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We went to a dealer today to buy a new camping table, as you do you look at the vans in stock!!!

The salesman asked if were interested in anything we said no , but out of interest asked about a trade in figure against another van that we liked. All i can say is that it was a good job we were sitting down as I think I would have fallen down out of shock.

As a rough guide the offer was about 45% of what they would retail it at, I think we will be keeping our van for a while. Good job we like it and tend to keep our vans a long while.

How do some people manage to change thier vans every few years, they must loose an awfull lot of money. I know our van wasan expensive van when new so maybe they depreciate more, but it does seem to be a big margin for the dealer. I would add that our van is in very good order, thank goodness its got to go one for a long time on that basis.

We were shocked last weekend to see a caravan like ours, same age, ( 3years old ) selling for the same price ( £12k ) that we paid for it new, wonder what the trade in value was.

          Jim

about a year ago, a dealer offerd us £2700 for our 01 elddis avante in part ex against a £10k caravan.come August, we sold it privately and got £5400 for it.

Huge difference !!

It's more the balance of difference than trade in price with dealers, I don't care if they make a low offer on my trade as long as they then make a substantial discount on their new price.

It's also how much and how hard you are prepared to haggle, they are never, ever going to make a loss but in my experience their first offers are never their last. If you trade with a dealer you have to factor in their margin, you should make more in a private sale but then have the extra hassle of doing that, but I've no doubt you will/should get a better price.

All that said I would want to get the best van for us then hold on to it for as long as possible, changing every few years will undoubtedly cost you in depreciation big time.

As Phantom says it's the price to change which should be compared between dealers.  We got £8k for our 5 year old Bailey Pageant just before Christmas.  The dealer had sold it within 10 days for £8,995.  We also got a hefty discount on our new van and mover. 

Time before that, we bought from the same dealer, they were £2k better on the change price than the nearest elsewhere, that's on a new van which was £11,500 retail.