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Haggling is always easier if you don’t really
want the thing you’re haggling for. Maybe
that was the reason I saved £42,030
shopping for 32 new cars at 32 franchised
dealers across the UK.
My brief was to push dealers until the pips
squeaked, and find out what buying a new
car in 2003 was like. What I learnt was that
if you don’t haggle, your bill could be 8.3%
greater than those who do. That was the
average percentage I saved, which is close
to the amount manufacturers dropped their
prices after being accused of ripping off
Britain back in 2000.
I also learnt that haggling isn’t that difficult
– many of the 32 dealers gave the bulk of
their discount after a simple “what’s your
best price”. However behind that 21st
century gloss the salesmen (and 29 out of
the 32 were men) haven’t changed one bit.
They’re still chasing commission as hard as
ever, with tactics ranging from disarming
honesty to intimidating hectoring.
On my 2800-mile odyssey, which took in
towns from Sheffield to Brighton and Cardiff
to Norwich, I experienced some pretty
appalling instances of underhand selling,
nearly all relating to finance deals. Less
sinisterly, there was plenty of timewasting,
ineptness and laughable salesman’s
cliches. At least two said I was ripping the
shirt off their back, while the guilt-
provoking “would you work for free?” was a
frequent response to pressure.
Part of my job was to prove that it was
possible to match the What Car? Target
Price - what the magazine’s team of
mystery shoppers says is achievable with
haggling. As for the cars, I went for popular
models and specs, switching between
buying it for me, my imaginary wife or, as
in the case of the Daewoo Kalos, my
mother.
The overriding feeling was how seductive
the car buying process has become. Many
showrooms, especially those of VW, Audi,
Honda, Citroen, Land Rover and Jaguar,
are beautifully designed with tasteful
planting, décor and sofa areas. Even the
proffered coffee is good. Mix this with
personable salesmen, infinitely flexible
finance options and, of course, gleaming
cars and you’re soon in a comfort zone that’
s hard to lift yourself out of. Even though I
wasn’t there to buy, I found myself on
several occasions thinking ‘he’s right, I can
afford that…’
On the other hand, you could find yourself
in a Peugeot dealer in West London
drinking execrable canteen coffee waiting
for your stuffed shirt of a salesman to okay
the discount with his manager and
wondering when they last cleaned the
plastic plants (one of which looked like a
marijuana bush). This is the flipside of
British dealers, and one that’s just as
prevalent.
Almost all the salesmen started by
pumping me for details, right down to my
hobbies. This is known as prospecting, and
fleshes out the dealer’s information
database on potential customer goldmines.
The best did this subtly, but Audi in
Swindon had a full-time data-taker who
marched me over to the leather sofas as
soon as I walked in. There’s absolutely
nothing in it for the customer, but it’s
difficult to avoid without seeming curt.
I tried to go straight to the haggling, which
the crafty salesman started with either “How
much do want to pay?” or “How much can
you afford monthly”. I learnt to answer
neither with a straight answer. Once you’ve
committed yourself to a figure, then you
don’t know how low they could have gone.
Answer “under £13,000” or “as little as
possible” to the first, and don’t answer the
second.
The finance question was always asked
early, and some – particularly those in the
Northern dealer group Reg Vardy – built
their deal around a monthly hire purchase
figure. This, I discovered, is a clever way to
take the sting out of your haggling skills
because they can easily show what little
difference, say, £500 off the list price
makes to the monthly figure. It makes you
feel cheap, and salesman love that. If you
think the payments are too high then they’
ll extend the loan term – four years instead
of three and the monthly payments dive by
£100.
All the Reg Vardy salesmen – at Citroen in
Stoke on Trent, Ford in Walsall and Land
Rover in Milton Keynes – included in the
finance quote GAP insurance (which pays
out the difference between what you paid
and what your car’s worth when it’s written
off) for around £300 and paint/fabric
protection for the same amount. I hadn’t
asked for either.
The protection companies (especially
Supaguard) must pay out a big commission
because it was pushed at almost every
dealer I went to.
My haggling technique on list price became
a simple “what’s your best price?”. Some
dealers dropped immediately, eg Renault
in Newport (£2000 on a Laguna dCi) and
Citroen (£2105 on a Picasso HDi). But
these were manufacturer offers, which
meant there was still the dealer margin
(around 10% usually) to whittle down. The
final Citroen discount was £3805, and the
Renault £2405.
The cack-handed salesman at Ford had lost
his price list, and eventually came over with
a for-his-eyes-only dealer list which spelt
out exactly what they’d paid for the Focus
TDCi I was after – £150 less than I was
offered the car for after a £1100 discount.
Because I was visiting dealers at the end of
a financial quarter, I got the impression a
lot of my deals were shaved right back to
meet sales targets.
