When negotiating with dealer for a used car, what do you offer? How much below sticker price on a $30-35K advertised price should I be expecting to get with no trade-in and my own finance already approved in this market?

I offered top of the redbook private sale price as a starting point in two different car yards and didn't get anywhere.

2007 SV6 - advertised $33K - good KMs, a few scratches. Small bit of damage on the bodykit near the front whell, otherwise bog standard. Barely tinted.

Rebook says:
Private Price Guide $26,900 - $29,500
Trade In Price Guide $22,200 - $24,800

I offered $27K and he called back up today to say I should come back in for a good price.

2006/November SV6. advertised $32K. average KMs, but with leather interior. Immaculate paintwork and no issues inside. I like this one a lot

Redbook says:
Private Price Guide $23,200 - $25,700
Trade In Price Guide $18,800 - $21,300

I offered $25 and got no where.

How much should I be paying for either of these vehicles? It isn't a scarce vehicle, pretty much every used holden dealer has at least one.

I hate used car dealers so much. When I was looking for one I asked him what his best cash price would be, he told me he couldn't tell me until after I'd signed the contract. I called him on his bulls*** & he said he couldn't ring HQ to negotiate until after I'd agreed to buy it, needless to say I didn't buy the car from them.

Your post says private price guide, which I assume is a private seller who owns the car and not a dealer of any kind, you always pay more when buying from dealers.

Yeah I'm surprised that they didnt take a nibble at what you were offering, considering the car market is in the s***.

I'd still stand your ground, considering the current economic conditions. Don't give into these c***s.

That's because it's not in the s***! People think it's in the s***, believe me I can tell, the dealers aren't doing it hard at the moment (I work for carsales - who own RedBook). But they're certainly doing their best to tell people they are. The figures don't support it no matter how you look at them. New cars are down a bit though.

bounce around to a couple of dealers and spin a story that the other guys can get you one for x low amount, can they match it? OR threaten to go for a ford

When buying a car, redbook isn't very helpful - it's only good for selling prices. The dealer would have paid around the trade-in price, fix up jobs, cleaning, advertising, etc so I'd guess that would be another 1-1.5k on top of the trade in. Then he needs a profit too.

For a 2007 SV6 I'd be paying around $30k.

OR (more importantly) if you want an '06 Black VE SS-V ... then PM me, I'll even drive up to Sydney to drop it off.

A Commode? Why not buy one from the auctions at a much lower price?

some car dealers must be in the s*** coz there is a heap of closed down car yards up the north coast of brisbane... caloundra to maroochydore.

a commondore?


:(

x2 for auctions. best place for used cars imo.

No, best place for used cars is QGL .. ie PMs .. ie me

yeh don't cave natslovr - you definitely shouldn't be paying the top end of redbook private sale figures

the price negotiation process is a game - the best thing you can do is go in and see them in person if you want the best price. they want you in their chair playing their game with you before you can really get very far with them on price

2007 SV6 - advertised $33K - good KMs, a few scratches. Small bit of damage on the bodykit near the front whell, otherwise bog standard. Barely tinted.

33k for that? get f***ed.

take a large amount of cash in with you and flash it to the dealer, if they don't bite make some noise and leave - then go to any other of the eleventy million other used car dealers and do the same, you'll pick something up.

f*** them and their stupid inflated prices. you could prolly could do better buying brand new atm.

sif not buy privately.

Was reading of some car yard that was giving away a 2nd used car with every new car sold. New car sales are really bad ATM have you considered a newby ?

sif not buy privately.

eightyeight is a smart man - should listen to him nats..

bounce around to a couple of dealers and spin a story that the other guys can get you one for x low amount, can they match it? OR threaten to go for a ford

you might want to keep it believable.

nobody is going to believe that anyone with half a clue would buy a ford.

no offence but do you really need a beefed up commodore?

we are entering tough times you gotta weigh up your needs vs your wants.

If I were you I'd be getting a mid sized japanese 4 banger.

any suggestions/websites for auctions people can suggest?

im going to be in the market for a car soon.. looking for a 80 series landcruiser

auctions are f***ing over-rated.. you're better off shopping priveatly and picking up something there. Cars at auctions 80% of time go for what you can pick them up for at carsales.. its f***ed...

Yeah, don't cave in. Just give him your number and say $25k is all I have so if you haven't moved it in a couple of weeks give me a call.

