Dealers big profit? (1 Viewer)

Jim

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There are a couple in the news today bemoaning the fact that their seven year old van they sold to a dealer (sold because of their ill health) was sold on by the dealer for a massive profit.

They were offered 11k for the van because it they were told it had"leaks had rotted some of the bodywork" However they were shocked to see it on the forecourt for £26k.

On a face of it a nice £15k profit to the dealer, though I doubt the actual profit will be anywhere near that, and £15k assumes a subsequent purchaser paid the sticker price. But it's no good moaning after the fact. When buying or selling you MUST know what the vehicle is ACTUALLY worth. :Doh:
 
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It is worth exactly what you can get for it, no more no less. Are some people that daft.:shout:
 

Organplayer

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organplayer

The dealer also has to cover the costs of any warranty work ie the rotting wood,if that was found. Of course this information by the dealer to the seller may have been "stretched" a little.
 

Terry

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Whos to say the dealer has not done all the repairs they claimed where needed ?I don't blame the dealer if the said repairs were genuine --but the sellers are the foolish ones for not investigating prices :Eeek: harsh I know but ?????????
terry

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Peter JohnsCross MH

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IF it had damp and rotted frames then that would not be excessive as the cost of rectification could have been very high and also out of the £15k Vatman would have taken aprox £2800 in margin VAT on gross profit (no allowance is allowed for cost of any repairs)

BUT I have heard of dealers claiming damp on p/x vans when taken in on handovers and screwing the price right down when there was no damp in the p/x, actually had a customer who cancelled his purchase and came to us and bought, needless to say there was no damp in his old van.

Peter
 

rainbow chasers

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It does pay to research the market for your vehicle carefully before buying, and when selling. When you are selling, check out other models etc. There are some price differences between many types. Rear kitchen models hold their value in comparison with rear lounge - around 5k difference on a ten year old van.

If you trade in you will receive roughly 50% of the vans value. Why? Because that is what they are worth to a dealer. The reason people will pay the extra when buying from a dealer, rather than saving 50% and going to a trade auction is the servicing and bringing it up to a standard you would like to see it as when purchasing, warranty, expertise, aftersales and nice showroom with everything in one spot that you will get from a dealer - that is what the 'Profit' covers.........the very reason you bought of a dealer when you did first time.

If you are trading in, you may get offered a higher amount that is set off on the price of the new one anyway - so makes no difference. Try and trade in during peak months if possible. It can make a difference between getting 8k and 15k - nearly twice as much as stock gets short in supply.

If you decide to sell privately - be realistic with the pricing. You may have paid a fair amount, and a dealer may have offered you alot less - but don't think just because you see some on ebay or dealer forecourts for big money that yours is worth the same, no matter how well you feel you have maintained it. If you don't have proof of maintenance, forget any tales of pampering - it won't mean anything to a buyer who is buying without guarantee and comeback they would get from a dealer.


Also - if you agree a sale - you agree a sale. It is then theirs....what they do with it is up to them. You agree a deal that is bad for you, tough luck I am afraid - you made the decision to accept at the time for whatever reasons they were - cost of storage, illness and not wanting the responsibility. That is life!
 

stcyr

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I haven't seen the article but I wonder how long it was between them selling the van and it appearing on the forecourt? (bearing in mind the tales of woe heard on here and elsewhere about people waiting months to have warranty issues dealt with...)

And as for accepting 11k for a 6 year old van, well... whatever the 'damp issues'. :whatthe:

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OP
OP
Jim

Jim

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I haven't seen the article but I wonder how long it was between them selling the van and it appearing on the forecourt? (bearing in mind the tales of woe heard on here and elsewhere about people waiting months to have warranty issues dealt with...)

And as for accepting 11k for a 6 year old van, well... whatever the 'damp issues'. :whatthe:


My apologies I changed the OP, the van was 7 years old, but still your comment holds true.
 

Terry

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My apologies I changed the OP, the van was 7 years old, but still your comment holds true.

That would put in firmly in the Swift rotten floors era ::bigsmile: if that's the case then 11k would be generous ::bigsmile:::bigsmile::winky:
terry
 

GJH

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We just picked up a new car yesterday. When we negotiated the trade in price for our old one the salesman was straight with us about what he could offer because there was already a hefty discount (which we knew about) on the price of the new one. He could have given us a higher trade in against a second hand car if we had wanted to change our minds.

