advertisement


Anybody had any dealings with Carwow?

colasblue

colasblue

pfm Member
The time has come for my ancient Jag to go to the junk yard so I've been looking around for a replacement.

It seems the market is a bit different compared to my expectations of a good few years back where I pretty much expected to be able to pick up an ex lease motor 3 or four years old for about a third of the new price.

Seems that now more than half the "advertised" new price isn't uncommon and I figured that with discounting buying used would look even less attractive.

So I go on to Carwow last month and get quoted just over £17.5K for a shiny new Hyundai Tucson, base model. The cheapest used example is 4 years old and £10K so buying new seems a bit of a no brainer

I go to the dealers concerned (without actually mentioning that I've been on Carwow) and they're saying 20K is the best they can do.

I point out the inconsistency and am told that they have lots of problems with Carwow and the advertised deals cant't be done.

Obviously once they're in that mess no deal is going to be done with me and I'm certainly less than impressed with having wasted an afternoon of my time going there.

Anybody else had similar or better experience?

In the meantime I've bought a banger for 2K to tide me over which is probably less than the profit that could be have been made on a new one, so good sales opportunity lost for the UK car industry and my contribution to the forthcoming recession is maximised!
 
Last edited:
Profits are in private finance deals. A chum went to buy one of a batch of Audi Q7s (a substantial car) wanting to pay by bank transfer, to be told politely but firmly that he wasn’t the type of customer they were looking for. He dug further with a pal in the trade who knew the cars and said there was no dealer margin in a cash deal at the price Audi were dictating. Funny old world.
 
My wife has used them a couple of times, a lot of the deals don't exist as the cars may not be in stock. However, they do give an indication as to what is possible & my wife has obtained better deals on the back of a Car Wow offer. You do need to focus on certain models, cars coming to end of life like the outgoing Golf Gti etc.
 
My father ordered a new Land Rover with Carwow. None of the dealers he spoke to could get close. Very simple process, the price was the price. No problems, apart from the car being a complete pile of rubbish (well, I did tell him to buy a Subaru...).
 
There are other companies such as Drivethedeal who quote you a good price and get the car delivered to your local dealer where you pay them, though this is normally on condition that you take out the dealers finance or PCP
 
Well all a bit depressing - I have been driving for 37 years and have always paid cash usually for vehicles between 1-3 years old, but do keep on hearing that dealers (who used to make their profit on servicing/parts?) are insisting on buyers taking out some kind of finance package. If I'm now looking for something a little unfashionable (i.e. Mitsubishi ASX), am I still waiting my time by offering cash - what do you reckon?

BTW - did almost use a dealer via Carwow a few years back, all that put me off was that they were about 90 miles away, but the deal was indeed excellent.
 
Beating the dealers down with Carwow prices is one thing (today's guy certainly wasn't biting) but @Ponty, are you saying your father actually got the car through carwow at the advertised price?

It seems that may not be the usual experience.

If the prices are completely bogus then the industry will cotton to to that quickly enough, and it looks like they already may have.

Unfortunately all my local dealers seemed to already be quoted by carwow so I doubt there's any scope for playing them against each other.

Seems if you actually have money to buy things it's getting increasingly difficult to spend it!
 
Caliente said:
Well all a bit depressing - I have been driving for 37 years and have always paid cash usually for vehicles between 1-3 years old, but do keep on hearing that dealers (who used to make their profit on servicing/parts?) are insisting on buyers taking out some kind of finance package. If I'm now looking for something a little unfashionable (i.e. Mitsubishi ASX), am I still waiting my time by offering cash - what do you reckon?

BTW - did almost use a dealer via Carwow a few years back, all that put me off was that they were about 90 miles away, but the deal was indeed excellent.
Click to expand...
A lot of manufacturers put in deposit contributions if you take out a PCP, I got nearly £8k against a 5 series BMW. Nothing to stop you taking the deal & then settling off early. There is no cheap way to buy a car, all have pluses & minuses.
 
colasblue said:
Beating the dealers down with Carwow prices is one thing (today's guy certainly wasn't biting) but @Ponty, are you saying your father actually got the car through carwow at the advertised price?

It seems that may not be the usual experience.

If the prices are completely bogus then the industry will cotton to to that quickly enough, and it looks like they already may have.
Click to expand...

Yes, he did. They were just an introducer, the order was placed directly with the dealer. Dealers bid for the business and you contact the one you wish to transact with.
 
It's pretty unlikely that any finance package would be designed such that you could end it early and end up paying less than the cash price I'd have thought, but I guess you never know until you look at it in detail.
 
Thanks - I just want a nice easy transaction - funnily enough my last purchase 3.5 years ago was like that - I just wandered in and out within about 20 mins - they were happy to do a cash deal to meet that month's sales target.
 
colasblue said:
It's pretty unlikely that any finance package would be designed such that you could end it early and end up paying less than the cash price I'd have thought, but I guess you never know until you look at it in detail.
Click to expand...

That is exactly the case with very many of them.
 
colasblue said:
It's pretty unlikely that any finance package would be designed such that you could end it early and end up paying less than the cash price I'd have thought, but I guess you never know until you look at it in detail.
Click to expand...

It's a credit agreement, so you have a mandatory 14 day cooling off period. Within that time frame you can settle the debt in full (assuming you have the readies), so yes, with the deposit contribution and/or PCP discount factored in you might pay substantially less than the cash price. Several friends have done this.
 
There may be early redemption penalties but these are unlikely to be higher than the deposit contributions. Ultimately it is just a way of giving a wacking discount while trying to tie you in to a manufacturer. As ever read the small print but dealers have to be upfront on finance due to FSA.

I worked in the motor trade 20 odd years ago, it was like the wild west then, high % in finance, all kinds of dodgy dealings. Amazing how much of the sales patter from then is still used today.
 
Ah so there's possibly a trick to it.

I'd imagine if the deal is cancelled the deposit contribution could be reclaimed in many cases by the manufacturer so that would need looking into.

If that sort of deal could be done I'd have thought the salesmen would make a point of telling customers exactly how to manipulate it to their advantage, unless their commission was clawed back of course.

In fact a Peugeot salesman advised my stepfather to do something exactly like that a few years back, which he did and it worked.

Perhaps I'll look into it well in advance when the 20 and 70 plates come round.
 
colasblue said:
It's pretty unlikely that any finance package would be designed such that you could end it early and end up paying less than the cash price I'd have thought, but I guess you never know until you look at it in detail.
Click to expand...

Not so. I bought last four cars from car wow. utilising the pcp offer and extra finance contributions, pay by 0% credit card, and then settle within 24hours using other funds (cash or personal loan) That way you can stack up the deal price and the finance contributions into what becomes a cash deal.

Dealer doesn't care since they get their entire margin up front on finance they sell and this is not clawed back in the event of early settlements . The fact they sacrificed some of their margin to get the extra finance margin is a risk they take. most buyer don't do this, prefering the never never to run their new shiny

I am talking VW finance btw.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top