Pricing and Discounts

[pastrybloke19]

Hiya,

Just thought I would quickly share my recent buying/pricing experience so that anyone looking to get one can get a good deal. Although this would only really apply if you were buying one your self or you company was getting you one. Anyway....

I have been 'pushing' my local dealer for a while, and he has now come back to me and offered 10% off the car it self, and 7.5% off any extras. I have to admit I am hoping to get a little bit more, based on the current climate of Credit crunch and high oil prices.....guess we shall see.

Cheers

[stuartfoster]

Hi 10% sounds good to me as my local dealer (cardiff audi) said no discount at all! so which dealer is it?

[neilb]

Name the good dealers here and we will all put our business their way!

nlb.

[fazerman]

Wayside at Bletchley (ask for John Clarke) gave me 9% disc no probs and a great trade-in price

[jcb]

Lincoln offered 7%

[kaysquare]

Wayside at Bletchley (ask for John Clarke) gave me 9% disc no probs and a great trade-in price

Hi there fazerman, do you have an email address that I can reach the dealer?

[pastrybloke19]

Hiya all,

Soz for the long delay in replying, been flat out at work and trying to order a car. Anyway some details on prices, discounts and my experience:

Firstly, my situation is probably very unique, in the sense that the A4 is being bought out right (i.e. cash) and because I have bought cars for the company I work for. I have said that my A4 could be the start of many, which it could be, but then again it may not. I don't work for a big company (maybe 15-20 company cars) nor have we signed any agreements of any kind; but this 'carrot' has help a lot in getting discounts out of the car company's.

- Do not be shy to ask them for a discount, specially if you are getting lots of extras (the margin on extras is 'reputed' to be around the 50% mark). The current market conditions of Credit Crunch, House Price Recession and potential World economic recession means that they need buyers badly: you are in control and don't let them fool you in believing that Audi sales are not impacted by these factors, cause they are!

- Don't let any garage get away with saying 'well you can't compare a Passat to an A4' , cause you can. If a Passat is significantly cheaper than an A4 then A4's will sell badly. An A4 can be more expensive, but it must remain 'relatively competitive'.

- I find emails the best method of talking to dealers cause you can do research and think before you get back to them. Emails also remove most of the 'hard selling' or pressure tactics that they can use.

To start with I contacted several Audi dealers in the Glos area (Bristol, Glos, Tetbury), and also several other dealers like Pug, BMW, Lexus and VW. That way I could 'beat' up the Audi dealers against the other manufactures and also against them selves.

I then spec'd up the car I wanted and got each Audi garage to quote for it. I then went round each garage and told them that I could get a better discount else where, and what would they do. If they ask for the quote you have been given by someone else, tell them as a matter of competitive practice you do not give out this information: either the garage is competitive and it will get near to/match the discounts you have said, or it won't.

It has taken me several weeks to go though this process, but in the end it was worth it. I managed to haggle 10.5% off the car and all the extras, worth about £3k in total.

I hope that this helps people get a good deal; if it does please post your experiences here so we can all learn from them.

P.s. I promise not to post any more 'stupidly' long posts.......

[pastrybloke19]

Hi stuartfoster:

I did contact Cardiff Audi for prices etc, and they were very unwilling to give discounts. Even after several emails and lots of nagging, they would only give a few percent. I did find them quite unhelpful to boot: so you might want to contact a few other dealers in your area....

Good luck

[2.7 S-line]

uknewcars.co.uk will knock upto 10% of the price of a new a4

spec up your car, print out the summary and take it into the dealershiip with you as a negotiating tool - took me all of 10 seconds to get my dealer to agree to pricematch them saving over £3500 on my fully specced up car - we then haggled from that starting point regards my trade in etc - ended up with a 10% saving, better than Parker's guide trade in price for my A3 & a brand new B8 A4 2.0 tdi SE to drive until mine arrives (from exeter audi)

[dorgan]

10% sounds good. The lease company I used got 8% off the car and extras so I would say you're already doing well. Push them as far as you can, mind