Has anyone had any dealings with Oldham Motors? I'm not sure what the name-and-shame rules are on this forum now, but within the limits of what's allowed, can anyone share their experiences with them?
They have a Fiat Bravo listed on Autotrader, at a price which isn't very different to what we want to be paying. It's down at £7k, and we have £5k cash that we want to spend (I say want, we'd be perfectly happy spending less of course!) and a Corsa which 'webuyanycar' are willing to give a whisker over £1k for.
I'm not an experienced haggler, does that sound like something that might be workable? Either bringing them down to £6k for cash, or them offering slightly more in part-x for the Corsa and dropping the price a touch?
The other question is around them having the car listed as 'coming soon'. Is this a standard practice with dealers? Perhaps it's coming in as a part-x on a new car which has been ordered and not yet arrived? Or is this a 'Danger, Will Robinson, Danger' sign?
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The car you want to buy is marked up at £7k, so they might well accept £500 less for cash.
The 'webuyanycar' valuation will be a basic trade price, so you are looking at a cost to change of £5,500 - a bit more than your budget.
The Fiat dealer might see a little more value in the Corsa, so you could try offering 'my Corsa and £5,250' - the worst they can say is 'no'.
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www.car4play.com/terms/house_rules.htm
Name and Shame policy is here - a bit more flexible than the days of yore..
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A friend bought his Panda from there. No problems but then there was no haggeling or anything involved.
I did have a dealing with one of the their sister sites, Blackburn Motors. I asked about a nearly new Panda they had at £6k (actually now very expensive as you can get them new for that price) and phoned them up to enquire. They were quite pushy saying I need to make my mind up or it will be sold. Last time I checked the car still had not been sold.
I got the feeling this guy really wanted a sale and I probably could have had done a deal when the price of a used car is the same as a new one they didn't seem any point.
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Thank you, that's the lines along which I was thinking.
In my place, would you think the best thing is to put my cards straight on the table? Explain about the car I have and the cash I have, and ask them what we can work out? Or am I better starting off just talking about cash, and keeping the car in reserve? (Or vice versa?)
Rattle - are they a Fiat main dealer then, as it appears?
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They are owned by Caladonia which is a big car chain. They are main dealers for many different companies including FIAT.
But yep you should probably start off by explaing your you only have x amount of money.
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When I was interested in buying new motors, 'coming soon' meant 'this is a teaser'.
There's no point juggling figures with yourself or them until you know the car exists.
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usedcars.fiatdirect.co.uk/
You could try Fiats own used car site..
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They have confirmed that it will be a part-x, and taken my details to ring back once it comes in.
No attempt to interest me instead in the couple of similar cars they have in for a bit more money, so I think it's genuine.
Last edited by: Bazzabear on Sat 5 Jun 10 at 20:37
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We're off this week, so had a bit of a trip round Manchester and exercised my l33t haggling skills.
Firstly went to Manchester Suzuki, where they have this:
tinyurl.com/38zlu5v
Which is a nice car. It has a couple of minor scratches on the front bumper, and a small split in the paint tucked under the lip of the front grille (only spotted it because a picture they seem to have replaced seemed to show a slight dent. Obviously they've had that fixed.)
My previously mentioned skills resulted in them being willing to drop their price to £7k. Yes - that's the price it's advertised at.
Then went to Oldham motors, as mentioned in the thread title. Neither of the two cars, both advertised at £7k actually existed, which transpired to be not at all surprising, as the salesman happily confided in me that all dealers fake cheap cars to draw the punters in. They had one at £7,600 - but that's too expensive, and a colour (silver) we don't want anyway.
'What could I do to make you buy this car?' asks the salesman. 'Well', says I, 'I can't promise anything, but if it was £6,500 it'd give me something to think about.'
At that point, he seemed to largely ignore this. A few minutes later I say that we'll go away and think about it, and he asks if we want him to check the stock throughout their dealer network forst to see if there's anything we like more. OK I say.
Disappears for 10 mins and comes back wanting to show me something on Autotrader. Miraculously, and completely coincidentally according to Mr Salesman, their fake 'taster' car is now £6250, and the car he wants to sell me is £6500 - exactly the price I'd just mentioned to him.
WTF?
Why even do that? Surely, as a punter, I'd be more impressed at him agreeing with me personally to do that deal? What's the point in making the change on Autotrader instead and claiming it'd been changed the same day by chance?
Weird.
Here it is anyway:
tinyurl.com/38jaqb7
It's dynamic spec except it doesn't have the alloys. You'll notice that in the pictures here, it does - so the dealership have obviously nabbed them for another car.
Anyway, we already didn't really want a silver one, and all the salesman has done, despite his talking about the entire industry, is prove conclusively that his dealership can't be trusted.
As it stands, there's a car a few miles down the road which I can get for £500 more. It's a better colour, lower mileage, and has alloys - and while I don't necessarily trust the dealer there (especially his spreadsheet that he 'doesn't ever show to customers' which shows that he can't afford to sell the car for less!) at least he hasn't conclusively proven that I should be wary!
But, in the end, I think we'll just leave them both, go on holiday, and see what's around when we get back. No rush at the mo.
Oh, did get a test-drive of the car at the Suzuki garage.
Terrible test-drive, directed me around a 5-minute stretch of 30mph roads.
Still, even in that, it was an impressive drive. Steering very light, but with plenty of feel. Engine almost silent at idle from within the cabin. Responsive in all it's controls. I think we've certainly picked the right model to aim at.
Last edited by: Bazzabear on Mon 21 Jun 10 at 20:27
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Haven't read most of the posts, but there's always another one somewhere. Don't be pushed.
M
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Yep, that's exactly what we're thinking.
We might go for the Suzuki motors one, as having looked at the Bravo configurator we've realised it's probably amongst our favourite possible colours, but we're certainly not going to rush into it.
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To complete this story, we had a good think about the one at Manchester Suzuki, and decided that probably the best we could bank on would be saving £500 on that purchase cost by waiting. And that car would probably not be as good an example.
So we have put down a deposit, and will collect the car once we've returned from holiday.
So, that's the hardest part of planning for a baby done, right? The rest'll be a doddle...
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If you really believe that.........:)
Enjoy your holiday, next years will be very different!
Pat
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FIAT Bravo - Oldham Motors - Iffy