To halt my haggling, one evasion technique
was to offer a demonstrator or secondhand
car at the price I was aiming for. When my
salesman at Fiat Autoworld in Sheffield
balked at giving me a discount on a
£12,900 Stilo 1.6 Dynamic, he mentioned
he had a year-old example of the same car
outside selling for £7999. I was left
thinking ‘so, that’s what my new car will be
worth next year’. Eventually he dropped by
£2000.
It was seemingly easy to tell when the
salesman would go no further. The daft
charade of walking over to the manager to
okay price cuts – sometimes three times –
came to an end, and they’d just sit on their
hands. Or their keenness to sell a car would
remain palpable, but they wouldn’t drop
any further. Blessed with all the time in the
world, I would stay put until I was sure
there was nothing more, and on most
occasions could get them to throw in a set
of mats (which most manufacturers still
charge extra for) and a full tank of fuel.
It’s natural to feel cheap and pushy during
this, but it helps if you take the money you’
re haggling over out of context – £100 buys
a half-decent stereo or a new jacket, for
example. Very few people really enjoy
haggling, but it remains at the core of car-
buying because, according to the car
industry trade association, people expect it:
“In this country people are used to
haggling for cars. It’s traditional,” said Al
Clarke at the Society of Motor
Manufacturers and Traders. Or you could
argue that, because no one really haggles
for any other consumer good, the
manufacturers are ripping off those who
treat cars the same.
I found I could also haggle down the
interest rate on hire purchase loans. Armed
with a typical 7.9% high-street bank quote,
BMW, Alfa Romeo, Audi, Jaguar, Mitsubishi,
Nissan, Renault and Seat all dropped their
APR rate to match it. Among those who told
me they couldn’t Chrysler, Mazda and
Suzuki all stopped pushing and advised me
to go to my bank. Vauxhall in Luton wanted
me to prove my rate and logged onto my
bank’s website, only to find the rate was
even better at 6.9%. He couldn’t match it.
VW’s business manager got all sniffy:
“Manufacturers like Ford and Peugeot
subsidise deals though low finance, VW,
Mercedes and BMW don’t,” she said,
offering me a poor 9.8%.
Everyone was pushing private contract
purchase (or PCP), the cut-price finance
deal that lets you pay for the value drop
rather than that the whole car – leaving you
at the end with a lump sum to pay or duck
by giving back the car. Dealers love this
because the customers are considered
“captive”, since it brings them back after
three years when the salesman can start
again. Jaguar (Guildford) and Land Rover
(Milton Keynes) and Peugeot (Chiswick) all
had generous deals for PCP customers, but
the APR rate is always higher than with HP.
The level of discounts showed up those
manufacturers who thrive on bulk selling or
face falling sales. So it was unsurprising to
see deal-loving Citroen (down 26%),
struggling Fiat (down 15%), sluggish
Renault (down 14%) and fleet-king
Vauxhall (13% off an Astra Coupe 1.8)
making the best deals. But the massive
deal on a Volvo V70 2.4 in Basingstoke
(down 13%) was a surprise, as was the 12%
cut on a VW Polo 1.2S. The MG TF and
Land Rover Freelander both came down a
huge chunk too, but their drop recalls that
both brands were singled out in an EU
report back in July 2001, which found that
the MGF (as it was then known) was 27%
more expensive than in Europe, while a
Discovery was 40% higher.
The What Car? Target Price turned out to
be a very good guide, and I matched or
bettered it most of the time. It gave me
confidence to know I could keep pushing,
although most salesmen tried to rubbish it
when I quoted it in an effort to shift the
most stubborn.
Only Mini and Smart wouldn’t budge at all;
everyone else did and without too much
persuasion. But the average customer
doesn’t have the luxury of practice, and has
to reign in their politeness for that one shot
at getting the best deal. For the second
biggest purchase of our life, should we
really have to drag up skills more suited to
the souk?
Full details of this investigation appear in
the latest What Car? magazine, on sale 12
August.
Top ten deals
Price Discount % drop
Citroen Picasso 2.0 HDi Desire
£14,600 £3805 26.0%
Fiat Stilo 1.6 Dynamic 5dr
£12,900 £2000 15.5%
Renault Laguna 1.9 dCi 5dr
£16,900 £2405 14.2%
Volvo V70 2.4 140 S
£22,260 £2988 13.5%
Vauxhall Astra Coupe 1.8
£15,440 £2090 13.5%
Nissan Primera 2.0 SE estate
£17,200 £2195 12.8%
MG TF 1.8 135
£17,345 £2195 12.6%
VW Polo 1.2 S 65 5dr
£9910 £1229 12.4%
Suzuki Wagon R
£7940 £971 11.9%
Land Rover Freelander 1.8 ES
£20,995 £2150 10.2%
want the thing you’re haggling for. Maybe
that was the reason I saved £42,030
shopping for 32 new cars at 32 franchised
dealers across the UK.
