A service and a cheapo valet....

 

In your mind a service is probably a 2 pound oil filter and 10 pounds worth of cheap 'oil'. The car will get a full service, MOT, tyres, brakes, fluids and any other repairs it needs to meet used car specs of a dealer. Fair enough some cars don't need much and make good money. I see a lot of cars go out at a loss because of poor checks prior to trade in. Lets also not forget that the salesman gets commission on that. Just because the car was bought in at lets say 5,000 and was sold for 7,000 does not mean the dealer are greedy and have made 2 grand.

I havnt but don't think it'll be cheap. Still, while people carry on believing you get superior service and continue to buy cars off them maximum profit margins will happen. I wouldn't use my main dealer if it was the last garage on the earth!!

I'm not sure the profit margins are great, that was my point - there's a lot of expense in running that sort of dealership so the margins have to be higher... Doesn't mean net profit is greater though.

Whether they are worthwhile or have their place... I dunno. If I was buying a 5 year old car like the OP was talking about I wouldn't bother. But if I wanted a 1 year old car, I probably would. A lot of the service offerings are nice to have but it's mainly that finding a good car at sub 3 years old outside of the main dealers isn't easy.

My last car, a peugeot 508 was bough at a main dealer at 9 months old. Bought it on PCP at 14k with a 2k deposit and had it for 18 months and a LOT of miles. They collected the car when it needed servicing, dealt with warranty issues and recalls without any hassle and provided courtesy cars and a nice lounge with free coffee if ever I had to wait. The latter wouldnt be a deciding factor but it's little things like that which make the experience a lot better - for the miles I was doing at the time an effortless ownership experience was exactly what I needed.

When my circumstances changed I took it back to them. WBAC we're offering 10k minus the expected haggling and trade in "value" was about 11,500. They bought it back from me for 10,500 which cleared the finance (thanks to a good deal on the APR) and have me a cheque for 3k which paid for my VRS. They had the car on the forecourt for 12k and I could see from photos they had sorted the small scuff on the bumper and put 2 new tyres on the front (despite having 4-5mm of tread)... Even at trade price they probably spent £300 on it (tyres on that thing were EXPENSIVE). By the time the buyer knocks a few hundred quid off, they probably stand to see a grand of gross profit out of it. Given the cost of staff and premesis etc, I think that's entirely fair... And whoever buys it will have the warranty from an approved used car and the extra value of the main dealer service stamps. (Financial value)

I wouldn't take my 06 vrs to a main dealer and I wouldn't buy a 10 reg car from one..... But they do serve a purpose - if Im in a position of having to do 30k miles a year and need a hassle free way of running a car I'll probably be straight down my local main dealers (probably skoda lol)

To answer the OPs question, the superb is a superb car (I see what they did there) but you have to ask what you're trying to accomplish by changing. It's a lot more refined and has as much space as my house, but do you need either of those things?

If you do then it's a great choice of car, but as I eluded to above - main dealers don't want 5 year old cars, they want 1-2 year old ones. Even if you've seen 10 reg cars on their forecourt before,these were probably models and specs which were very easy to shift. Despite being a lovely sounding car, it would take them an age to sell so they'd probably send it straight to auction so what you're being offered is auction value minus a bit of time/hassle/profit money.

If you do want to change then there's 2 ways to do it

1 - advertise privately. It seems intuitive that people spending 8-10k on a car wouldn't use a private sale but there are plenty people out there spending cash (or with a bank loan) who want to avoid dealer markup. Walk into the main dealer with cash and beat them down on price until they're begging you to leave,

2 - find a superb at a non franchise dealer. Car supermarkets and the like, the sort of place that have more 5 year old cars in stock than 1 year old ones. These places will probably have the superb for a bit less money and would actually put yours on their forecourt, so you'd get a good trade in.

If you're not in a rush and fancy a gamble, punt 100 quid into advertising it speculatively - get photos now you cleaned it and see what happens. You have no obligation to sell it so put it on at a slightly cheeky price. See what happens - you might get no interest and be down £100, or you might get someone wanting to buy it for more than you expected.

If you're in a rush and really fancy a change then go for option 2, just try and find one that's been stamped by main dealers for servicing - despite not being a requirement for warranty validity any more, or actually mattering on a technical level, it does have a bearing on a cars value for the first few years

Edited 4 July, 201510 yr by iaind1

A service and a cheapo valet....

In your mind a service is probably a 2 pound oil filter and 10 pounds worth of cheap 'oil'. The car will get a full service, MOT, tyres, brakes, fluids and any other repairs it needs to meet used car specs of a dealer. Fair enough some cars don't need much and make good money. I see a lot of cars go out at a loss because of poor checks prior to trade in. Lets also not forget that the salesman gets commission on that. Just because the car was bought in at lets say 5,000 and was sold for 7,000 does not mean the dealer are greedy and have made 2 grand.

In my mind? An oil filter for 2 pound and cheapo oil? And in your mind how much do you think it costs? What an awful disrepectful comment. For your info i only ever use vag filters and oil on my cars if you took the time to check my Briskoda history you would know that. Do some checking before posting that sort of comment.

A service and a cheapo valet....

 

In your mind a service is probably a 2 pound oil filter and 10 pounds worth of cheap 'oil'. The car will get a full service, MOT, tyres, brakes, fluids and any other repairs it needs to meet used car specs of a dealer. Fair enough some cars don't need much and make good money. I see a lot of cars go out at a loss because of poor checks prior to trade in. Lets also not forget that the salesman gets commission on that. Just because the car was bought in at lets say 5,000 and was sold for 7,000 does not mean the dealer are greedy and have made 2 grand.

Dont the dealers make a massive profit on the new car in the deal ? most dealers will only keep a car from the trade in if its a certain age and millage or it will go straight to auction or there local friendly second hand salesman how they can make a loss is beyond me,Any trade in will go through the workshop to be checked over, the dealers buy oil in bulk so they probably do pay £10 for it and £2 for a filter the rest is only labor £15 an hour for the tech .

Dealers are greedy and dont cover warrenties properly until pushed to the limit just look at the tsi timing chain tensioner fail problem aparently its fine ! yet has been revised several times already .

They make massive profits as far as I'm concerned they are greedy. And if a car needs tyres, service, fluids mot etc that will reflect on the price they give as a trade in. Even if a car did need that work the parts aren't expensive. I just serviced mine a few weeks ago ( genuine vag parts not cheapo filters and oil ) and the whole lot came to less than 70 quid and it'll cost them even less. Set of pads pence even discs don't cost much. It amazes me how some people think because the dealer does all this stuff your getting good service and good deals. They'll pass the cost on to the new owner anyway. My dealer tried to get me to pay for the cambelt to be done on the Octavia i viewed a few years ago even though I'd never driven the car!! The customer will always pay with them people.