I got my dealer to match the price of

Bought my completely standard Silver 06 Fabia VRS from drivethedeal and had no problems whatsoever. In fact, the service was second to none. Ordered the car in early Feb and it was delivered on the back of a truck on 1st March from Simpsons Skoda (Colne). I paid

What you don't seem to realise is that, dealers generally can not match these prices because you can buy them for less then they can simply because these cars are belgium imports, so they are right hand drive, and are only UK spec because they ordered them in Belgium to match UK spec.

Also dealers are a business not a charity, they are out to make money. It seems only fair that they make a small profit for providing the services that only an experienced dealer can offer.

However, I do understand that you want to get the best deal you can. If you buy off the internet and your supplying dealer is 400 miles away would you take it back there to have any warranty work done? No, you will then take it to your local dealer and have them spend time and money on your car that they didn't supply in the first place. If you bought the car from them you'd probably find you'll get a much better service and your servicing might even work out cheaper as they might let you off with a few things. So in the long run I'd prefer to have a local contact who I can talk to when my car goes wrong or needs a service.

I'm sorry to rant like this, but I find it quite frustrating with everyone these days refusing to buy off a dealer and only buying on the internet. What happened to supporting local businesses?

I don't want to offend anyone, I just wanted to voice my opinions.

What you don't seem to realise is that' date=' dealers generally can not match these prices because you can buy them for less then they can simply because these cars are belgium imports, so they are right hand drive, and are only UK spec because they ordered them in Belgium to match UK spec.

[/quote']

Is that true for the drivethedeal cars? My understanding was that they were legit UK cars from legit dealers :confused:

I understand your issues with buying from someone miles away and then getting warranty done elsewhere etc but my reading of the above thread is that almost everyone would be happier to buy from their local dealer if they could get a competitive price from them . I also find it amusing to see how some dealers are quite happy to do warranty work for customers who bought their car elsewhere and treat them properly whilst others are just plain rude / unhelpful ... why the difference?

Lady Elanore - your font isn't particularly stealthy for those of us browsing at work!

What happened to supporting local businesses?

It all depends on where you are located. Up here in Inverness the dealers are so complacent and think they are doing you a favour letting you buy from them. We have only bought one car locally (not a Skoda) and that was because the salesman made a mistake and gave us an extra

I looked into the internet brokers/dealers. I went quite far down the line with buyacar.com.

These cars are 'pre-registered' the day before delivery. I.e. they have been 'sold' by the manufacturer - but are waiting to be bought (this is a grey area - they are trying to balance the books).

Fab vRS with black magic, xenon, heated seats, and airbag deactivation according to them was

Is that true for the drivethedeal cars? My understanding was that they were legit UK cars from legit dealers :confused:

As previously mentioned I have ordered a car from drive and 2 days later was contacted by a uk main dealer. This dealer as then ordered my car, can't see a main uk dealer ordering from belgium, and i will be first on docs.

6 - 8 weeks to go:thumbup:

Also dealers are a business not a charity' date=' they are out to make money. It seems only fair that they make a small profit for providing the services that only an experienced dealer can offer.

However, I do understand that you want to get the best deal you can. If you buy off the internet and your supplying dealer is 400 miles away would you take it back there to have any warranty work done? No, you will then take it to your local dealer and have them spend time and money on your car that they didn't supply in the first place. If you bought the car from them you'd probably find you'll get a much better service and your servicing might even work out cheaper as they might let you off with a few things. So in the long run I'd prefer to have a local contact who I can talk to when my car goes wrong or needs a service.

I'm sorry to rant like this, but I find it quite frustrating with everyone these days refusing to buy off a dealer and only buying on the internet. What happened to supporting [i']local[/i] businesses?

I don't want to offend anyone, I just wanted to voice my opinions.

Some fair comments, but once youv'e bought the car it still needs to be serviced which is were the dealer makes the real money

Lady Elanore - your font isn't particularly stealthy for those of us browsing at work!

I

LIttle update...

Thanks to the help of another forum member I've had a chat with one of the other dealers who can match but not beat my current price.

That shows me that I'm doing alright if I end up paying that figure so I don't have to stress about making sure I'm getting a good deal anymore. I'ts also helpful if my original dealer later try and up the price for any reason.

I've just had an insurance quote for

@ OC Quattro

Fair comment about buying a car off the net then expecting warranty work to be carried out at local dealers but...

What usually happens is that the dealer carries out the warranty work and then gets the cost reimbursed by the manufacturer, so I can't really understand what you meant when you refer to the dealership's time and money... :confused:

Maybe Skoda UK dont pay the dealer the same rate per hour as you or I would have to (in fact I am pretty sure this would be the case) but even so it is throughput for the workshop which is always a good thing!