He'll call you within a day I reckon.

totally your market, I would low ball them+ if i already had finance approved
no one is buying at the moment so they can't be justifying $5000+ on top of the redbook value

keep shopping if they wont come down a whole lot on those prices

im going to be in the market for a car soon.. looking for a 80 series landcruiser

http://www.manheimfowles.com.au/

URL applies to OP also

last edited by tequila at 21:29:00 15/Feb/09

They shouldn't be asking what they are but you also have to think, redbook is private selling price guide and these are dealers, offering warranty etc not 'buying as is'.

the same card yards that also buy these cars for well below the redbook value themselves because lots of people trade them in and just want them "gone" for often 3-5k below redbook value .. in a recession

Hey we put a recession in your car so you can be sad while you drive around knowing you paid way too much for this POS

action example 2008 model V6 auto

car dealers love quoting redbook to you when you're doing a trade so there's no reason you can't use it as a reference yourself

car dealers love quoting redbook to you when you're doing a trade so there's no reason you can't use it as a reference yourself

They sure do, in fact the guy I was talking with at VW just pulled up Redbook and grabbed the trade in value of my car from that while sitting in front of me. Needless to say, haven't bought any new car yet..

Privately & www.stateroads.com.au

I think I will give the dealer a ring back later in the week, see if he's moved the 2006 yet or if my $25k offer seems more appealing a few days later.

I'm also chasing my accountants to find out why they prefer dealers and what extra hassle is involved in picking up a private sale

I'd lose at auction, and not silver/grey/white is pretty much our only requirement, which seems to be the main colours at auction.

natslovr, go though a broker. they know all the tricks, and usually they'll end up saving you money. just tell them what you want and what you're prepared to pay and they'll do it all for you.
ps i'm looking for a new car soon too, and this is what i'm going to do.

its a buyers market. play hard ball. say you have 3 lined up, $27k, take it or leave it. if he doesnt budge, keep looking (pending on your situation)

i got my astra 55ks for $16k. there was another one that was worth $16k. i offered him $15k. he didnt budge so i kept shopping around. in the end i got a better deal.

just say s*** like "ive only been approved for $25k etc." get a few mates to ring them up and offer $22.

I thought I'd update this thread with the news of my car buying, since I have always been uncertain how car price hagling works

I ended up getting a 2007 Honda cr-v luxury with below redbook avg KMs for bottom of redbook private sale price

It was advertised at $33,990. I offered 28 expecting to pay 30, the countered with 31 something. I offered 29 and left making sure they had my number, knew that I was buying this weekend and that I had been looking for a while

They came back with 30. I said nope. They accepted 29. That's bottom of private sale price guide.

I think it helped that it was a inner city 'luxury' car dealer, with mainly bmw, audi and mercs, so they probably didn't want this tieing up floor space.

you sure seem to think redbook is the bible or something

yeah they're nice cars, good buy old chap


queue vtec jokes

Just buy a new one :)

used cars are for losers and poor people :(

rofl crv!! is it for your gf

SV6 to CR-V? Sporty sedan to light 4WD, bit of a change.

News cars are for people who don't understand depreciation.

news.
or new?
back to fifth grade for you :)

id take the cr-v over a conformodore sv6 any day of the week

News cars are for people who don't understand depreciation.

Correct. I'd never put a lot of money into a rapidly depreciating asset, let alone get a loan for it.
This is what financial advisers call 'Bad Debt'.

"light 4wd" ?

you mean soft-wheel-drive, like a forester .. you wouldn't even take them on a fire trail
but its just like having a station wagon that fits more crap in the back

nothing wrong with them

but its just like having a station wagon that fits more crap in the back

Uhh, i think you'll find you can fit more in a falcon station wagon than in a CRV

Sporty sedan

putting a rear wing and some alloys on a commode doesnt make it a "sports" vehicle by an awfully long way. They still handle like a balloon full of porridge and are slow with a noisy, grating engine and transmission

Friend showed me his new car on sat night, he told me he bought a "luxury sports sedan". Thinking of a liberty gt or similar, he shows me... a toyota camry v6 altezza. And he was insisting its a sport car cos it has a leather steering wheel, rear spoiler and 15" alloys.

last edited by Crusher at 14:59:38 23/Feb/09

i think the SV6's with the FE2 suspension handle alright
but i will agree with you that they are gutless until 3500rpm
and have a friggin horrible sounding engine

Ok, reworded for all the haters.

SV6 to CR-V? Conforming sedan with wing with somewhat watered down sporting intentions to general run-about wagon that claims to be 4WD but really not capable when givien the task, bit of a change.

New cars are for people who don't understand depreciation.

I thought I'd update this thread with the news of my car buying, since I have always been uncertain how car price hagling works

sounds like you got the hang of it pretty well =]

Correct. I'd never put a lot of money into a rapidly depreciating asset, let alone get a loan for it.

I dunno, it depends on your situation

This is what financial advisers call 'Bad Debt'.

same again, depends how you do it

Agree with Jim, there are plenty of circumstances where financing a car is better.

My car is financed as it works out far better to put it onto a 5 year balloon based deal than to redraw the money out of my mortgage. The interest saved on the mortgage over the term is much more than the interest on the car.