My reaction - it isn't the individual components of the deal that matter, it is the bottom line and (having looked into trade prices before we went to the dealership) I was quite happy with that. This was a salesman we've known for about 15 years at a local family dealership that we first dealt with in 1996.

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pappajohn

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we paid £26000 for our first van.

6 months later traded it in with the same dealer with a £5000 hit.
nothing wrong with the van except the first time buyers number one mistake....too bloody small and wrong layout.

two weeks later, back on their forcourt at £26500....£500 more than we paid. :cry:

 

Minxy

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We just picked up a new car yesterday. When we negotiated the trade in price for our old one the salesman was straight with us about what he could offer because there was already a hefty discount (which we knew about) on the price of the new one. He could have given us a higher trade in against a second hand car if we had wanted to change our minds.

My reaction - it isn't the individual components of the deal that matter, it is the bottom line and (having looked into trade prices before we went to the dealership) I was quite happy with that. This was a salesman we've known for about 15 years at a local family dealership that we first dealt with in 1996.

What car have you plumped for then Graham?
 

ShiftZZ

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I was watching an Auction in Nottingham and they were selling a reposed Motorhome it was a niesmann and bischoff it was sold and within hours it was for sale on their webpage, from memory, the price had gone up by £40k.

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Scout

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dont forget, 26k -11k =15k markup of which 20% is vat,

so thats only 12k for the dealer less any work needed being done, any warranty work, less time spent on forcourt , less rates, rent lighting, sales persons wages ect ect.

also if you selling up for cash, your never going to get "market value"

however it does seem harse but, could they have got better elsewhere?


personly I prefere to buy/sell privatly
 

Minxy

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It is definitely down to what someone will pay and what you will accept!

Our first 'proper' coachbuilt motorhome was an Elddis Autoquest 320 which we bought in 1999 I think, it cost us what seemed like an awful lot of money (at the time it was nearly as much as we'd paid for our house!). We were looking to spend an absolute maximum of £10,000 on a second hand one and had been looking at all sorts, even LHD A-class Hymers. We hadn't found anything we liked (or could afford that we DID like!) but we'd noticed one being advertised for sale in the local paper about 20 miles away but the chap wanted more than we could afford (£13,000) so we hadn't bothered with it. It didn't sell and we notice the price gradually get reduced over a couple of weeks or so, down to £10,500 so we though we'd go and have a look as it was now closer to our figure. I'd done some research beforehand so I had a good idea what to look for condition wise (base and habitation) and prices for similar models. It turned out that he'd bought it and then had hardly used it and it had been sat on his drive for over 6 months gathering dust so he'd decided to sell it as he wasn't going to be able to use it much due to his job (why he hadn't thought of this before he bought it I don't know!:Doh:). He'd been offered a fair price from a dealer some miles away but thought he'd try to sell it locally instead to save the hassle. We had a really good look round it and checked out the various base vehicle bits (mechanics/body) and the habitation side. We then had a test drive in it and the chap told us that he could only go up to 60 (1.9TD) which we thought was a bit funny, but I had an idea what this might be caused by so wasn't overly worried. It had a good MOT but no tax.

We only made one offer for it (or rather I did as hubby was too 'nervous'!!! :Blush: ). I said we'd tax it and give him £9,500 as it was subject to a check being carried out by a garage (to see what the 60mph restriction problem was) ... he thought for about 10 seconds and then agreed!!!! :Eeek: We NEVER expected to get it for this and thought it would be at least £10,000 so we were well happy! ::bigsmile: It got even better though ... when he took it into the garage to get the 'problem' looked at I told him I thought it would be the turbo waste gate valve sticking (a friend of ours had recently bought a MH on the same base vehicle with exactly that problem) ... yup, that was what it turned out to be! It cost £25 to get it sorted ... but he paid and drove the MH round to our home too!!!! :thumb:

It was a lovely camper and shortly after we were at a microcar rally where someone had just bought the same model, same age from Brownhills, the only difference being that we had a wind-out awning and back box, they only had a bike rack ... they'd just paid over £14,000 for theirs!!!! :Eeek::Eeek::Eeek::Eeek::Eeek:

