What's your cheekiest successful offer on a car?

[stripped fred]

My thoughts are turning to selling my Alfa and what to price it at and what to accept. As a nation we aren't generally known for haggling but this doesn't seem to apply to cars. I remember my Dad was pretty good at selling at the asking price and knocking a good bit off any new chod purchase, of which there were lots. Unfortunately his haggling skills seem to have passed me by! I start off tough but then crumble quite easily. So what is the best deal you have secured on a car? Over to you...

[twosmoke300]

Had a few where I've looked at them , pointed out a major fault and been given the car !

[ruffgeezer]

Always be prepared to walk.

 

I got the Streetwise for £150, I knew it's history but also knew with it's high miles and tatty body it wasn't worth a great deal.

 

I offered what I was prepared to pay and left it with the owner, the next day he couldn't get it to start so asked me to attend and see what was wrong, in the end it was a flat remote battery (he had 2 sets of keys). He told me he didn't want the hassle and we shook hands on my offer.

 

The Rover had the last laugh though as I spent nearly as much again on it within my brief ownership!

[danthecapriman]

An N reg Volvo 850 GLE estate, taxed and MOT'd. Guy was leaving the country the day I went to view it so I took advantage!

He wanted £450, I offered £150 and ended up taking it home with me.

 

I didn't get anything out of it in the end though as a mate was desperate for a working car so I let him have it for the £150 it cost me. Cos I'm nice (stupid!) like that.

It turned out to be a good car and he used it for another year and a bit afterwards, putting a good 20k miles onto it.

[Ghosty]

Last year Old Man had a pretty tidy silver Y-reg Civic on 90k. It was coming up on needing a lot of maintenance (cambelt, something £300+ I can't remember, and it was rotting out in places you couldn't see - bodged with a dremel and fibreglass). In February he drove to Keighley to look at a different Y-reg Civic on 50k up for £1195, decided it was good enough and proceeded to barter with the dealers (when they got back from the mosque!) - he managed to get the seller down from their original offer of old Civic + £750 to old Civic + £500 by demonstrating that the rear trailing arm bushes were shot and it was causing the car to pull left pretty badly.

 

He'd noticed in the service history an invoice saying the bushes were recently done along with a load of other new but not obvious parts, the actual problem was that the tracking was off, which he sorted on the drive himself.

[Bren]

£50 for an SD1 with good body but knackered 2.3.

[stripped fred]

Well you all sound much better at it than me! I think twoskoke300 is the winner though. You can't beat a free car. I think I need to brush up on my haggling skills. Maybe there's a course I could do?

[scaryoldcortina]

Had a few where I've looked at them , pointed out a major fault and been given the car !

Me too. I've also been given cars in exchange for doing a MoT on the new one.

 

As far as offering goes though, I once offered someone 4 tins of lager for an XR3i he was trying to sell, and he accepted. Turns out he'd just been banned for drink-drive....

 

Also, I once had a "cars wanted" ad in the paper, a guy rang up with a v8 P6 that he urgently needed gone because his mother was getting an extension done and it was in the way. I looked at it, ummed a bit and offered £50. He gave me the logbook, the keys and £50 and said to get on with it.

[STUNO]

Disgusting thread....I read all the complaints re buyers on Ebay etc, Then this thread where we are supposed to be proud of our sticking in a cheeky offer, doing the same thing we complain bitterly about buyers* of our rubbish doing.

     

Why am I so upset ?

I always pay too much and sell for too little because 100 quid cash now tonight  is good !

[Tamworthbay]

Got an E300 for the father in law (despite being ex bomb disposal he finds haggling terrifying), the dealer wanted £7995, but it had been there an age so got it for £4500 with a year's warranty. I was going to ask for a full tank of fuel but thought I might not get out alive if I did. I love buying cars and haggling with dealers so usually haggle for all my friends and family. I usually aim for 20-30% and never less than 10%. Private sales are different, I won't take the piss as it's not fair.My capri project was up for £1200 but needed a lot of work and I wasn't sure so I offered £600 on the grounds I wasn't sure if I wanted it. I was a bit surprised when his hand came out and shook mine. With how prices have gone stupid this last year I am glad I did.

[beko1987]

When gnomeotoole went to buy his crv the eml light came on pretty early on. I plugged my obd reader in, and after everyone on here said it's a common common fault that doesnt affect the car we went back the next day, gnome came straight out with an offer £150 less than the already good price and they shook hands.

 

I'm crap at bartering. Paid full asking for the XM cos campbell was straight up and it was cheap anyway, paid full asking for my ZX based on the solid history (but then got £50 back to fix it after the wheel fell off

[taxi paul]

Mine wasn't an offer as such. About six years ago whilst driving my taxi. I was taking a regular lady to her elderly aunts when she asked me if I knew of a scrapyard for her aunt to dispose of her old car. Long story short , my daughter became the proud owner of a k reg 1.0 ltr fiesta. 24,000 genuine miles a full ford service history and four new tyres , fitted by the friendly ford garage for previous years mot. No mot but sailed straight through. My mate who sprays cars done a bit of dent pulling and mopped and polished it. I got it for £100 . I tried to pay her more but she was adamant that was all she wanted. My daughter then son had it fir a few years till it got part exed for something less glamorous.

[New POD]

Best Price was a FREE mk2 Cavalier Cdi auto, but best haggle was an MG Metro Turbo.

 

 

Back in 1991.

 

Advertised in the Autotrader for £2600, when it should have been £2100 ish in Wolverhampton.

