In our 5wks looking for a car which ended up being the CLK we found a couple of weeks ago we tried so hard to find one privately and only really looked at dealers once we'd run out of ideas. Some of them do your head in.

When we enquired at one large place if we could have a test drive if we called back in a couple of hours the guy says we need to sit down and sort a few paperwork things first and if that looks OK you can have a run out.... I asked what sort of paperwork. He said well we need to check you are OK for the finance. We're paying cash I replied. Ok he said but we still need to talk about your expectations for trade in value. Nothing to trade in I replied. That threw him as he'd lost all his areas of control in the deal. His car wasn't that good close up so off we went.

Then at another large place we were intercepted by the sales guy before we could get anywhere near the car that interested us and diverted in front of his PC where he tried to get us to put a deposit on a car we'd not ever walked out to see... claiming all their cars were prepared to perfection so there would be nothing wrong with it so it was hardly worth looking. He then proceeded, despite our protest that we were paying cash, to "build the deal" using the car we were interested in as an example as he put it. This deal building involved pressure to take out tyre, wheel, key loss & paint protection insurances plus an extended warranty... at another £700 over the car's price... and a £120 admin fee. All this was intended to look affordable as he swung the PC around to show it on finance over 36mths. When reminded we were paying cash he deleted all the insurances referring to not having those extras as "savings" he'd sorted.... the admin fee remained naturally. We walked as fast as we could but we were pestered by his manager over the next week to buy if they gave us free paint insurance and eventually offering to waive the admin fee. We kept repeating no... no...no.

Next guy didn't have the car we'd gone to look at but quickly established we were looking at the wrong type of car and we'd get nothing decent in our price range... but if we could stretch another £4k he had the perfect thing. Nice try pal... particularly setting the ego challenge as to whether we could afford to "stretch".

And finally where we bought the CLK from. Dealer was busying himself sorting out a car he wanted to get up for sale so gave us the keys to all three cars that interested us saying take as long as you want. As we prodded the first two briefly and then spent ages looking at the CLK he never once bothered us. As we returned to the office he said take it for a spin on you own. We agreed to return to do that after a brief lunch & chat. I asked him to name his bottom line for a drive away that afternoon deal which he did after happily admitting he'd had it a couple of months and would like to sell to rotate stock. Over lunch at home we looked round Autotrader to find at his no haggle price it was pretty well as cheap as any in the country for that model/age/mileage/history. And the MOT history was fine. So we returned for a test drive on our own... go where you want he said. So we put £10 of diesel in at the adj garage and took it up the fast roads and back via the winding country roads. As we stepped out of the car back in his yard he said what do you think and I said lets sit in the office and do you an online bank transfer. Twenty mins later it was on the drive at home. It was that easy and that pleasant.

In my experience that's quite rare for a dealer.

 

[Clio]

Was that a large chain like Motorpoint?

No, a franchised Vauxhall dealer who unfortunately had a car my husband liked. He wasn't that keen once he saw the car so it was a good practice run!

 

[Clio]

The best time to buy a car from any dealer is the last weekend of the month that's when they are desperate to hit targets, go in early you have very little chance of a deal go in late and they fall over you.

Thanks, mancman, we'll bear that in mind.

Ref your other post, it's a cash purchase.

 

[Clio]

I got this response a couple of years ago from a MB dealership. I said I thought their used cars were over priced. They reassured me that they were professionals.

I asked them if they had sold me a car. They didn't get the point. I walked away,

Alex.

Nice once

 

[Clio]

Bit of an over a coffee story here but might add to the good dealer vs nightmare dealers discussions...

In our 5wks looking for a car which ended up being the CLK we found a couple of weeks ago we tried so hard to find one privately and only really looked at dealers once we'd run out of ideas. Some of them do your head in.

When we enquired at one large place if we could have a test drive if we called back in a couple of hours the guy says we need to sit down and sort a few paperwork things first and if that looks OK you can have a run out.... I asked what sort of paperwork. He said well we need to check you are OK for the finance. We're paying cash I replied. Ok he said but we still need to talk about your expectations for trade in value. Nothing to trade in I replied. That threw him as he'd lost all his areas of control in the deal. His car wasn't that good close up so off we went.