My brief was to push dealers until the pips
squeaked, and find out what buying a new
car in 2003 was like. What I learnt was that
if you don’t haggle, your bill could be 8.3%
greater than those who do. That was the
average percentage I saved, which is close
to the amount manufacturers dropped their
prices after being accused of ripping off
Britain back in 2000.
I also learnt that haggling isn’t that difficult
– many of the 32 dealers gave the bulk of
their discount after a simple “what’s your
best price”. However behind that 21st
century gloss the salesmen (and 29 out of
the 32 were men) haven’t changed one bit.
They’re still chasing commission as hard as
ever, with tactics ranging from disarming
honesty to intimidating hectoring.
On my 2800-mile odyssey, which took in
towns from Sheffield to Brighton and Cardiff
to Norwich, I experienced some pretty
appalling instances of underhand selling,
nearly all relating to finance deals. Less
sinisterly, there was plenty of timewasting,
ineptness and laughable salesman’s
cliches. At least two said I was ripping the
shirt off their back, while the guilt-
provoking “would you work for free?” was a
frequent response to pressure.
Part of my job was to prove that it was
possible to match the What Car? Target
Price - what the magazine’s team of
mystery shoppers says is achievable with
haggling. As for the cars, I went for popular
models and specs, switching between
buying it for me, my imaginary wife or, as
in the case of the Daewoo Kalos, my
mother.
The overriding feeling was how seductive
the car buying process has become. Many
showrooms, especially those of VW, Audi,
Honda, Citroen, Land Rover and Jaguar,
are beautifully designed with tasteful
planting, décor and sofa areas. Even the
proffered coffee is good. Mix this with
personable salesmen, infinitely flexible
finance options and, of course, gleaming
cars and you’re soon in a comfort zone that’
s hard to lift yourself out of. Even though I
wasn’t there to buy, I found myself on
several occasions thinking ‘he’s right, I can
afford that…’
On the other hand, you could find yourself
in a Peugeot dealer in West London
drinking execrable canteen coffee waiting
for your stuffed shirt of a salesman to okay
the discount with his manager and
wondering when they last cleaned the
plastic plants (one of which looked like a
marijuana bush). This is the flipside of
British dealers, and one that’s just as
prevalent.
Almost all the salesmen started by
pumping me for details, right down to my
hobbies. This is known as prospecting, and
fleshes out the dealer’s information
database on potential customer goldmines.
The best did this subtly, but Audi in
Swindon had a full-time data-taker who
marched me over to the leather sofas as
soon as I walked in. There’s absolutely
nothing in it for the customer, but it’s
difficult to avoid without seeming curt.
I tried to go straight to the haggling, which
the crafty salesman started with either “How
much do want to pay?” or “How much can
you afford monthly”. I learnt to answer
neither with a straight answer. Once you’ve
committed yourself to a figure, then you
don’t know how low they could have gone.
Answer “under £13,000” or “as little as
possible” to the first, and don’t answer the
second.
The finance question was always asked
early, and some – particularly those in the
Northern dealer group Reg Vardy – built
their deal around a monthly hire purchase
figure. This, I discovered, is a clever way to
take the sting out of your haggling skills
because they can easily show what little
difference, say, £500 off the list price
makes to the monthly figure. It makes you
feel cheap, and salesman love that. If you
think the payments are too high then they’
ll extend the loan term – four years instead
of three and the monthly payments dive by
£100.
All the Reg Vardy salesmen – at Citroen in
Stoke on Trent, Ford in Walsall and Land
Rover in Milton Keynes – included in the
finance quote GAP insurance (which pays
out the difference between what you paid
and what your car’s worth when it’s written
off) for around £300 and paint/fabric
protection for the same amount. I hadn’t
asked for either.
The protection companies (especially
Supaguard) must pay out a big commission
because it was pushed at almost every
dealer I went to.
My haggling technique on list price became
a simple “what’s your best price?”. Some
dealers dropped immediately, eg Renault
in Newport (£2000 on a Laguna dCi) and
Citroen (£2105 on a Picasso HDi). But
these were manufacturer offers, which
meant there was still the dealer margin
(around 10% usually) to whittle down. The
final Citroen discount was £3805, and the
Renault £2405.
The cack-handed salesman at Ford had lost
his price list, and eventually came over with
a for-his-eyes-only dealer list which spelt
out exactly what they’d paid for the Focus
TDCi I was after – £150 less than I was
offered the car for after a £1100 discount.
Because I was visiting dealers at the end of
a financial quarter, I got the impression a
lot of my deals were shaved right back to
meet sales targets.
