I no it's a stupid question to ask, but are there any honest car salesman out there... why I ask is because while i was at a skoda dealership & waiting i thought i would ask how much my car was worth of i were to trade it in (fab vrs se 26k)immaculate, not a mark on it, full dealership service history, anyhow, days before, i found a car the same,but with 36k selling from evens halshaw on pistonheads site selling for £8,250, so was prepared to take 6k minimum

Well, you can imagine what i said when i was offered £5,300 :'(he stating that was a good price..... come on people, i know we all have to make a living, but that works out tha they would make nearly 3k on mine as it only needs a quick wash a hoover out & would be ready for the forecourt.

when i said could they budge on price for the car i had in sight from the forecourt he said no.... do they really think for one minute i would jump for joy and say ok, thats fine......

honestly tho, if there is an honest salesman out there, what is the crack??

Try another dealer!

dealer trade-ins are always loads less than the value the car would make selling privately.

take some money off your sell price for the convenience of simply given it to a dealer when you pick up your new car, also the dealers have to make some money out of the car....

you get nothing for nothing in this world!

My trade in recently was £1500 book, I got £1000 but they fiddled the books to look like £750 so they could show a profit on it at auction. I could only get them to move £550 on the Roomster I was buying though, so I talked them into as many extras as possible and then asked for a full tank. Every little helps!

Edited 11 January, 201214 yr by bryanb

Well who will buy a mark one vrs for 8k? Most I'd expect is around 7-7.5k MAX! If your serious about selling and it is in mint condition sell it private! 26k on clock is low- price it well and it'll be gone in no time!

Main dealers are never going to offer you decent trade in prices unfortunately :(

You should easily get £1000 or more on top of the £5,300 offered if you sell privately.

Some dealers want to do business, some don't.

They seem to work on different ideas, high sales at smaller profit margin or less sales and take the P to earn the same.

As said, try another dealer if you don't want the hassle of selling it privately. I doubt any of them will offer you £6000 or more though as they have to pay for it, hold it in stock until sold, sell for a profit, cover it against problems for three months after it's been sold and also pay all the overheads of running a dealership which is quite often more than people expect.

It's call the 'Free Market Economy' in this country, you shop around and compare deals, so no, it's not really a rip off by the mentioned dealer. As others say sell privately and that puts you in a better bargaining position when you find your next car.

I like to think that I'm an honest car salesman, I try to do my best for the company I work for, the customers and for myself but sometimes trying to keep everyone happy is hard. I'm not saying that you were offered a good price for your car but the price of used second hand vRS SE's do seem to be quite high. In September last year the mrs sold her SE for £5500 as a part ex, 35k with two owners. I don't think I've ever sold a car to anyone who didn't want more for their car than they got.

Oh and you dont know how long Evans have had that fabia for sale for. Just cos they have got it advertised for that price, doesn't mean that's what they are selling for. They could have had it there for months and not sold it cos it's too dear.

The value of anything is the price agreed between a willing buyer and a willing seller. In a free country the salesman can offer you anything he likes and the only way you are ripped off is if you a daft enough to accept a price that is below what you are willing to sell at.

As said before try another dealer. The first one I went to wanted to charge top whack for my new Furby and gave me a stupidly low trade in offer on my old one. Went to a different dealer and without mentioning the other deal he gave me a cheaper price on the new one and another £800 on the other trade in price. Strangely I went with him.

I like to think that I'm an honest car salesman, I try to do my best for the company I work for, the customers and for myself but sometimes trying to keep everyone happy is hard. I'm not saying that you were offered a good price for your car but the price of used second hand vRS SE's do seem to be quite high. In September last year the mrs sold her SE for £5500 as a part ex, 35k with two owners. I don't think I've ever sold a car to anyone who didn't want more for their car than they got.

In all fairness to the salesman, he did show me the book that showed the book price as £4925, then offered me another £4oo cos of milage, but when i mentioned that they say low milage dealer service history, immaculate condition all add up to getting the best price means jack **** really, when i got back home, went on parkers guide who's guide was 1k MORE than the dealer offer, then to add insult to injury, we buy any car company offered me the same as parker did, so again, still think dealer was being a skin flint, fairs fair, but they wouldn't budge at all, anyhow, have decided to keep, shame really, somebody could have had the fun i have had

£8,250 sounds totally bonkers though. No way is any SE actually worth that, at least not without a couple of gold bars tucked away in the spare wheel well.

In all fairness to the salesman, he did show me the book that showed the book price as £4925, then offered me another £4oo cos of milage, but when i mentioned that they say low milage dealer service history, immaculate condition all add up to getting the best price means jack **** really, when i got back home, went on parkers guide who's guide was 1k MORE than the dealer offer, then to add insult to injury, we buy any car company offered me the same as parker did, so again, still think dealer was being a skin flint, fairs fair, but they wouldn't budge at all, anyhow, have decided to keep, shame really, somebody could have had the fun i have had

To be fair to the dealer, there ain't a car garage anywhere that ive come across yet that uses parkers guide to value cars. It's just a free one for the general public to use. We all uses Glass's guide and CAP for our valuations. And with we buy any car, wernt they in the news recently for when you take your car there, they knock the price down by about 20% anyway.

In all fairness to the salesman, he did show me the book that showed the book price as £4925, then offered me another £4oo cos of milage, but when i mentioned that they say low milage dealer service history, immaculate condition all add up to getting the best price means jack **** really, when i got back home, went on parkers guide who's guide was 1k MORE than the dealer offer, then to add insult to injury, we buy any car company offered me the same as parker did, so again, still think dealer was being a skin flint, fairs fair, but they wouldn't budge at all, anyhow, have decided to keep, shame really, somebody could have had the fun i have had

Glass's guide is spot on at £4925 for a 07 VRS...if thats what yours is.