And compared to buying a new car, running it for 10 years with tyres, batteries, repairs etc, having it devalue, trading it and then buying another one all over again, the amortised cost over the same period is only marginally cheaper than having a car on finance and rolling the finance to a new vehicle every 3 years. Always driving a new car under warranty.

If you can offset the finance cost against a larger interest benefit, why buy with cash?

Leasing a car is a different story to buying one through cash or loan.

Leasing, as you said, does make sense in alot of cases. It still works out more expensive but you have a new car every three years and won't be spending money on repairs etc.

mines financed for tax reasons as I'm technically a 'contractor'

putting a rear wing and some alloys on a commode doesnt make it a "sports" vehicle by an awfully long way. They still handle like a balloon full of porridge and are slow with a noisy, grating engine and transmission

Friend showed me his new car on sat night, he told me he bought a "luxury sports sedan". Thinking of a liberty gt or similar, he shows me... a toyota camry v6 altezza. And he was insisting its a sport car cos it has a leather steering wheel, rear spoiler and 15" alloys.

spot on

actually leasing is not very different to a loan at all, except it may provide you with more flexible options such as salary sacrifice. essentially though, you are borrowing money and paying interest on it like a loan

for just about every type of finance, it depends on your situation as to whether it might make sense or not. I for example completely understand depreciation, but I still buy new cars.

what I also loved about my new ride is the first 10 services are capped at $150 @ Genuine Toyota dealers

Leasing, as you said, does make sense in alot of cases.

My car is not leased, its under a personal loan with 30% residual. Leasing was waaaaaay more expensive than the way I structured my loan.

I have the loan on a 5 year term to reduce payments to as low as possible but will roll the loan to a new car at 3 years, while the trade value is still a lot higher than the residual.

It works well so long as you keep your cars in the same price bracket with a similar trade value... when you pay out current car, you are re-financing the same amount each time so your cost of ownership can be represented by a monthly loan cost.

For example, car worth $40k. I trade a car worth $10k so I finance $30k. This is about $420 per month, so over a 10 year period thats $50k to drive 3 and a bit new cars for the term.

Contrast this to buying a new car every say, 5 years. Buy car for $40k in cash with the same $10k trade, trade new car for $15k after 5 years. You then save another $25k and buy another car for $40k. Over 10 years, you have paid out $65k in cash for 2 vehicles and at the end of term have a car worth $15k... so net dollar cost less the value of the trade ($10k) at start of the exercise is $40k.

So its cost you $1000 a year extra to finance vs buy with cash. If you do the average of 20,000km year, when you take into account the cost of tyres, repairs eg timing belt, other stuff, the margin drops again.

The costs arent as big as you would think, especially if you can then also take the opportunity cost of pulling money out of a mortgage and the money that can be saved by leaving your car cash in the offset account.

mines financed for tax reasons as I'm technically a 'contractor'

A word of warning teq! The technically a contractor could be a problem for tax stuff.

I don't know about your personal situation, but if you are working like an employee but contractng in technicality your entity arrangements may be void for tax purposes, and the tax man has a habit of chasing down people who are really employees but behave like sole traders or companies.

Check out the alienation of personal services income stuff done by the tax man. If you have a single (or greater than 80% revenue) client and you don't work for a result (hourly rate rather han job based), hire people or maintain your own office separate from your home you may be boned.

You might have already considered this, but the penalties can be harsh not to mention a few years down the track having to payback thousands of dollars in tax.

nah I'm actually a contractor, it's just that I have a desk & pc etc
Telstra doesn't hire full time staff until they've worked as a contract for at least 12 months (normally)

we are contracted to telstra via an agency, this agency gives you the option to down your own taxes or they do them for you, for a small fee of course

doing your own taxes = contract, them doing them = you are PAYG

Especially if you are hired by a labour recruitment agency, you are working as an employee under the APSI rules.

Basically, if you couldn't normally claim stuff as an employee then you won't be able to claim it while contracting. No idea whether your car lease would normally be claimable, but I expect not unless you do heaps of driving and not just to and from work?

Have you run any tax-based decisions run by an accountant and discussed APSI?

For example, car worth $40k. I trade a car worth $10k so I finance $30k. This is about $420 per month, so over a 10 year period thats $50k to drive 3 and a bit new cars for the term.

So is what you're saying that after 3 years you trade the car back in to pay out the current loan and then do the same?

So you buy $40k less $10k for current car wholly owned equals $30k financed. After 3 years the cars value should equal the loan value of say $20k.

But then wouldn't you have to borrow $40k for the second car as you don't have a wholly owned car to trade in anymore (the car you did have was just used to pay out the remainder of the 5 year loan).

