I had my octy in for a cambelt change today and took the opportunity to ask about swapping my 13 year old Mazda 323 (worth about £750) for a brand new Fabia 1.9 TDi Sport.

After quoting the buyacar.co.uk price of £11500 for the car the salesman was able to offer a best price of £11795. Apparently there are hidden negatives to buyacar?

Then I brought in the scheme. I said "Well lets use the CFS scheme. You say that you're selling it to me for £12795. That way I give you £10795. The government gives you £1k to make it up to our agreed price and when the government checks the books you've fulfilled your part of the bargain."

As I suspected it couldn't be done. They couldn't do both their offer as well as the governments. It was one or the other. It was described as them buying a car for £10k and selling it for £9k with the promise of the government paying them back at some point in the future. I think they weren't willing to commit to anything or take any risk with it at this point in time.

Role on the release of the government small print!!!!

Anybody had any other experiences of this yet?

Generally when you use buyacar, broadspeed, drivethedeal etc etc you pay a fee to that website and they then pass you on to the dealer who has offered that price. So if youre getting within a few £100 of the broker price from the dealer youre doing well as youre technically no worse off than if you went through the broker and paid the fee.

And this scrappage scheme is a waste of time, discounts are off RRP, not dealers usual 'baseline' price. People will just think they are getting a good deal, instead of actually getting one. A few blogs ive read over the last few days shows people have been able to get better discounts on cars without the scrappage supplement.

It is a shame that its not a genuine £2k allowance. I do think you will be able to achieve £1k off of the baseline prices that were achievable, but the other grand is coming from manufacturers pockets...

"Generally when you use buyacar, broadspeed, drivethedeal etc etc you pay a fee to that website and they then pass you on to the dealer who has offered that price. So if youre getting within a few £100 of the broker price from the dealer youre doing well as youre technically no worse off than if you went through the broker and paid the fee."

Pretty sure no fee is paid to Dive the Deal they will get commision from the dealer.

I was waiting for the caveats to start rearing their head:thumbdwn: