Drivethedeal...which Dealership?

[shrikep15]

I'm very to close to the point of ordering a fully spec'd Octy vRS Challenge to replace my existing, purchased from new 2009 vRS.  

 

I have got some quotes from CarWow, some of which are quite competitive, but none come close to drivethedeal who are almost £1800 cheaper still...a total saving of £7,400.   I bought my current vRS from drivethedeal with a similarly massive saving over list; and made all the sweeter as I knew my local dealer supplied the cars, despite them telling me the price I was quoted wouldn't be honoured if I ordered, the sales manager wasn't happy when I walked in to sign the paperwork 

 

Would anyone know which dealer is now suppying cars for drivethedeal?

 

Cheers.

[xman]

Does it matter?

 

If you really prefer your local dealers involvement, just go in eye to eye with,

"Here's the spec of what I want, here's what I want to pay, here's my debit card for a deposit, do you want to supply it or do I go and order it elsewhere for the same price?"

Edited 17 March, 2019 by xman

[shrikep15]

I was just interested to know, since if a more local dealer can come close to this price versus  DTD being the other end of the country it may have a bearing on my decision.

 

I have yet to go to my local dealer to see what they can offer.

[shrikep15]

Thanks Niyx

[rum4mo]

From digging into this in the past, and then making up a sort of "quote to purchase" word document using the best price plus a small amount for the convenience of buying from my local (VW) dealership, I did as @xman suggested - signed up within 10 minutes, no fuzzy stories, no free extras that I didn't want, no bartering/hard dealing.

 

On the subject as to which dealers supply brokers, I'd say any/every dealer could/would/does if it fits their sales plan for that period - these "bids/quotes to supply" get thrown out into the open market and interested dealers respond.

 

Edit:- also the sales person that might say "we will never give you that price even if we supply to DTD!" is not worth bothering about - remember that the sales dept and service dept operate individually.

Edited 17 March, 2019 by rum4mo

[Stevefesta]

I bought mine from drive the deal in December and collect it on Saturday from the south coast (Euro Skoda in Worthing) and I live in the Midlands, so not local. However the cost saving was worth it, plus delivery is included in the price, I just wanted a road trip and the first person to do a long drive in the car to be me not a delivery driver.

 

I like drive the deals simple policy of not giving you the details of the dealers so you can't leverage the local dealer based on their work, think it is fair.

Edited 18 March, 2019 by Stevefesta
Missed dealer info

[Octaviarse]

Has anybody got any more recent updates about which south coast dealer drive the deal might currently be using? Have been speaking to them recently and they have said a potential order would not be fulfilled by Worthing but it would be from south coast so I’m wondering who it might be. Has anybody collected a car from the south coast ordered from dtd and collected from a dealer other than Worthing? Cheers

[TonyTonic]

LAst time I checked it was somewhere in Ashford Kent

[Octaviarse]

2 hours ago, TonyTonic said:

LAst time I checked it was somewhere in Ashford Kent

Ah...that’ll be Caffyns, then. Cheers

[Lotus]

I’m near Milton Keynes and my VRS via drive the deal came from Great Yarmouth, the delivery driver also said they have been delivering to south coast, as far as Exeter. Delivered in May

[silver1011]

It doesn't really matter which broker you use. This part of the car buying process is done without setting foot into a dealership. Spend a day online working your way through as many of them as you can.

 

Once you have your cheapest price, use this when phoning up your nearest three or four dealers and play them off each other. The one that beats it by the most gets your business, and you know you've got a pretty good deal.

 

If its all about minimising legwork / hassle, closeness to home, or levels of service, then you'll have to pay more.

[Guest]

I've just asked the same quetion - would have continued this thread if I'd seen it.

 

Does it matter which broker you use?  It's not the broker that's being questioned, it's the dealer and yes, it does matter ( personal preference ). If you live in Carlisle and the dealer is in Folkstone, that's a long way to travel if anything untoward happens. There are certain circumstances where you have to deal with the supplier and it's much, much easier to do this fist to face. Err I mean face to face.

 

Or you may live only a few miles up the road in Gretna and have to incur significant delivery charges because free deliveries are usually only within England + Wales ( some even stipulate a maximum mileage from dealership).

 

"Here's the spec of what I want, here's what I want to pay, here's my debit card for a deposit, do you want to supply it or do I go and order it elsewhere for the same price?" Err, a tad crude and often not the best tactic, especially if you want a test drive and post sales customer service.  Of course there's another flaw, a very serious one...  Dealer price £26,000 and Broker price is £25,000.  Now what if the garage you vist NEEDs to sell a car rather than WANTs to sell a car? i.e. they need a sale to make a sales target. They don't start off negotiations with their lowest price. Perhaps they're prepared to go down to £24000 but their prayers are answered when some mug comes in and demands £25,000 - take it or leave it?  This actually happened to me, I bought my SEAT from a near local dealership cheaper than I could buy it off a broker which was much cheaper than buying it of my closest dealership. It's rare but it does happen, especially if you buy at end of financial quarter / before a new registration year.

 

 

Edited 12 November, 2019 by Guest

[silver1011]

18 hours ago, Scot5 said:

Does it matter which broker you use?  It's not the broker that's being questioned, it's the dealer and yes, it does matter ( personal preference ). If you live in Carlisle and the dealer is in Folkstone, that's a long way to travel if anything untoward happens. There are certain circumstances where you have to deal with the supplier and it's much, much easier to do this fist to face. Err I mean face to face.