To halt my haggling, one evasion technique
was to offer a demonstrator or secondhand
car at the price I was aiming for. When my
salesman at Fiat Autoworld in Sheffield
balked at giving me a discount on a
£12,900 Stilo 1.6 Dynamic, he mentioned
he had a year-old example of the same car
outside selling for £7999. I was left
thinking ‘so, that’s what my new car will be
worth next year’. Eventually he dropped by
£2000.
It was seemingly easy to tell when the
salesman would go no further. The daft
charade of walking over to the manager to
okay price cuts – sometimes three times –
came to an end, and they’d just sit on their
hands. Or their keenness to sell a car would
remain palpable, but they wouldn’t drop
any further. Blessed with all the time in the
world, I would stay put until I was sure
there was nothing more, and on most
occasions could get them to throw in a set
of mats (which most manufacturers still
charge extra for) and a full tank of fuel.
It’s natural to feel cheap and pushy during
this, but it helps if you take the money you’
re haggling over out of context – £100 buys
a half-decent stereo or a new jacket, for
example. Very few people really enjoy
haggling, but it remains at the core of car-
buying because, according to the car
industry trade association, people expect it:
“In this country people are used to
haggling for cars. It’s traditional,” said Al
Clarke at the Society of Motor
Manufacturers and Traders. Or you could
argue that, because no one really haggles
for any other consumer good, the
manufacturers are ripping off those who
treat cars the same.
I found I could also haggle down the
interest rate on hire purchase loans. Armed
with a typical 7.9% high-street bank quote,
BMW, Alfa Romeo, Audi, Jaguar, Mitsubishi,
Nissan, Renault and Seat all dropped their
APR rate to match it. Among those who told
me they couldn’t Chrysler, Mazda and
Suzuki all stopped pushing and advised me
to go to my bank. Vauxhall in Luton wanted
me to prove my rate and logged onto my
bank’s website, only to find the rate was
even better at 6.9%. He couldn’t match it.
VW’s business manager got all sniffy:
“Manufacturers like Ford and Peugeot
subsidise deals though low finance, VW,
Mercedes and BMW don’t,” she said,
offering me a poor 9.8%.
Everyone was pushing private contract
purchase (or PCP), the cut-price finance
deal that lets you pay for the value drop
rather than that the whole car – leaving you
at the end with a lump sum to pay or duck
by giving back the car. Dealers love this
because the customers are considered
“captive”, since it brings them back after
three years when the salesman can start
again. Jaguar (Guildford) and Land Rover
(Milton Keynes) and Peugeot (Chiswick) all
had generous deals for PCP customers, but
the APR rate is always higher than with HP.
The level of discounts showed up those
manufacturers who thrive on bulk selling or
face falling sales. So it was unsurprising to
see deal-loving Citroen (down 26%),
struggling Fiat (down 15%), sluggish
Renault (down 14%) and fleet-king
Vauxhall (13% off an Astra Coupe 1.8)
making the best deals. But the massive
deal on a Volvo V70 2.4 in Basingstoke
(down 13%) was a surprise, as was the 12%
cut on a VW Polo 1.2S. The MG TF and
Land Rover Freelander both came down a
huge chunk too, but their drop recalls that
both brands were singled out in an EU
report back in July 2001, which found that
the MGF (as it was then known) was 27%
more expensive than in Europe, while a
Discovery was 40% higher.
The What Car? Target Price turned out to
be a very good guide, and I matched or
bettered it most of the time. It gave me
confidence to know I could keep pushing,
although most salesmen tried to rubbish it
when I quoted it in an effort to shift the
most stubborn.
Only Mini and Smart wouldn’t budge at all;
everyone else did and without too much
persuasion. But the average customer
doesn’t have the luxury of practice, and has
to reign in their politeness for that one shot
at getting the best deal. For the second
biggest purchase of our life, should we
really have to drag up skills more suited to
the souk?
Full details of this investigation appear in
the latest What Car? magazine, on sale 12
August.
Top ten deals
Price Discount % drop
Citroen Picasso 2.0 HDi Desire
£14,600 £3805 26.0%
Fiat Stilo 1.6 Dynamic 5dr
£12,900 £2000 15.5%
Renault Laguna 1.9 dCi 5dr
£16,900 £2405 14.2%
Volvo V70 2.4 140 S
£22,260 £2988 13.5%
Vauxhall Astra Coupe 1.8
£15,440 £2090 13.5%
Nissan Primera 2.0 SE estate
£17,200 £2195 12.8%
MG TF 1.8 135
£17,345 £2195 12.6%
VW Polo 1.2 S 65 5dr
£9910 £1229 12.4%
Suzuki Wagon R
£7940 £971 11.9%
Land Rover Freelander 1.8 ES
£20,995 £2150 10.2%