 

I obviously didn't phone up. Went instead to look at others at £1900 to £2100, but was never happy and didn't buy.

 

Picked up a 4 week old autotrader, and saw it again, and phoned up. I said if he was open to offers I'd come and look.

 

I had a look, pointed out the usual rust, and declared the brakes were fecked, but offered him £1500. Left a phone number, and drove home. Before I got home, he'd rung up and my wife told him, she didn't know a thing about it, and I didn't need another car.

 

I phoned him back, and explained that at £1500, my wife would let me buy it, but it was unlikely that I would pay much more. He suggested £1700, I suggested £1550, we ended up at £1600. A year later I sold it for £1750 (although it had a new rear quarter due to an accident and new front wings due to the rust)

[Alexg]

This evening I had a guy drive 250 miles to look at buying a car I had up for £4999. He was waiting at my house 45 minutes before I got home from work and admitted the car was good value hence taking the long trip. He looked around it, was happy with what he saw, and offered me £4500...

 

Erm... no, I have the power.

 

I allowed £50 off for diesel because I liked him and dug my heals in. He protested and kept asking for more before reluctantly giving in and handing me £4950.

 

But I'm shit at haggling money off though.

[cobblers]

I'm crap at bartering nowadays, I've learned to expect the least so as long as it's not falling in half I'll just buy it.

Anyway when I was 19 I inexplicably had saved up 3k to buy a car, this was 2004. Most of it was student loan/student overdraft - I was running around in a fairly tidy £600 106 XSI at the time but fancied an "Upgrade" to a Saxo VTR. Now I realise it's the same car with the same power, a less fun engine and crap seats but they were newish at the time so I was foolish.

 

I saw a local advert for one -  4 years old, 50K, FSH, 2 lady owners etc, asking price was something like £3700. I went to look at it with the hope of maybe chipping them down to £3500 and selling my other car plus trying to borrow a some off my mum to finance it.

 

Turned up and it was pretty much mint apart from stinking of fags and a deep 3 inch scratch on the drivers door. I took it for a test drive and made small talk with the owner who was a bit of a MILF but back them MILFS weren't mainstream so I had to keep it to myself. Anyway we got talking and she said that she'd bought a £1700 sofa on "Buy now pay next year" then forgot all about it and had 4 days left to pay so she needed some money to pay for it which is why the car was for sale, which was just as we pulled over outside her house. After spending the whole test drive being "crap barterer" and singing the cars praises, jokingly I said "well the cars alright I suppose, I'll give you £1700 cash no worries" but instead of the "fuck off" she just said yes.

I felt right bad so when I went to my old car to get the cash out I split it in half so I wouldn't have to count it out and end up with £1300 cash still in my hand, but I picked the wrong half up and had to shout my mate to chuck me £200 but he misheard and was like "NO DAVE THERE'S ONLY £1800 LEFT"

 

It was a good car though!

[chaseracer]

Did you test-drive the sofa?

 

[bub2006]

There's always one

[chaseracer]

And it's invariably me 

[bub2006]

Yes sir you are correct there!

[stripped fred]

It's a funny old game isn't it. You expect to get £1000 for your car so you price it at say £1200 so that someone can come along and knock you down to £1000 again. But if you priced it at £1000 to start with they would still want some off. I suppose you need to think what you will be happy paying, not too greedy and try not to offend them, too much!

[Justin Case]

My one, and so far only, venture into the world of Classicdom. I saw a Saab 96L advertised in the bargain basement section of a local Peugeot dealer at £395, I couldn't get to see it, but by the next week it had gone down to £295. I had a quick test drive, pointed out a noisy gearbox, and offered £225, which ws accepted. I kept the car for eight years and sold it to a friend in the Saab club for £200, the gearbox no noisier

 

Edit, if only had been cheeky enough to have offered £195, I would have created a word's first and last for myself by selling a car for more than I had paid

[Vince70]

I went to a car show about 12 years ago and there was a very early non pineappled 1983 Mk2 golf GTi at the event with a couple of months ticket which was open to offers the guy wanted around £500 for the car and it had done about 130000 miles but sounded sweet as a nut and even had a full service history.

 

At the time I had a golf cabriolet GTi and the gearbox was knackered and the top end was making a very nasty clatter suggesting that the 50000 miles on the clock wasn't very genuine so I said to the guy joking how much for the gearbox and seller said that his misses would go mad if he brought the car back home as he just doesn't have the space on the drive and if the car doesn't sell by the end of the day that I could have it for £150 which would of been the going rate for a decent gearbox.

 

I drove the car home and couldn't believe how nice it was to drive although you wouldn't want to spend money on it turning it into a minter as it was far to gone for that as it had a few grazes here and there plus I imagine it was hiding something under the dodgy fitted vinyl roof, but it was a far better car mechanically than my £3500 Cabriolet so I had the head plus gearbox and battery off it and the odd clip etc then sold the Pirreli P alloys for a £100 and the buyer gave me his old steel wheels to throw back on it and I fitted my duff components from my cabriolet back on the car then sold it for a £100 to someone who wanted it for the GTi interior and body kit.

 

The guy who bought it picked it up at 10 in the evening and drove the car away and he had a 90 mile drive back home in the pouring rain. I couldn't see it making 9 feet let alone 90 miles as the gearbox clattered away merrily on its way up the road with candle powered lights and a lot of white smoke coming out the exhaust and by that time the mot was well and truly out but I did warn him that he needed a trailer.

 

Thinking about it I should of had the rear axle off it for a disk brake conversion on the back as the brakes on the cabriolet are terrible and an anchor would work better than the standard setup.