Went to the dealer where I have my Octavia serviced looking at trading it in for Fabia SE 1.6TDi CR estate. 90 or 105 in Corrida Red. I test drove a 75 and was nice apart from having no guts as expected.

Now my Octavia Ambiente is 2005 1.9 TDi PD 54 plate with FSH and 68k. Has a few dings from shopping trolleys etc but nothing major. The salemans admitted that its tight as a drum.

Then he went and offered me £3250 for it!!

Now is that a crap offer? I think it is. It appears because that the dealer is knocking off 17.5% they are reducing the trade in by a corresponding amount if not more!!

Now what do you guys think?? Im letting the rep sweat as he gagging for a deal!!

Now looking at other dealers.

Regards

Grahame

Edited 13 July, 201015 yr by threadbear

Went to the dealer where I have my Octavia serviced looking at trading it in for Fabia SE 1.6TDi CR estate. 90 or 105 in Corrida Red. I test drove a 75 and was nice apart from having no guts as expected.

Now my Octavia Ambiente is 2005 1.9 TDi PD 54 plate with FSH and 68k. Has a few dings from shopping trolleys etc but nothing major. The salemans admitted that its tight as a drum.

Then he went and offered me £3250 for it!!

Now is that a crap offer? I think it is. It appears because that the dealer is knocking off 17.5% they are reducing the trade in by a corresponding amount if not more!!

Now what do you guys think?? Im letting the rep sweat as he gagging for a deal!!

Now looking at other dealers.

Regards

Grahame

at part exchange its worth £4800

We got the VAT knocked off the Fabia we just bought.

Which dealer did you use?

I see you are in Kent so may be able to make a suggestion.

Which dealer did you use?

I see you are in Kent so may be able to make a suggestion.

I visited Caffyns in Ashford.

Grahame

I thought as much. From bitter expereince I avoid Caffyns (any branch) like the plague

I've sent you an email with a suggestion.

Best of luck with it. There are some good Skoda dealers out there who will help given they have got out of bed the right side but the problem is finding one!

good luck fella, dont get ripped off

The trade in price doesn't really matter in my opinion. The only thing that counts is the "bottom line".

I use Le Car Centre in Finchley Central.

Our trade-in was done on the book price at time we take delivery of new Fabia (we are not trading in a Skoda so I suspect our trade-in will be straight off to auction nad not kept by the dealer to sell).

If you have been offered under Glass/Capp book price then that just isn't sport.

Then he went and offered me £3250 for it!!

Now is that a crap offer?

During the VAT free deal, an established local dealer offered me £2,750 for my Mk1 2.0i when the trade-in was £3,275. He gave two reasons: 1) the dealer had to finance the VAT-free deal, 2) by the time the new car was delivered, the trade-in value would have dropped. Of course, he would have had to finance the VAT-free deal without a trade-in, and the depreciation he quoted was comparable to a new car in its first year. On the plus side, it made me re-assess my desire to change my car and put me off wasting money on a new one.

The dealers are having to fund more than half the Vat free offer but are being given dealer bonuses on top to help them shift stock.. as always what gives with one hand is taken away with the other, its how it works unfortunately. As someone above said its the bottom line that counts.

Before I recently bought I tried a number of other brand dealers, at least 2 of whom admitted to being desperate to close a deal, but having promised to find me a car at the right price to close the deal, they never even bothered to ring back. Oh yes the Nissan bloke did about 8 weeks later to ask if I still wanted to buy a car........cheeky git.... So whatever you do dont rely on THEM wanting to do any sort of a deal.....

At least with Skoda they were upfront and honest about everything.

i think the 'vat free' offer is a bit of a con for people who px. I went to my local dealer to see how much I would get trade in for my 18 month old pre fl fabia px for a fl fabia.

Two options:

1) good trade in price but pay full rrp price (no vat off)

2) rubbish trade in and get vat offer

Either way, the difference to pay is the same.

