In the last week I have emailed 4 dealers who supply the swift charisma 550 as a dealer special, with a view to buying one in the next 6-8 weeks, I have had just 1 reply, a very helpful call, but from the other 3 nothing. I am looking to spend approx £15K including my trade in why isn't anyone interested? I am sure 12 months ago I would have had quick responses from all but because caravanning is quite popular this year and sales have soared, it would seem that the sales of new vans are not as important to dealers as perhaps I thought they would have been.
Grump over for now.
Next question.
Does anyone know if swift supply the dealer special as a standard van i.e. the charisma with the heavy duty corner steadies, concertina blinds, led lighting etc to dealers other than those who supply it as their own special?
I know what I mean I hope it makes sense to others!!!!!!!!!!!!
Trev.
------------- Trev and Sandy on tour in
2010 Swift Archway, Enduro mover and a baby German Shepherd
We have just purchased a swift charisma from Discover. It was the dealers special and Discover had named it the oakmere, ours is a 555 we have the heavy duty steadies and led lighting , We only paid 11,500 for it with it been a dealers special they are a beautiful van and we got many extras with it.
Debi
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One tends to think in these supposed hard times that caravan & car dealers would be bowing & scraping to you to try & flog their wares, but of course the reality is they are not gonna give their products away.
The word is drive a hard bargain but any salesman has a bottom line he is not allowed to go below even if you walk away.
I don't expect anybody to bow and scrape or to give a product away!
All I expect is that they contact me within a week to give me the BEST price they can for the said van, it is then my choice to either buy or walk away.
1 dealer has had the courtessy to ring me back 3 others have shown no interest, those 3 will not get another chance to relieve me, of what I think, is a substantial amount of my very hard earned cash.
------------- Trev and Sandy on tour in
2010 Swift Archway, Enduro mover and a baby German Shepherd
You prob won't be a mega deal, as they are selling like hot cakes at the moment, all the dealers we have visited have a hardly any vans to look at, and we sold our van privately with in days, got the asking price too no quibble!
Know what you mean tho it is annoying when companies can't be bothered to email or call you back.
they do not deserve your business whatever you are spending.try telling them you want to pay cash and they shut the door on you,or get nasty and say,do you mean you cannot afford £20 a week for the next 10 years.our experience of caravan sales personnel has been very poor over the last few years.so bad we went for a private sale from a guy who had just left the showroom in near tears from the offer he was made for his 12 month old van bought from them towards buying another.we were happy,he was happy,and we made out the cheque towards his new caravan from another dealer.there loss not ours.
------------- the only silly question is the one you do not ask.
What I mean't was, Trev that you would expect, as you say that sales people would at least show a bit of interest when you suggest you might want spend £1000s with them but in my experience car & caravan salesmen seem little more than shop assistants.
What always suprises me is how little they seem to know about the products they sell. I was looking at a new car recently & the salesman didn't know how to open the bonnet!
I think that I will end up selling our Bailey privately, hopefully get a few more £'s for it than on a trade in then go and buy a new van with no part ex. Many dealers are offfering aquaroll, wastemaster and awning in the deal, that, I think will be the way to go.
------------- Trev and Sandy on tour in
2010 Swift Archway, Enduro mover and a baby German Shepherd
I was at Highbridge a few weeks ago and the Charisma was selling out rapidly there. So the dealers probably don't really want the hassel of doing specials when they can sell standard models as quick as they can get them from the manufacturer.
Went to look at caravans at our local dealer last weekend and they were most unhelpful, only stopping long enough to tell me sales were up 400 % on last year and that they only had about 6 vans left unsold on site (new and used) as opposed to the usual 80 !
if you said you were ready to buy, then you may have more response if you told me you were buying in 4 to 8 weeks i would have told you to come back then.
there is no loyilty in buyers anymore , most people will sell there soul to save a few quid.
take this for example..
you go to the nec, show meet a nice salesman who knows is stuff shows you all the features and benifits ( sells you the van) you take up 2 hours of his time.You then go to the next stand, bump into another salesman who spends 30 seconds beating the price by £50.00 and off you go to sign up with no thought of the poor guy who actually sold the van to you. go figure...
We didn't bother to haggle (maybe we should have??) Saw what we wanted and banged the deposit down over the phone, it was at Highbridge, went yesterday, it was packed, I just know our van would of sold, spose being this years model we knew it would be ok, have to say Chap we delt, Eddie, with was very helpful and trustworthy, we are over the moon!
I didn't let any of the dealers know my timescale for purchasing the new van when I emailed them in the first place, only 2 of them know now as they are the ones who had contacted me back.
Highbridge is one of the dealers who contacted me and were very helpful, we are off to devon on wednesday for 17 days and fully intend to visit highbridge to see what deal they can do for us.
The only concern is that if I have any warranty issues they are 260 miles away!
------------- Trev and Sandy on tour in
2010 Swift Archway, Enduro mover and a baby German Shepherd