Then at another large place we were intercepted by the sales guy before we could get anywhere near the car that interested us and diverted in front of his PC where he tried to get us to put a deposit on a car we'd not ever walked out to see... claiming all their cars were prepared to perfection so there would be nothing wrong with it so it was hardly worth looking. He then proceeded, despite our protest that we were paying cash, to "build the deal" using the car we were interested in as an example as he put it. This deal building involved pressure to take out tyre, wheel, key loss & paint protection insurances plus an extended warranty... at another £700 over the car's price... and a £120 admin fee. All this was intended to look affordable as he swung the PC around to show it on finance over 36mths. When reminded we were paying cash he deleted all the insurances referring to not having those extras as "savings" he'd sorted.... the admin fee remained naturally. We walked as fast as we could but we were pestered by his manager over the next week to buy if they gave us free paint insurance and eventually offering to waive the admin fee. We kept repeating no... no...no.

Next guy didn't have the car we'd gone to look at but quickly established we were looking at the wrong type of car and we'd get nothing decent in our price range... but if we could stretch another £4k he had the perfect thing. Nice try pal... particularly setting the ego challenge as to whether we could afford to "stretch".

And finally where we bought the CLK from. Dealer was busying himself sorting out a car he wanted to get up for sale so gave us the keys to all three cars that interested us saying take as long as you want. As we prodded the first two briefly and then spent ages looking at the CLK he never once bothered us. As we returned to the office he said take it for a spin on you own. We agreed to return to do that after a brief lunch & chat. I asked him to name his bottom line for a drive away that afternoon deal which he did after happily admitting he'd had it a couple of months and would like to sell to rotate stock. Over lunch at home we looked round Autotrader to find at his no haggle price it was pretty well as cheap as any in the country for that model/age/mileage/history. And the MOT history was fine. So we returned for a test drive on our own... go where you want he said. So we put £10 of diesel in at the adj garage and took it up the fast roads and back via the winding country roads. As we stepped out of the car back in his yard he said what do you think and I said lets sit in the office and do you an online bank transfer. Twenty mins later it was on the drive at home. It was that easy and that pleasant.

In my experience that's quite rare for a dealer.

We've certainly had similar experiences to you in terms of the first few dealers you went to, but you were incredibly fortunate with the last dealer. I've never heard of a dealer admit to a bottom line price, nor let you drive it on your own. I've never heard as much BS as I have over the last few weeks when speaking with dealers.

It's interesting to note that Which? magazine suggest you ask a dealer for an extended test drive such as 24/48 hours. Just for the hell of it, we've asked the question. One dealer suggested we hire a car for the weekend, most simply said no.

 

[Tony MB]

Th

Thanks, mancman, we'll bear that in mind.

Ref your other post, it's a cash purchase.

Franchised dealers don't usually like cash deals because they get a "kick back" from the finance company.Smaller car dealers are the best to get a deal with.

 

[Droverunner]

>>>Smaller car dealers are the best to get a deal with.

For most of us in the middle price ranges that's very true. Of course there are some absolute nightmares but they are usually easy to spot on a visit.

>>>I've never heard of a dealer admit to a bottom line price

Of course it may not have been his absolute lowest but was so competitive there was no need to haggle further.

>>>nor let you drive it on your own

We did leave another of our cars and its keys with him which was worth double that of the CLK. Also he appreciated us offering to put £10 of diesel in which even after our test would have left him a gallon in credit if we hadn't bought it.

 

[Alex M Grieve]

I asked him to name his bottom line for a drive away that afternoon deal which he did after happily admitting he'd had it a couple of months and would like to sell to rotate stock.

On a couple of occasions I seem to have struck lucky in finding exactly the car I was looking for, which seemed to have been on the forecourt for a while and the dealer was just about to send it to auction.

In each case after a decent test run and a chat with the dealer, he swung his screen round and explained to me "what the car owed him" (what he gave for it as a trade in, what he had spent on it and the minimum margin he could accept).

In each case I bought a super car for cash and was not troubled with all the add ons which they try to sell you these days.

In one case it was a 2 year old W 220 320CDI in new condition with 20,000 miles on it. It had been on at £36,000, but he had just reduced it to £28,500 in a final bid to sell it. It worked!

In each case I had put a search on one of the websites (Autotrader I think) for a really cheeky bid. Nothing came up at the time but, lo and behold, within 4 days an alert came up and there it was.

Alex.