Thanks for all the replies and opinions. I payed £3.50 for an online Glasses valuation for my Octavia and then went to Adamsons in Walmer today.

Dave, the salesman went round the car, "kicked the tyres" started it up, revved it a bit, asked if it had been a taxi? I said "no!" Said it had full history and cambelt at 50K plus new turbo and DMF.

He looked it up and said I give you "4grand"!! Which according to my Glasses print out is "above average" but below "excellent". So I said thanks very much!

Tomorrow ordering my Fabia SE CR 1.6TDi 105bhp estate in Corrida Red. Got to wait 10 weeks for it!! But not in hurry.

So you can get a reasonable deal on a VAT free trade in!

Grahame

So you can get a reasonable deal on a VAT free trade in!

i wish i was closer to the dealer you are buying from

Glad to hear you got the deal you wanted !!

You can indeed get a good p/ex with the VAT deal if you go to a sensible dealer. Ordered a Fabia for the wife on Monday - got book p/ex for a 2000 Fabia 1.4 16V + the VAT free deal plus some other minor bits and pieces from my dealer in Kent. Could have got more selling privately but I don't need the bother.

I think another issue is that some have an inflated view of what their trade in is really worth. The What Car valuations for example can sometimes be highly optimistic in my opinion.

Edited 14 July, 201015 yr by Minimoke

I got a good trade-in on my Coupe for mine. They offered £250 more than I thought they would come up with. £8k trade-in for 3 year old Hyundai Coupe.

So, yes, good deals are still there even with the VAT free offer. Depends on your dealer.

Agree with that, I just chopped in my Fabia sport for a new Octavia vRS, and got 8k, when the ford dealer offered me £6.3k and the glass guide gave £7k

I think another issue is that some have an inflated view of what their trade in is really worth.

Spot on. You should see the thread on the MKI forum then, where people reckon their MKI VRS SE is worth over 10 grand at 3 yrs old.

I think the reason that Adamsons in Walmer gave me a better price is that he will sell the car on themselves going by the stock on the forecourt. Also I think he knows a good honest motor when he sees one!

Whereas other dealers who prefer newer cars have to pass the older trade-ins onto second hand dealers outside the franchised network. Therefore they need to make a few quid before selling it on!!

No good for the seller trading in however!

Regards

Grahame

I've got a Fabia 1.6 tdi SE on order from Caffyns in Ashford. Got the VAT free offer. Trade in was a little lower than I wanted but only by £250 so not worrying (have to wait 5 weeks for 1st september delivery). Test drove an old greenline sounded like a bag of spanners with 12,000 odd miles on the clock. List price of £9995 so for just over £500 more you can have a brand spankers one (not greenline tho as that now only comes in an estate with the 1.2tdi engine) with no rattles, chips, dents or ill matching tyres. Managed to get me mats thrown in too. Poor Skoda are only making £400 on the whole sale! Cant wait to get it. Have just looked at the book price for my current 19.tdi ambiente and it comes in at smack on what they offered me!

Let's be clear about this VAT "offer". When the government scrappage scheme was introduced on 18 May 2009, a load of car manufacturers saw the chance to raise prices (naturally they raised prices a bit before in order to avoid being seen as too money-grubbing). In the last 16 months or so UK retail car prices have risen on average by nearly 10% - including Skoda's. Some Ford Fiesta prices climbed by almost 20% at one point, wiping out any scrappage incentive.

The cheapest Fabia S 1.2 six valver is currently £8,039.47p (from £9,330) when you strip out the VAT. That's roughly about the price of the base Fabia Mk2 when it came out in 2007.

Of course, if you strip out the cost of inflation, the offer looks slightly better. But it's not the bargain it sounds. It will be interesting to see if Skoda maintains this "offer" when VAT rises in January. They might. But be on your guard for a modest price rise announcement in December...

Edited 15 August, 201015 yr by Adrianh1