I knew we'd got a bargain but not THAT much of a bargain! :thumb:

In 2001 when we traded it in for an Swift Suntor 590RS (spit.....) after a bit of 'haggling' we actually got £13,250 for it!!!!! :Smile: The Brownhills technician checked it over and found some damp in the rear offside corner of the washroom and upon checking the outside found it was because the exterior trim needed resealing and even told us how to do it in case we didn't go through with the deal; he also took it for a run out and said it was the best MH of its age he'd seen and driven for a long time, the gear change was as sweet as a nut (not floppy :Blush:) and the interior was almost pristine [if it had had power steering we may not even have parted with it then but it was just too heavy for me to drive by then :Sad:]. Anyway, Brownhills didn't quibble about the small damp issue at all and we did the deal.:thumb:

So, we paid £9,500 in a private sale, someone else paid over £14,000 for the same vehicle from a dealer at the same time. We then PXd it for £13,250 2 years later .... THAT'S the way to do it!!!!:thumb::thumb::thumb::thumb::thumb::thumb:
 

GJH

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What car have you plumped for then Graham?

Skoda Roomster 1.2 TSi SE. We didn't expect to get one so quickly but there has been a hell of a deal on and there were a couple left at our local dealer. It was a better deal than buying a second hand one.

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haganap

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Wow a dealer makes a profit...

What ever next?

An electricity company making a profit
 

sedge

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Two stories - a friend of ours has had a caravan for yonks. When I say this I should say has had many caravans over loads of years, because he changes them every 2 to 3 years, we've never really worked out why!

Anyway, always used the same dealer. So he goes to said dealer, sees another van he fancies, what do you reckon you'd give me for my van you sold me 2 years ago, price given, subject to check when it comes in, new van ordered, deposit paid.

Van arrives, goes for swap-over on appointed day.

Dealer says floor is damp and this that and the other. P/X goes down by severeal thousand ££££. Friend says No way Pedro; gimme me deposit back then and keep the new one. After some heated debate over a period of time, his deposit was returned and friend bought his new van from some place else, because there was 100% of sweet bugger all wrong with the 'old' one.

Potty because the dealer was getting a very regular cash injection form this ex-customer.

In the 1980's I once owned a Mark 2 (I think? - J reg 1971) Escort Estate which had been brought to husband Mk I for welding on MOT failure. He quotes for job, basically half a day's welding at very little outlay, mucky job under old cars but was the bread and butter under more lucrative jobs, that you fit in whilst you are literally waiting for paint to dry elsewhere! Bloke said Oh I'll write it off then. Husband gave him £100 for the scrap value. Welded it up, took it back round to where it failed the MOT, it passed LOL and I happily drove it for the next 2 years till I had it nicked.

We replaced it with a later Escort saloon; then it was recovered - basically it had been abandoned when it ran out of petrol and having a WASO petrol cap, that was that (that always amused me - talk about overkill!) so the insurers hadn't paid out and we got the car back. New ignition barrel and keys - and sold it for £150 ! It's the only vehicle I ever recall making an actual profit on !
 

mick noe

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I have just changed my motorhome sold the old one through Ebay for a fair price and hope the new owner is pleased with it.:thumb: when we bought the new one it was nerve racking spending all that money without dealer back up is a risk but bidded the owner less than he was asking knowing that I had to do a couple of things to it. all fettled now and saved 3 or 4 grand on forecourt price chuffed to bits with it:Smile::Smile: but it could have gone horribly wrong so to many people, paying a higher price for dealer backup, makes good sense

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Peter JohnsCross MH

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What a difference between Fun and a certain other nameless forum, Fun gives a measured and sensible response, other place would have been ripping dealers to pieces all night long, there are many sensible and honest dealers out there.

Peter
 

GJH

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What a difference between Fun and a certain other nameless forum, Fun gives a measured and sensible response, other place would have been ripping dealers to pieces all night long, there are many sensible and honest dealers out there.

Peter

Same in all walks of life, Peter, and it's right to praise them. Even the best make mistakes - but they show they are sensible and honest by admitting it and sorting it out.

It gets annoying when somebody knows they have made a mistake but denies it and makes the situation worse - which is when to go for CEOemail and the jugular :roflmto:
 

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