Why I hate buying cars
As a car enthusiast many of my friends come to me when they are looking for a New car. They dread going into a car dealership and going through the process of specifying a car and then negotiating the price to pay.
Now I'm used to this but I'm still surprised and disappointed that the salesmen still employ all the old tricks to part you from the most cash they can for the car they want to
sell you rather than the car that you are really looking for. For instance I called a Mazda dealership as we were interested in the Mazda 6 hatchback. But as soon as the dealer realised that we were cash buyers and looking for a car now he insisted on only talking about the Estate he had in the showroom that he was trying to shift. Ignoring the budget we had he insisted we could have the car on easy terms over a long period which would offset the higher price. Now I'm not stupid and the only thing that buying a car over a longer period means is that you pay more interest and therefore more for the car.
So giving mazda a miss the next car of interest was a used Jaguar S-type. A better experience overall with the Jaguar dealer who didnt have exactly the car we wanted but offered a test drive in a similar car while he searched for a car of our choice. But of course this did not happen instead we came under pressure to buy the car we tested even though yet again it was priced higher than we were willing to pay. The salesman also used the old trick of pretending to see his sales manager to get a better deal for us. Anyway I had a meeting to get to so after spending an extra 30 minutes in the showroom not buying a car I left. Needless to say the phone rang for the next few days asking if we wanted the car.
As it happened we ended up buying a brand new Mercedes A Class, by chance a friend mentioned an offer he'd seen on the Internet for a low rate finance from Mercedes and this made it a bit of a bargain. Unfortunately the first dealer we went to did not admit to there being an offer and tried to sell us the car as some extortionate rate, needless to say we went elsewhere. In fact we bought the car entirely on the phone from another dealer who had the right car in stock, offered us a good discount and the low rate finance, brilliant.So what's the conclusion? get a friend to try the car you are interested in from a dealer that you do not think you will buy from and go along as the helpful friend then you can enjoy the experience without the pressure although you will not be test driving the car at this stage. Get on the phone and get the best deal you can then test drive the car yourself and all being well buy it after all you've already got a deal that you are happy with on the phone.
posted by Ash Associates @ 4:11 PM
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