The wife wants a new car but it’s been decades since we visited a new car showroom.

If we go in and talk to a salesman, do we tell him what we want to pay a month etc. Will he try and have us off? I’d very much like some advice from people who have done it recently. Do we even need to visit a showroom?

Decide what car you want, go to dealers for a look and get initial deal from sales person, negotiate for interest free credit if possible, walk away and say you need to have a think. Go on Car Wow and get the best prices, call dealer ask them to match price, don’t lie as car dealers all do checks now to make sure the deal is actually there. Take it from there but push for the usual free mats, servicing, tank of fuel, etc.

we’re on our third iteration of PCP so it’s been a while (and this isn’t a PCP discussion) but on our first we used one of the car websites, put in what we wanted, and then let garages bid against each other for the business.

If you know what you want and you’re buying out of a catalogue effectively, and don’t like the haggling game then it’s quite a time efficient method, particularly if you time for month end or registration change time.

Not so useful if you’re buying second hand…..

You don’t have to visit a showroom to buy a new car. You could contact a leasing company or someone like CarWow, although if you want a PCP deal you will probably have to visit a showroom.

I’d personally not buy a car without visiting a showroom so sit in / test drive it.

Just stick to you limits for monthly payments. The salesman will try to sell all sorts of extra (GAP insurance, wheel insurance, paint finishes etc,,,) but that’s just their job to do that.

If you have a motorpoint nearby they are worth a visit. The staff don’t hassle you, the prices are low and you can view most of the popular cars as they have huge stock.

If you don’t know what you’re looking for have a look round Arnold Clark. They have examples of all the popular cars and if the sales people approach you just say I Don’t Know.

Having compiled a short list arrange a few test drives to make the list even shorter

Armed with this information you can go and look at some new-new cars. My advice is to buy with your head – a car is a major purchase and you’ll have plenty of time to regret the wrong decision. The golden rule is walk away if you’re not 100% it’s your money they’re after. Also make sure it is actually a NEW car not just unregistered stock that may’ve seen life as a demonstrator. You should be looking at sub-10 miles on the clock. Very few things beat that new car feel.

Two things I know about buying a car:

1 – Never buy new; ask the dealer to use their network to find the car you want, ex-demonstrator. It will be out there somewhere and you won’t take such a hit on depreciation.

2 – If you’re planning on paying cash many dealers won’t be interested in talking to you because they are so strongly incentivised to sell on finance.

carwow at the end of the month – i’ve had cash offers that match finance deals and it gives you a known value ish to aim for if you chose to go and negotiate at a local dealer.

free and very easy to enter some simple details (your contact details don’t get shared with the dealer) and bobs your uncle, a few hours later 5 quotes.

Two things I know about buying a car:

1 – Never buy new; ask the dealer to use their network to find the car you want, ex-demonstrator. It will be out there somewhere and you won’t take such a hit on depreciation.

I’ve always thought this but not strictly true these days – you need to go case by case. I’ve had new car offers for well below what stuff is up for and appears to be selling at second hand or ex demo.

1 – Never buy new; ask the dealer to use their network to find the car you want, ex-demonstrator. It will be out there somewhere and you won’t take such a hit on depreciation.

If the op wants an actual new car then this doesn’t really apply. But buying new is fine if you intend to keep it long term. I bought a new honda accord tourer in 2005, still got it. Not buying new isn’t always the right advice.

2 – If you’re planning on paying cash many dealers won’t be interested in talking to you because they are so strongly incentivised to sell on finance.

Do the deal based on finance then say you’ll pay cash, if pcp is the best deal take that and pay off after 6 months.

Last 2 cars I bought using drivethedeal (google them). They were cheaper than car wow. I tried to buy the car at my local Ford dealer but they were £2000 more expensive than DTD. Saw the price on the DTD website and agreed to buy it. They phoned me up and put me through to a Ford dealer about 60 miles away who wanted to sell me the car at the agreed price. DTD get no money from you, you just pay the dealer £500 as a deposit.

Collected the car when it was ready and they gave me the option of free delivery to my house or a full tank of fuel if I collected it.

The dealership was a very large main dealer with loads of people collecting their cars on the 1st March. The lady I dealt with worked upstairs in the offices and only handles internet orders. They have the normal showroom floor sales people that I suspect wouldn’t be able to get the discounts that she was offering.

This is the first time I have had PCP, mainly because the interest rate was really cheap (0.9%) and had a big deposit contribution. I will be paying off the balance in 2 years time.

Other times I did HP, collected the deposit contribution (£1500) then paid the whole thing off early. They cannot claim the contribution back or charge early repayment fees.

Sometimes demo cars on forecourts are priced relative to the RRP but I got nearly £5000 my car.

Interest rates and deposit contributions are normally much more generous on new cars rather than used.

Have a read of Mr Money Mustache – car finance before you do anything.

I’m now a convert to his wider ways of thinking.

Firstly make a shortlist and visit dealers for test drives and to get a good idea. Once you have narrowed it down then start talking price/options/on-line comparisons. Friends just bought a new Q7 (£60k car?) via car-wow and saved 12% vs list and got a better price than any dealer could match. IME you get zero special treatment down the road ( 🙂 ) from a dealer by buying new from them

Firstly make a shortlist and visit dealers for test drives and to get a good idea

This. And try to arrange for as long a test drive as possible, I honestly don’t know how long it’s possible to get a drive for, but now my job involves driving cars from A to B, sometimes for a couple of hundred miles, on one occasion I spent five hours in one car due to traffic conditions, and it’s only after an hour or two that the little niggles start to really make themselves apparent, most specifically driving position and comfortable seats, so the longer the better.
I am finding out which cars are particularly nice to drive – I’m not planning on getting a BMW any time soon.

This is about as easy as it gets:

http://clicktobuy.hyundai.co.uk/

You may do slightly better price wise on carwow but I haven’t checked to compare. Includes pcp deals if that’s what you want.

Two things I know about buying a car:

1 – Never buy new; ask the dealer to use their network to find the car you want, ex-demonstrator. It will be out there somewhere and you won’t take such a hit on depreciation.

2 – If you’re planning on paying cash many dealers won’t be interested in talking to you because they are so strongly incentivised to sell on finance.

Sadly, neither of 1 or 2 are that often true in today’s market anymore.

My BMW dealer didn’t give a hoot how I was paying, I still got the same 23% off a new M135i LCI – sold after a year with less depreciation then second hand cars would have yielded (£175/month depreciation).

We used carwow to buy our smax earlier this year and would definitely recommend it. We saved about £4k on list price and with 0% finance ended up paying less per month than we would have done for a nearly new one. No awkward haggling with the dealer. Also got a good part exchange price for our old car.