 

Or you may live only a few miles up the road in Gretna and have to incur significant delivery charges because free deliveries are usually only within England + Wales ( some even stipulate a maximum mileage from dealership).

 

I wouldn't care if the dealer was in Folkstone and I lived in Carlisle.

 

What "untoward" things do you have in mind? As long as the car is confirmed to be ready for collection then either you travel down to pick it up or you don't.

 

I didn't meet the dealer face-to-face until the day I collected my car. Perfect, dealing with salesman isn't something I enjoy doing in my time off.

 

Whether you choose to collect the car, or have it delivered, this is all agreed prior to you signing the electronic paperwork. If the terms don't suit then it is known well in advance.

 

18 hours ago, Scot5 said:

"Here's the spec of what I want, here's what I want to pay, here's my debit card for a deposit, do you want to supply it or do I go and order it elsewhere for the same price?" Err, a tad crude and often not the best tactic, especially if you want a test drive and post sales customer service.  Of course there's another flaw, a very serious one...  Dealer price £26,000 and Broker price is £25,000.  Now what if the garage you vist NEEDs to sell a car rather than WANTs to sell a car? i.e. they need a sale to make a sales target. They don't start off negotiations with their lowest price. Perhaps they're prepared to go down to £24000 but their prayers are answered when some mug comes in and demands £25,000 - take it or leave it?  This actually happened to me, I bought my SEAT from a near local dealership cheaper than I could buy it off a broker which was much cheaper than buying it of my closest dealership. It's rare but it does happen, especially if you buy at end of financial quarter / before a new registration year.

 

Sounds like a perfect tactic to me. I'm not buying a car to make friends, or to fund the dealers Christmas party. I want the best possible price.

 

The test drive is all done and dusted well before signing the deal, and all post-purchase issues can be resolved at any franchised Skoda retailer, not just the one you collected the car from.

 

Your example of paying more through a broker doesn't sound logical to me either. There is nothing stopping you going through the rigmarole of negotiating with the local dealer and not mentioning the broker to price to see how close he can get. In the extremely unlikely event his price ends up being better than that of the broker, fantastic, if it isn't then you know that you always have the broker price to fall back on.

 

It's all about playing the game. If price isn't so much of a concern then don't use brokers. If you want the best price then using a broker is the way to go.

 

My carwow price was my starting point. This is the price I used to start the negotiation with my chosen dealer, not the target price.

 

 

[Guest]

On 13/11/2019 at 13:56, silver1011 said:

What "untoward" things do you have in mind? As long as the car is confirmed to be ready for collection then either you travel down to pick it up or you don't.

 

Sounds like a perfect tactic to me. I'm not buying a car to make friends, or to fund the dealers Christmas party. I want the best possible price

 

As explained above, your tactic may not give the best possible price. Extremely unlikeky? No broker could get within £600 of Arnold Clark when I bought my SEAT.

 

I have used DTD before, I know how it works and am I fan - I love the direct approach and not having to play games. But if something goes wrong at a later date and you go down the route of rejection then you have to deal with the original dealer and it's much easier doing this face to face. The car would have to be returned to that dealer too as they need to be given a chance to resolve the problem themselves.

 

Same goes if you have to return the car to the original dealer. Carlisle to Folkstone is a long way. Incidentally when I collected my car I flew Edinburgh to Gatwick, then train outside terminal building to within 10 min walk of dealership. My total Total journey time was just over 3hr and cost me less than £40.  Folkstone to Carlisle? I'll leave that trip to others.

Edited 26 November, 2019 by Guest

[silver1011]

I guess you have to look at the risks.

 

I don't pretend to buy new cars regularly, but of those I have bought the issues tend to come to light within the first year of ownership, at which point you're covered by the manufacturers warranty and aren't obliged to return the car to the original dealer, instead I use my local dealer.

 

Whilst I've no doubt brokers aren't cheaper in 100% of cases, given the various discussions on here over the years I'd say that they are are lot more than they aren't.

[Winston_Wolf]

I bought my Kodiaq through DTD back in the summer (dealer was near Crawley, 110 miles from me) and took delivery about a month ago.

 

Before ordering I got quotes through Carwow and from three other local Skoda dealers. DTD beat the best price I could get from them by just under £1,000. The dealer would have delivered the car for free but I wanted to pick it up and drive it home so travelled there by train. Doing this saved them a few quid so they paid for the train fare/taxi and even through in a set of Kodiaq embossed carpet mats. The dealership were great and very easy to deal with remotely and I would have no issue in using DTD again.

 

I don't know why a car would have to be returned to the supplying dealer. Crikey, 20 years ago I bought an Alfa 156 from a German dealer through an import agent and that just went down the road to my local dealer for warranty issues as it had a pan-European warranty.

[rum4mo]

Ha, buying a car 20 years ago from abroad - I did that twice, first time through Intercar (Broker) in Limburg provence NL, next one 2 years later from a VW dealer near Baan NL both VWs - happy days, cheaper factory fit options and treated like a customer. My walking into my local VW dealer with my script was my first return to buying locally - and that worked okay.