When buying a car, many dealers ask near beginning of price negotiation, if you have a car to trade-in. Is that the right time to say yes or wait till towards the end?
If your car had CEL before (but not anymore), do you have to disclose that? What about disclosure of maintenance items due for replacement soon, such as spark plugs, timing belt etc?
db.price,
Jul 21, 6:38am
What the heck is CEL ?
As for when to say the trade then at the start no issue. Give them a chance to check the car over and give you an (initial) estimate for trade in. As for items that need doing well like any buyer they should do their due diligence and they will certainly get some kind of check done.
budgel,
Jul 21, 6:42am
Check engine light.
kazbanz,
Jul 21, 7:03am
You don't have to disclose anything. AND there is no comeback on you post sale if/when the dealer finds out. in the same way if you decide to sell your car privately there is zero comeback. When should you discuss trade in? in my opinion it makes very little difference to the final change over figure. Your car is worth $XXXX to the dealer as a trade no matter when you talk about it. All it will do is maybe change how things are structured on the paperwork.
apollo11,
Jul 21, 7:10am
We told them at the beginning, and they said they can't take Euro cars as trade-ins, too much potential trouble lol.
kazbanz,
Jul 21, 7:11am
To be honest -I agree with them.
vtecintegra,
Jul 21, 8:08am
Last car I traded was to a franchise dealer and all they did was look at odometer and do a brief walk around before giving me a number. They didn't look under the bonnet, put the car on a hoist or ask any questions about maintenance which was all kinda disappointing as it was a really good example. They did move on the trade in price a little (not as much as I would have liked of course) after some haggling though in preference to dropping the price on the new car (same result, I guess just different profits against different departments at the dealer).
I'd tell them about the trade in up front - there is no guarantee they'll even want to deal with it and keeping it a 'secret' until the end is just going to draw negotiations out.
mojo49,
Jul 21, 8:09am
It is hard to complain about a dealer being dodgy if you start a transaction by not telling them you have a trade-in. No need for you to say more than that. It is up to the dealer to assess the trade-in from that point on. In my time in the industry I did a lot of trade-in assessments and as a consequence met a lot of very dishonest people, who would lie through their teeth about faults in their trade-in that I could see that they would claim they could not.
stevo2,
Jul 21, 8:16am
I would be upfront and say I had a trade-in as soon as they asked. I cant see it being an issue. If they were to offer you a great discount off their car by you leading them to believe you had no trade, when it comes to light that you actually do have a trade, the trade-in offer may be disappointing. Remember, its not the Trade-in valuation that matters, its the change over price that is important.
kazbanz,
Jul 21, 8:20am
LMAO --ohh heck yea. the number of times ive heard "that just started" Or "its never happened before" or. No it doesn't leak oil or any other variation on that theme. Because there is ZERO comeback for the public selling to dealers they can lie as much as they want to. Sorry to rant a bit but that's why I laugh at a poster suggesting you are better off buying cars privately.
mojo49,
Jul 21, 9:04am
I have tended to buy privately but I have had enough experience to do so knowing what to look for. There are always threads on here about private purchases gone bad with no recourse for the buyer. The two cars I have brought recently through dealers have been immaculately groomed, new WOF, serviced, warrantied etc. Cars are getting too complex for me to assess now and I am tending to dealers rather than private unless it is a cheapie for around the orchards. Even a hard bitten buyer like me has to move with the times. I still negotiate hard with dealers and look for stock which has been around for maybe 3 months that I know they will be keen to move. Plus I pay cash, no trade-in.
bumfacingdown,
Jul 21, 10:07am
How do you negotiate price and not declare you want to trade in?
billyfieldman,
Jul 21, 10:24am
Thanks everybody for the replies.
rovercitroen,
Jul 21, 4:13pm
I have had a couple of well known dealers sales-people try some dodgy dealings with me over the years. One had advertised a car for a "special" of $2k off at $12k. I went and looked at it, liked it and said, "OK what's mine worth to trade?" They took it for a drive, had a look at it and the manager said "We'd trade it for $6k." I thought that sounded fair so I said "great we'll sign it up and I'll pay you the $6k difference and all good". "Oh, no" he said. For a trade in the car is $14k (the 'normal' price). So we had a heated discussion as nowhere had they said there were two different prices for trade in or cash. I told them they were dishonest and to keep their car. Wasted an hour of both of our time. The other time, about 30 years ago, at the main Hamilton Ford dealer the salesperson altered the window card to a higher price as I had negotiated a better price for my trade in and they wanted to get some back on the deal. Dodgy as. They thought they were smart but they weren't as they lost the deal. Car dealers know all the tricks and as a buyer you really need to keep your wits about you when talking numbers in a deal.
I deal with this kind of situation literally every day of the week. Customers wanting the best price for CASH. yes Im paying CASH. Then once we have agreed on a price suddenly they want to trade their car in. Then they expect the same trade in figure another dealer may have quoted them but the other identical car is thousands dearer. Reality is that nowadays with such robust consumer protection and zero comeback from the dealer the public has every reason to lie and cheat whereas dealers have little reason.
mojo49,
Jul 22, 5:32am
"Reality is that nowadays with such robust consumer protection and zero comeback from the dealer the public has every reason to lie and cheat whereas dealers have little reason." Going way back to the 60s, 70, and 80s the industry was full of cowboys and they brought the legislation on themselves. I was expert at removing speedos and flicking them back with out damaging the cogs and keeping them exactly lined up. A guy I worked with later hung himself when he got caught flicking the speedos on jap imports. Bit extreme. Speedo tampering was just the beginning of the bad stuff that went on with used cars. Yes it is one sided now and the dishonest public then are still the dishonest public today, but that is just the way it has gone. Something had to be done and the dealer was the one with the profit motive and so copped the burden.
3tomany,
Jul 22, 6:53am
When i have upgraded older cars i have always done well out of trade me and recently facebook. However most of the cars i trade are still worth north of 30k so i always get the dealer to appraise it as soon as i start to get interested in a particular vehicle.
oliver6,
Jul 23, 10:42am
If the dealer you referred to was JB in Khyber Pass, he didn't get caught flicking Speedos. He along with others was set up by the well known campaigner for justice.
mojo49,
Nov 15, 5:01am
Yes I worked with JB before he went out on his own. I did not think he was in KP when he got pinged. He was flicking speedos in KP when he was a mechanic at Cord Motors and their other two yards across the road in the early 1970s.
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