Car showrooms can be strange places at the best of times, either like ghost towns with tumbleweed rolling through them or so busy that customers have to wait an hour just to make an enquiry!

At present, post scrappage, there are plenty of customers looking at used cars but without the carrot of a genuine special offer, customers fearing that the deals are not as good as before, are not jumping into new cars

Clearly there are many dealers out there who are trying to promote their own schemes to keep the hard won scrappage momentum going and to keep a familiar theme going which has been hugely popular with the car buying public.

The danger however is getting caught up in the excitement of a £2,000 offer for your existing car when if it is newer than the 10 year old rule, as in scrappage, it could easily be worth more.

The reality is that dealers today understand that buyers are not stupid and minimum part exchange offers have been around for years. All buyers need to remember is that if they have a car newer than 10 years old, which has been well looked after, it stands to reason that it could well have some value and the difference now, unlike during the scrappage scheme, is that the dealer can sell the car on through the trade and get a large proportion of the price paid back at auction. This means that although he may have given £2,000 as part of a deal he may very well get £1,000 back.

The buyer needs to realise that if this ‘scrappage‘ offer means £2k minimum then they must not forget to haggle for money off the list price of the new car, whilst also remembering that dealers need to carry on the momentum and still have robust volume targets and therefore will try to do everything to get the deal done.
As long as car buyers have their wits about them they should get the right price for their old car and a changeover figure they are happy with.

Our advice is although it is not an exact science have a look at Autotrader for similar cars to yours being advertised to get some kind of feel as to whether £2,000 may or may not be a fair offer. If you want to change the car make sure the dealer is aware from the beginning that £2,000 is nowhere near enough for your car and that you will want the £2,000 and whatever the car is worth on top!

To research and compare is to be a satisfied customer.

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