Google Network Q car valuer for a free link.

£8,250 sounds totally bonkers though. No way is any SE actually worth that, at least not without a couple of gold bars tucked away in the spare wheel well.

True, bare in mind I paid £8000 a year ago for an 09 plate with 20,000 miles.

Probably the last ever registered mkI and it was on Brisky for sale and nobody else was interested last January. :wonder:

If i think a car salesman starts to try and get one over me i just walk out and go elsewhere.I always do my home work and any cosmetic damage on the car fixed and a full professional valet before i go to a dealership.Thats what they like to do when they value your car,try and find any sort of damage anywhere.But there is good car salesmen out there...

It's not his job to give you a good deal, it's his job to try to get you to accept the deal that benefits the company the most.

Also it all depends what your are trading in against. You'll get more for a trade in against a car he's got a lot of margin on.

Most salesmen are ok to be honest if you go in with your eyes open. The younger newer guys in the high turnover dealerships (the Arnold Clarks of the world) are the ones that will tend to bend the truth and try all the tricks from the selling for dummies book and essentially **** you off.

Most salesmen are ok to be honest if you go in with your eyes open. The younger newer guys in the high turnover dealerships (the Arnold Clarks of the world) are the ones that will tend to bend the truth and try all the tricks from the selling for dummies book and essentially **** you off.

That's a fair point right enough. I've been away on enough training courses to know the type you mean.

happens all the time, shop around..

I was looking to but a new vRS, and the local skoda dealer offered me £1000 below book trade in price for my fiat! I complained of course, that I should at least least get book trade-in price (way lower than forecort or private sale price) but they stuck to "its only a guide" ... pmsl... so I walked away... its up to them, they lost a sale that week. :wonder:

following week I found a new vRS in stock at a ford dealer.. I went to negotioate, it was a smaller company/showroom, and they took my fiat for a good 10 minute test drive, then started on about the same note as the skoda garage.. I kept pushing, saying I wanted to sign the paperwork today, and buy the vRS if they would only give me decent moey on the fiat (they refused to budge on the vRS, which was undertandable, as stock ones were like rocking horse **** at the time..) I eventually got the, up to trade price, and the deal was done...

its difficult out there, the ford garage simply wouldn give me the price I wanted (like the skoda garage) what they had actually done, (and I watched them as we negotiated) was get on the phone to other dealers, and try to sell the fiat to them direct, they found a dealer that would give the price I wanted, and so the deal was done, i know for sure that the ford garage didn't take it, I heard them on the phone to another motor trader who gave the money for it... but they made the extra effor to get me the money I wanted, which is why they sold a car that day..

hard world at the moment (unless you work for rolsroyce)

When I was looking a few months back I had a few sales guy tell me straight out they didn't want my car because it was a big petrol and they didn't think it would shift fast enough, hence the crap offer. I've no issues with that because it's the truth and I'm more likely to visit those guys again in the future because they played straight. No sale then but no bridges burned either.

happens all the time, shop around..

I was looking to but a new vRS, and the local skoda dealer offered me £1000 below book trade in price for my fiat! I complained of course, that I should at least least get book trade-in price (way lower than forecort or private sale price) but they stuck to "its only a guide" ... pmsl... so I walked away... its up to them, they lost a sale that week. :wonder:

following week I found a new vRS in stock at a ford dealer.. I went to negotioate, it was a smaller company/showroom, and they took my fiat for a good 10 minute test drive, then started on about the same note as the skoda garage.. I kept pushing, saying I wanted to sign the paperwork today, and buy the vRS if they would only give me decent moey on the fiat (they refused to budge on the vRS, which was undertandable, as stock ones were like rocking horse **** at the time..) I eventually got the, up to trade price, and the deal was done...

its difficult out there, the ford garage simply wouldn give me the price I wanted (like the skoda garage) what they had actually done, (and I watched them as we negotiated) was get on the phone to other dealers, and try to sell the fiat to them direct, they found a dealer that would give the price I wanted, and so the deal was done, i know for sure that the ford garage didn't take it, I heard them on the phone to another motor trader who gave the money for it... but they made the extra effor to get me the money I wanted, which is why they sold a car that day..

hard world at the moment (unless you work for rolsroyce)

As said b4, like you, it's bloody annoying, yes, they lost a deal, and tbh, can't be ass** to go elsewhere to be given probably a lower price..... funny tho, if it was my car for sale on their forecourt, they would be harping on about.. it's only one owner from new, it's only done 26k, full service history, drives like a dream, look at all the extra's you get over the basic model, etc etc etc, yet cos i want to trade it in, all this accounts for nowt..

Ha... ha... ha...

I doubt the **** who sold me my Skoda would come under the moniker of 'honest'.

Assured me the car was in perfect working order. Since November I've had to fix the ignition switch, headlights, duff stereo and the standard coolant temp sensor problem. Wouldn't answer my calls or messages when questioned.

Ah well... I got more for my car than I should have. I hope the clutch goes before he sells it (it's still for sale and the clutch was slipping badly). So I guess I'm as bad as him!

Dealers will try it on, it makes sense the more they get on the car the bigger their commission.

I looked at a fiat 500 twinair to replace my fabia vrs back in September. They offered me £1200 for my fabia with 104k on the clock, with a max of £1800 if I was to do a deal straight away subject to full mechinical testing.

I got up and walked out...............

Ah well... I got more for my car than I should have. I hope the clutch goes before he sells it (it's still for sale and the clutch was slipping badly). So I guess I'm as bad as him!

That's a point. People go on about car salesman being dishonest but how many of us have traded a car in as there is a problem with it, and told the dealership??