I'm all for seeing dealers being able to offer you or I the same prices that are available on the net, but without this new competition in the form of net brokers and EU imports prices would stay high.

Havent we been moaning about UK vs rest of Europe car prices for a while now?

Surely some healthy competition is a good thing?

Remember UK dealers can offer things that EU dealers and net brokers perhaps can't such as manufacturer finance schemes and free insurance.

Well yes Skoda UK reimburse the Skoda dealers they pay for the parts but they pay for the labor at a lower than retail rate. So the time mechanics spend fixing someone else's car they could be doing a service at retail money and making the garage money therefore keeping it alive.

Competition is good as it keeps the prices down, but my concern is when people come into a dealership and want all of the margin (occasionally more) that they have, and when the garage says no and tries to meet them somewhere in the middle they go and buy on the internet. Some people just don't understand that when you buy from a dealership you pay for more than just the car.

But I'm not having a rant or anything.

Well yes Skoda UK reimburse the Skoda dealers they pay for the parts but they pay for the labor at a lower than retail rate. So the time mechanics spend fixing someone else's car they could be doing a service at retail money and making the garage money therefore keeping it alive.

Also, IIRC, payment is based on "book-time" which can for the most part be optimistic. And while keeping the techs busy is a good thing from a dealer's point of view, I can imagine that having the workshop full of cars for warranty work prior to a new registration date must be a PITA in terms of allocating resource...

Rob.

Also' date=' IIRC, payment is based on "book-time" which can for the most part be optimistic. And while keeping the techs busy is a good thing from a dealer's point of view, I can imagine that having the workshop full of cars for warranty work prior to a new registration date must be a PITA in terms of allocating resource...

Rob.[/quote']

Exactly right Rob.

I remember taking mine in for the revised drop links. I was told Skoda allow the techs 12 minutes to change each one. Ok, so it's not a taxing job but it still requires the guy to get in the car, put it on the ramps, do the job and then get ready for the next job.

Not sure about drivethedeal but Lloyds TSB Car Select get their cars through a dealer or multiple dealers dependant on your location, these cars are not pre reg and come with 12 months tax not 6.

http://www.carselect.lloydstsb.com/NewCarQuote.aspx?id=3652

I have called the dealer who sources the cars and although they will not beat the deal it seems others dealers who are not involved will.

I suppose with these internet sites it all depends where the dealers they are sourcing there cars from are based, if its your nearest dealer then why not get it through car select or other broker, if its not then they should beat the deal, i know horners knocked a couple of hundred off and offered the same discount on extras for me.

TBH its a bit like the supermarket v's the corner shop, if a dealer is willing to do business thro a broker such as drive and offer these discounts then it is economies of scale, they may only make £100 a car instead of £1000 but then the cars they sell are in the main businees they would not have had otherwise. The local dealer will still make the profit on the servicing probably so all should be happy. At the end of the day the punter is not the one at fault for getting the best possible deal. I peresonally wouldn't buy an import or a broker pre-reg because I think that the discounts made available to fleet buyers is disgusting and is responsable for a large % of the depreciation seen in new cars.

Edit not working and wanted to add - That by buying from a dealer via a commisioned broker you are still supporting dealers in the uk. My local dealer said he was offered businees by drive and refused it, the more dealers accepted this business the more local the supplying dealer would be.

Well yes Skoda UK reimburse the Skoda dealers they pay for the parts but they pay for the labor at a lower than retail rate. So the time mechanics spend fixing someone else's car they could be doing a service at retail money and making the garage money therefore keeping it alive.

Competition is good as it keeps the prices down' date=' but my concern is when people come into a dealership and want all of the margin (occasionally more) that they have, and when the garage says no and tries to meet them somewhere in the middle they go and buy on the internet. Some people just don't understand that when you buy from a dealership you pay for more than just the car.

But I'm not having a rant or anything.[/quote']

First para - yeah, thats what I thought, thanks for confirming it

Second para - Fair point.

Just placed my order for a black magic fabia vrs at a cost of

Thats great news mate. Sparshatts had the base one so it may well be coming from them anyway.

yeh it may be the case!

Dealer didn't think it was much of a problem and seemed to suggest that they regularly swap stock with the other local dealers seeing as their cars are all sotred next to each other at southampton docks anyway!

Thanks for your previous help anyway Stu. I guess there may have been the odd extra pound or two available in the deal but it was proving harder to get them to budge so I though I might as well bite the bullet!