online car buying (...
 

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[Closed] online car buying (new) ??

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Yeh, I know about depreciation etc but the car we may want after test drives is a new model and brand new online ones are apparently cheaper than (barely) used - admittedly without any haggling but then there are very few used ones about for me to work with

Is drivethedeal and the like a nightmare ?
or, anyone done this and lived ?


 
Posted : 04/05/2011 9:49 am
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All I will say is be careful.

My brother-in-law bought a brand new Nissan Qasqai through an interwebs dealership.

6 months later visited by bailiffs who re-posessed the car - turned out the website was some criminal selling vehicles illegally.

He hadn't used a credit card, so lost the car & the money.


 
Posted : 04/05/2011 9:57 am
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I've been spending the last few weeks getting prices on new vans and I found that on some manufacturers, their dealers could match the online brokers prices and in some cases beat them.

I always thought that the main dealers would be a lot dearer and no doubt in some cases they are; but it's definately worth trying them.


 
Posted : 04/05/2011 9:57 am
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I used drive the deal to buy our S-Max. Couldn't have been easier. They are just a broker- they encourage dealers to give them their best price for any given model, then put the business their way. Presumably DTD take some commission from the dealer, but as a buyer, after the initial phone call to DTD you just speak to the dealership. Safe as houses. (well safe as buying a new car from a main dealer anyway)
I was well chuffed with the price I paid, £7000+ off list and £2000 less than the what car target price.
Only slight down side would be if you have a PX to get rid of, obviously they won't be interested, but I just auctioned our old zafira.
Like you we looked around secondhand first, a similar spec 18 month old model was £2k more in our local ford dealers- no brainer.


 
Posted : 04/05/2011 9:57 am
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I very nearly used DTD last year. Looked fine to me as above, they just put you in touch with a dealer at a pre-negotiated "best price", but my local dealer got close enough to the price so I went with that instead.

Would have had used them if not though.


 
Posted : 04/05/2011 10:08 am
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Probably a good thing to check as leverage to use with your local main dealer. Our local honda dealer knocked about 4 grand of the price of my dads new car to match an online deal that he found, after initially saying that the best discount he could do was 5%


 
Posted : 04/05/2011 10:13 am
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Probably a good thing to check as leverage to use with your local main dealer.
That's what I'm hoping for, yeah - presumably warranty work etc would have to go back via the original dealer, in Inverness or wherever ?


 
Posted : 04/05/2011 10:26 am
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You new car warranty can be dealt with at any of the manufacturers dealers, so no worries about having to travel to the supplying dealer.


 
Posted : 04/05/2011 10:32 am
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As amplebrew said, the dealer you buy it from is irrelevant to future servicing/warranty requirements. The local dealer will be happy to [s]fleece you annually[/s] look after you!


 
Posted : 04/05/2011 10:52 am
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I'm expecting free servicing 😯 for at least a few yrs, followed by non-dealership stuff so hopefully not too much squealing

(interesting about the warranty though)


 
Posted : 04/05/2011 10:55 am
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Nothing in this life is free my friend


 
Posted : 04/05/2011 10:59 am