I'm confused :(

Have you run any tax-based decisions run by an accountant and discussed APSI?

nah this is the first year i've done it, i'm going to leave it till June-ish

i wish PAYG was optional for full time employees.. i could make good use of my tax dollars in the 12mths before i'd have to pay :) you're lucky teq!

i guess the ATO would have a lot of retards unable to pay come june if they did allow that tho :P

also leasing makes alot of sense if ur in the top couple brackets. if you add up fuel, service, depreciation etc you come out on top with a lease + you have the added knowledge of knowing the exact price you're out for each month. of course this is only true if you compare it to buying a new car obviously.

Probably a bad example to use trades as it skews the figures a bit. I will do it again based on 100% finance over 5 years with 30% balloon

Year 1
- Purchase car $40k, with $40k financed.
- Payment $650 per month, $7800 per annum, $23,400 over 3 years
- Balloon is $12,000 but is not relevant since we never finish the term

Year 3
- Loan balance: $24,000
- Car Value: $24,000 (essential to get a car that doesnt devalue like crazy or this method becomes very ineffectual, have allowed 60% of initial. you need to ensure that the cars value at change up time is greater than or equal to the finance balance)

New Car = loan balance payout $24000 - $24000 trade value + car cost = $40k trade up cost which gets re-financed and you continue on



So looking at the comparitive figures. Consider that the same car at 5 years will be worth about 30% of intial value as trade, so $12,000 or so

Cost to own financed car over 10 years
= $7800 x 10
= $78,000

Cost to own cash car over 10 years, buying new 2 new at 5 year intervals
= $40000 for car 1
+ $40000 for car 2
- $12000 for car 1 trade
- $12000 for car 2 value at end of term to renew to car 3
= $56,000

So about $22k over 10 years difference, or $2200 per annum. Take some of this out for repairs in years 4 and 5 such as timing belt, tyres, major services at higher km etc, and the difference might be $2000 or $1800 per annum.


So in a straight shootout, financed is a bit more expensive but has the benefits of new or almost new car under warranty all the time. And with cars becoming more advanced all the time, I would shudder to own many new cars without manufacturer warranty coverage.


Now, where this gets interesting is when you have another interest cost you can offset against. In particular, a home loan where you would have to draw money from your offset account which would increase the interest paid on the property. This is not a "in your wallet" amount but it is a financial cost all the same.

home loan @ 7%, interest per annum on $40k in cash is about $3600 per annum in interest savings that this cash is providing you by having it in there. Pull this money out of your offset, and the net cost of buying with cash is the same if not more expensive than financing the car.




last edited by Crusher at 19:48:12 23/Feb/09

Yes, I appreciate the information the redbook provides. I'm only in the car market every 2 years or so, and i'm not aware of the price of cars except at that time. Then my experience with it is usually just to get shafted. Redbook reduces that shafting for me.

The car is for my mrs and two babies. She likes it as it has all the little gadgets and stuff in the front, and she sits high and has much better visibility than in the mazda 6, which had some blind spots. She has said that she'll probably be able to park it just as well too, which means only having to get body work done once a year.

The optional fake-floor in the boot is good too. Creates a half-way shelf, which will hopefully sit above the pram. It's nice having an MP3 disc changer. I think the leather is better than what was in the mazda too.

It's a lot less powerful than the sv6, and not permanent awd like the Liberty STI, but she's being sensible and can flog my ute when she wants to hoon.

Cheers crusher, makes a bit more sense now.

Which ever way, still costs lots :(

I got the s***s with my Honda Prelude tonite.. I'm just gonna buy another bike..

the Mrs won't like it much, but I've had a f***ing gutfull of paying too much for fuel, and the bulls*** you go through with mechanics who really have no idea about the computer systems in modern cars.


I'll go back to a car when it's free (ie generated power @ home) fuel. We're living in the information age - not the industrial age ffs. why should I pay a mechanic to fix an elctrical/computer problem he has nfi about :/

your problem is that it's FWD

(essential to get a car that doesnt devalue like crazy or this method becomes very ineffectual, have allowed 60% of initial. you need to ensure that the cars value at change up time is greater than or equal to the finance balance)

This is a big one... So what car do you have, or have you been buying?

Honda CRV is a good choice nats.

Very reliable and economical car.

I think you'll find that if you have to sell it in a few yrs time that it will have held it's value alot better than a Commodore.

probably honda accords or subaru liberties are good choice wrt depreciation and at around the $40k mark.

what about a kia serento? 4x4, with leather and all the options? i got one for sale! $14,400! let me know

This is a big one... So what car do you have, or have you been buying?

cars that arent fleet/common as all hell. You wouldnt buy a falcon or commodore or camry this way.

Quality cars from japan and europe tend to devalue less than a locally made car or something korean etc. Subaru, Honda, VW etc, all hold their value pretty well. Except for Audi's, they devalue faster than lehman brothers stock

hiluxs' keep their value well