Buying a secondhand car from an Audi center

Lawrence Ellul

Lawrence Ellul

Registered User
Joined
Jun 20, 2017
Messages
116
Reaction score
37
Points
28
Location
Malta
Hi all

Hopefully in the coming weeks I'll travel to the UK and get myself an A3 which will then be exported to the sunny island of Malta :). I've been looking around on Autotrader, Pistonheads and the Audi used cars catalogue and managed to shortlist a couple of cars. The prices of the cars fits well with my budget so from that aspect I have no problem. Since I have never bought a car from the UK, how much haggling can one do and what kind of discount can one expect on a used low mileage car, considering that i'll settle the payment in full of the car on the day?

Lawrence
 
Hi Lawrence,

You coming here for the weather?

Until I bought my recent S3 Sportback new, I always bought ex demos or a few years old. It seems to vary massively from dealer to dealer. Audi have quite a hard stance on price in my experience. I bought a 6 month old SQ5 a few years back that was booked at £47k and managed to buy for £42k with 1200 miles on the clock. When we bought our TTS on PCP 2 years back they said "oh, you'll trade it in again in 2 years anyway". When we did look at trading for the new S3 the trade in was very low. They used the excuse that it was too old for them to sell and they'd probably just send it to the auctions. If it wasn't for my love of Audi I'd have went to another manufacturer.

The issue is that Audi's are in demand, so they seemed to be recession proof.

If it's a monthly budget you can get great deals on new if you use Carwow or similar site. If you can deal with leasing there are tonnes of deals on contracthireandleasing.co.uk or .com... sorry can't remember which.

Hope you get it sorted and enjoy!

Cheers,

David
 
  • Like
Reactions: Jassyo06
What's your budget on the car? Whatever it is don't shift from it.. And You'll get what you want.
 
To be honest the pricing of Audi in the UK is extremely good compared to the pricing here in Malta. I'm looking up to a max of 22K, as then i need to factor in shipment and registration in Malta

In Malta a new A3 spotstback in sports trip will set you back over 40,000 euros. I can get a new pre-registered car in the S-line trim for much less than that. The only problem is that locally when I register the car if it is not older than 6 months from first registration and it doesn't have 5000Km on the clock it will be considered as new an i'll need to pay an additional 18% VAT on top which will still be much cheaper than Malta but then i'll be stretching my pocket a bit too far.

Are Audi's recession proof... it looks like it even locally

Still how much would one expect to get as a discount in the negotiation process, every little helps :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: burnsy79
Lawrence Ellul said:
To be honest the pricing of Audi in the UK is extremely good compared to the pricing here in Malta. I'm looking up to a max of 22K, as then i need to factor in shipment and registration in Malta

In Malta a new A3 spotstback in sports trip will set you back over 40,000 euros. I can get a new pre-registered car in the S-line trim for much less than that. The only problem is that locally when I register the car if it is not older than 6 months from first registration and it doesn't have 5000Km on the clock it will be considered as new an i'll need to pay an additional 18% VAT on top which will still be much cheaper than Malta but then i'll be stretching my pocket a bit too far.

Are Audi's recession proof... it looks like it even locally

Still how much would one expect to get as a discount in the negotiation process, every little helps :)
Click to expand...
With a budget of £22k l would say between £1000 to £1200 of discount
 
OP - You mentioned you'd be coming in the next few weeks. Your timing is perfect, for the rest of July and August the dealers will be struggling to hit their sales targets due to the new 67 registration coming on the 1/9/17.

Also, this time of year dealers like to shift as many 2nd hand cars from stock as possible to make room for all the cars traded in when people collect their new 67 plate car in September. Be nice but be prepared to drive a hard bargain, it will pay off.
 
Thanks for the tip Chris. Probably I'll come over in September or October latest. I see it very difficult to come earlier due to other commitments
 
Dealers don't seem to favour cash buyers so much these days, you might be able to get a better deal taking finance and then settle it the following day. Not sure how it would work with you not being based here though so feel free to ignore that :)

Si :)
 
Psyman79 said:
Dealers don't seem to favour cash buyers so much these days, you might be able to get a better deal taking finance and then settle it the following day. Not sure how it would work with you not being based here though so feel free to ignore that :)

Si :)
Click to expand...
There's no money in cars today as in the race to the bottom everyone can shop around online etc to find the lowest prices, so the money is made from the finance & gap insurance etc. As we all know gap directly from ALA approx £100... get the same product from a retailer £500!. I'm not sure how the OP would do the finance as they wouldn't have a UK address.
 
Lawrence Ellul said:
Thanks for the tip Chris. Probably I'll come over in September or October latest. I see it very difficult to come earlier due to other commitments
Click to expand...

Try and get here in August. In September the dealers will have no problem meeting their targets, they will sell a lot of new registration cars and are therefore unlikely to go the extra mile to give you a good price to make a sale.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

R
buying a secondhand s3 saloon!!
Replies
8
Views
1K
jaypers777
jaypers777
airbus319
Buying Mirrors from a left hand drive car?
Replies
10
Views
8K
airbus319
airbus319
A
Buying an Audi S3 Saloon
Replies
14
Views
2K
amit87
A
tanner_a
Facelift Buying a new car need help
Replies
22
Views
2K
Audi Bairn
Audi Bairn
W
Buying a new car on PCP
Replies
26
Views
2K
Adam14
Adam14
Top
Back