Painful car buying experience!

[Buster]

Painful experience with a dealer (ok a Seat dealer as looking at a Seat Leon ST TDI DSG). Car advertised as just under £13k. 

 

Enquired on the phone about a used Seat Leon ST that they were about to receive which looked a good price. Sales staff went away and phoned me back having "crunched some numbers" and somehow the cost of the vehicle became £2k more expensive! A few optional extras plus their fees. What are their fees for? I challenged them on that and they said that it is an £89 fee for selling the car to a customer, which funnily enough they don't advertise. Certainly lost me as a potential customer as any trust I had in that company has gone. I believe that the advertised price should be what the customer can buy the car for, including any overheads that the business have for running their company. When you go shopping to a department store, do you expect the store to then add on things like "arrangement fees" when you get to the till?

 

😠

[john999boy]

I think there's been other threads about this 'experience' too.

Not the best way to endear themselves to customers is it!

[Robjon]

Tell them you charge an £89 fee for purchasing the car from a dealer, which funnily enough you didn't mention either 

[Guest]

These 'admin' fees are creeping in everywhere now.  One of our Groupon or Wowcher deals had a £5 admin fee charge added on at the end. It was for a hotel stay,  so it wasn't a postal fee,  or something similar. 

[Buster]

Apparently (according to the dealer) they are required to tell all customers of these optional extras, by the FCA so they treat all customers equally. 

 

Another dealer has notified me of a similar vehicle they have access to (they can buy it in for me) but require a £100 deposit to show a commitment to buy (although I can get a refund if the car is not up to standard rather than something like I don't like the colour)???

[Aspman]

18 hours ago, Buster said:

Another dealer has notified me of a similar vehicle they have access to (they can buy it in for me) but require a £100 deposit to show a commitment to buy (although I can get a refund if the car is not up to standard rather than something like I don't like the colour)???

 

I can understand a dealer looking for that if they are paying out costs to have a car delivered etc especially for you to look at. I wouldn't ever pay it myself but I can understand their asking.