Looking at getting a new car, will be either a honda or a citroen.

Problem is both these dealers near me are owned by the same group and they have the pushiest sales people i’ve ever met (honda place wouldnt even give a trade in price on my car until i’d paid a deposit on a new one!!). Also they wont budge much on prices, when we looked a few months ago one of them offered to throw in 3 years free servicing to improve the deal…. except that this was already included in the manufacturers offer he was just hoping i hadnt actually read that part on the website!

Anyway we can save £££££ from somewhere like carfile / drive the deal etc, anyone done this and returned to local dealers for warranty problems / servicing and had issues with them?

AFAIK its a bit different to buying a bike of internet and using LBS for warranty as in the garage situation they still get paid their labour rates by the manufacturer for any warranty work done?

Have you tried approaching them with the online deal and seeing if they’ll match it ?

Don’t ask, don’t get.

I imported a car from Holland years ago and the main dealers knew that, never had any problems with warranty/service work. They get paid well for it.

Yeah told them about Internet that’s when he offered the free servicing!

Bought my focus through drive the deal. Take it to the Ford garage on the way to work for servicing. They seem very happy to have the custom.

Don’t have to talk to a car salesman at all. That’s a win in my book!

Think of it as if you had already got a car and moved to the area… they would still be happy to service it for you.

Or use an independent for servicing and probably get another good deal.

its not like they’ll be extra nice to you are service time just because you bought it from them. once you are out the door they dont give a shit.

its not like they’ll be extra nice to you are service time just because you bought it from them. once you are out the door they dont give a shit.

This.

Get the best deal you can, I’m all for supporting local business where it deserves it but not those sort of con artists. I’d imagine manufacturer deals will be done on a rebate basis anyway so they wouldn’t be out of pocket.

Just don’t do it with bicycles because that makes you a pretty low individual – apparently

I bought new through drive the deal dot com. This was after visiting a main dealer who I felt couldn’t be bothered, not even finding the answers to simple questions. The car has been back to said main dealer for its first service, no worries.

Though I wonder if the supplier (who sold through D-T-D) might get dropped in the mire by the local dealer if you draw their attention to it.

honda place wouldnt even give a trade in price on my car until i’d paid a deposit on a new one!!

tbh Don’t take this the wrong way, but it sounds like you need to learn how to buy/negotiate.

Dealers make the most of their money through aftersales (parts and servicing). We (I work for a main dealer) welcome people bringing in the cars for warranty and service work which they bought elsewhere. The only difficulty comes when something isn’t covered by the manufacturers warranty – if the car was bought from us we would normally do this goodwill, if we could.

Manufactures differ in the way they work, some help the dealer help the customer more than others.

If it was something small, we may do the same for someone who didn’t buy from us, if we thought they would bring there car back for servicing.

We do have some customers who just bring their cars in for warranty work (free to them stuff) and take their cars to intendants for servicing, which is fine, but they are less likely to get things done for them “goodwill”. If the work isn’t covered by warranty.

Margin in a new car for dealer is about 2%…..

Unless they’re close to a manufacturer target, they don’t have any fat to cut to offer a deal below RRP.

Who cares, if the dealer can’t do you a deal and you can get the same car/deal via the Internet that is via another franchised dealer then why not. He probably won’t even recognise you when you take it in for a service anyway.

I bought my current car from a franchise dealer 200 miles from where I live because they gave me the best deal for the car and my trade-in. Now get servicing done at the local dealer and they’re great to deal with always friendly.

Sales are servicing/parts are different parts of the dealer, with different staff, different targets and diff contacts with the manufacturer….

DtD and the like still source cars from a UK main dealer, just probably not your local one. It’s not like the grey imports of the 90s.

My job and moves have meant I rarely use the same dealer for servicing and warranty as I bought from, never had any issues. Warranty work is always paid for by the manufacturer so the dealer doesn’t care.

does it matter? how many car salesmen get the hump 😐