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As you may have read below, we are looking to purchase a Compass Kensington that we have seen at a small dealership.

The guy said he will give us £600 for ours as part X. The caravan we want is £4300. The book price I have found is £3850. Should we knock him down abit and if so how shall we go about it?

Quote: Originally posted by Sarah1981 on 26/2/2008

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Just tell him where you want to be price wise and see if he can get there either with a cash reduction or by throwing accessories into the deal such as awning, etc.

Be prepared to negotiate hard if you really want it but make sure he sweats for your custom. If you can, be prepared to walk away but I know what it's like when there's something you really want and it's just down to price, which is why I stand there as along as it takes, smiling and talking, using the wife and kids also, until we get what we want.

Good luck.

Mick

I would have thought it was pretty obvious you should try and knock them down.

In reality they are only offering you £150 for your van.

Tell them firmly that you would be prepared to do a deal but only if the price comes down as is it over the book price.

It will also depend on if you are getting extras with your van as the bookprice will only take the van into consideration.

Might be a bit late for to know now BUT whenever your are thinking of a new car or van dont let on you want to part ex.

Haggle the price as best you can then when you've agreed a price drop the part ex in as well.

Its the same as when buying on finance dont tell them until you have sorted the deal/price first as they will give you all sorts of bull that they cant give discount bwecause of finance.

Its a load of rubbish as they still get all the cash in one go from the finance company anyway.

Cant you tell i used to sell cars. Plenty of tricks to use

does the book price take into account condition?? reason I am saying is that book for mine is £3200 dealer wanted £4k, haggled down to £3500 plus aquaroll, wastemaster, power cable, gas bottle and battery. plus the van was in total mint condition. Dealer thought while i stood with hand outstreched, 30 seconds later we shook on it. still spent about £100 on stuff like step, wheelclamp, mirrors and hitchlock

that is a tactic i use all the time, offer the deal you want then stand with hand ready for shaking

reckon I did well

Couldn't agree more with Alan - I have to negotiate on a daily basis and, despite what anybody says about sales techniques etc., the best way forward is to decide what you want - be up front about it, smile and let them decide. Following this with an outstretched hand is always a winner. You can also get a hell of a lot of mileage from negotiating for the little things like gas bottle and battery etc - a dealer will have access to quite a pool of these so they may well be worth more to you than the dealer.

What you cannot legislate for are the deals that the salesman has done previously within that sales period (usually a month) - if he has made good money on other vans then he will have plenty of margin to to play with on your deal. He may well have a target on units sold to meet or he may want to shift a van off a pitch to make room for something that he can make better margin on.

Am I alone ? I hate and despise haggling...I feel embarrassed. On the other hand she who must be obeyed just loves it. She's even done it in well known High Street stores, so much so that when she goes inside the shop I stay outside.

But to the question...I don't know about caravans but if you're negotiating for cars they won't normally give you any discount if part exhange is involved.

They will if you haggle price first, then drop the p ex bombsheel on them when you've got the price down.

they just dont like it

There's no shame in haggling. Bear in mind many items have a high mark-up.  Buying with no trade-in will obviously attract the best discount.  When trading in, the waters get a little muddied.  This is because there is a conflict of what discount is available versus the risk the dealer is taking on the traded-in van (what he can sell it for minus what he pays you plus what it costs him to prepare it for sale). A final minus figure is bad for business.

When we changed vans in 2006, the dealer gave us £600 above book price for the trade-in (he sold that van to us) because of its exceptional condition.  But he did not give us anything off the new van.  He could have given us just top book price for the trade-in, and knocked £600 off the new van; no actual difference, it just depends on how it is viewed.

When we bought the previous van, it was a straight buy, and we got about £1,500 off that.  It all comes down to swings and roundabouts.  A private buyer pays a price for something he/she wants. A dealer pays a price that must leave him a reasonable element of profit.

Bertie.

Hi

Thanks for all your help. Unfortuantely we already told them we wanted to part ex......ah well you live and learn.

I'll bat my eyes and see if he'll chuck in an awning

Still, at leat we'll have the caravan I want. I'm trying to make excuses for my stupidtiy now!

Sarah