Trade in assessment, may be of some help for some people:

peasant

@all ...lay off the insults and stay on topic

Clare_Guy

gabgab wrote: »

Are you in Mensa?? seriously....... I mean you're bright as a button,

I have a day off,

Please do not reply unless you have something constructive to add,

ok

craichoe

*sigh* .. well you can look at it two ways. A business has to put a figure on how much inhouse services cost them. These figures are always over inflated, in every business.

[*]Valet €150

Is this how much the materials cost to perform this task ? What is the hourly rate for the employee .. how many hours does it take to complete this task ?

[*]House Charge, covering advertising, plates, recleaning, fuel etc: €200

Would this not vary from dealer to dealer ? I.E. depending on how much the dealer invested in Advertising in the first place ? What kind of numbers are these based on ? What type of Advertising and how many cars ?

[*]Warranty: €200

Warranty is an Aftersales risk, It could cost you 0 or thousands of Euro ? How was this 200 euro figure arrived at ? Is the warranty provided by a third party company ? Is there any general guidelines that garages follow ?

[*]NCT Test: €49

Are all cars that come in not NCT'd ? AFAIK, most owners would have their car NCT'd before the sale or trade in ?

[*]NCT preparation by trained mechanic: €80

How is this 80 euro figure worked out ? Would there not be a variation in the work needed to bring the car up to NCT standard ?

Saying that it is good to get an opinion from the other side, but i would appreciate comments on the above.

L1011

craichoe wrote: »

Warranty is an Aftersales risk, It could cost you 0 or thousands of Euro ? How was this 200 euro figure arrived at ? Is the warranty provided by a third party company ? Is there any general guidelines that garages follow ?

Dealer warranties are very frequently bought off insurance firms such as Warranty Direct, hence a (relatively) fixed price.

Biro

To be honest, I also find it hard to believe that a dealer pays €150 on a car to valet it. €80 for an NCT check? Would it take 2 hours to do this on every single car? Even on average? If so, is the mechanic on €40 an hour? Even having to buy parts (rarely I'd say) that's being very generous with the amount allocated.
I understand that the premises costs money and staff cost money, but adding plates and fuel to cost is strange - fuel is always part of the bargaining deal. If you're paying €150 per car for a valet then I'll come and do it for you, for €140 per car! I'll even buy my own stuff. If I get 4 cars a day I'll clean up!

Robertr

Only problem I have with this is that you would not be offered 5k for a car that retails for 8k or anything like it.

Also, the figures work out nice and handy when looking at an 8k car but how about a car that retails at about 50k. By your rationale, the garage would be taking at least 6k profit and offer me about 43k? Doubt it. I’d say he would give me 35k if I was lucky and also be earning the profit on what ever I'm buying.

How about when the dealer rings someone to buy the car off them. You telling me that there is not a few grand taken off the trade in value between the phone being put down and him telling you what was said?

gabgab wrote: »

To give everyone an idea of the standard costs involved in reconditioning a CLEAN €8,000 car in order to sell it on here goes. The price is purely for example and to maybe make it a bit easier to follow,

• Valet €150
• House Charge, covering advertising, plates, recleaning, fuel etc: €200
• Warranty: €200
• NCT Test: €49
• NCT preparation by trained mechanic: €80

Profit: 12.5 percent is not alot, based on overheads and running costs of the business as a whole, so €1,000

Discount: I will leave this up to readers to assess, based on what they would offer a dealer, today, for a €8,000 car that has been shown to them in a clean fashion, by someone knowledgable, polite, and courteous:

So thats €8,000 less (€679 reconditioning) less (€1,000 profit) = €6,321

Take the €6,231, remove the discount you as a customer would expect, and look at the figure you end up at that a garage needs to have a car costing them. Would you look for €800? Of course you would,

€5,431 is now where the car sits,

Now look at your car you are trading in:

Is it due a service? Maybe €250 depending on make model and what is needed
How good are the tires? €100 supplied and fitted for a decent tire on an average car
Dents/Scrapes? this is a minefield, anything from €70 to thousands
Mileage, where does it sit with similar cars in its class

So best case scenario you're car just needs a standard service no tires, €200

€5,231 is where we are at now, and that is presuming the rest of the car has no bumps, scrapes, trim missing inside, broken wing mirror casings etc etc etc,

After doing all this, look at your car, objectively and see what else about it as a proospective buyer you're eye or ear would be drawn to? Squeek over speed umps, door that does not quiete close right etc etc,

Then bear in mind the following:
How many owners has your car had relative to the norm for its year?
Was it previously crashed and repaired before you purchased it?
What county plate is on it? The registration plate on you're car has a bearing on the potential selling price.
Is it a car previously licenced in another country? If so has it a full and verifiable service history?

I threw this up to maybe hopefully shed some light on where trade in figures come from,

Mods or anyone else please feel free to tidy it up.

gabgab

craichoe wrote: »

*sigh* .. well you can look at it two ways. A business has to put a figure on how much inhouse services cost them. These figures are always over inflated, in every business.

Is this how much the materials cost to perform this task ? What is the hourly rate for the employee .. how many hours does it take to complete this task ? Would this not vary from dealer to dealer ? I.E. depending on how much the dealer invested in Advertising in the first place ? What kind of numbers are these based on ? What type of Advertising and how many cars ? Warranty is an Aftersales risk, It could cost you 0 or thousands of Euro ? How was this 200 euro figure arrived at ? Is the warranty provided by a third party company ? Is there any general guidelines that garages follow ? Are all cars that come in not NCT'd ? AFAIK, most owners would have their car NCT'd before the sale or trade in ? How is this 80 euro figure worked out ? Would there not be a variation in the work needed to bring the car up to NCT standard ? Saying that it is good to get an opinion from the other side, but i would appreciate comments on the above.

From 2 to 6, how much is the piece of steak and potatoes (materials) and the chefs hourly wage in a restaurant?

How many liters of fuel will a car take, do people trade them in with full tanks, how much do I have to put in it before sending the new owner off with it?
How much is a monthly subscription to carzone, will I advertise locally in local papers?
How much is a small advertisement in a daily paper, do you get much for €1,000?

Very few garages purchase warranties from third parties, where does the garages customer go with a problem if not an inhouse warranty? Yes there are, there is a collection of all warrany monies and it is pooled, if you have a car with no problems, if you have a car with a battery and a window regulator problem, could be €300. Now in a negative amount of €100 or 50%

Very few, much like tax, people trade them with the attitude that it does not need to be done as it is not their car anymore

The car has to be inspected, look at a nct report.
At a minimum, light focus, easily off can take sometime to get it right,
tire depth and pressures,
emmissions,
all fluid levels,
all bulbs, down to plate bulbs etc,


All said and done it is like anything, it seems like it is small, it seems like it takes no time, but it does, and it costs money

-Chris-

Biro wrote: »

To be honest, I also find it hard to believe that a dealer pays €150 on a car to valet it. €80 for an NCT check? Would it take 2 hours to do this on every single car? Even on average? If so, is the mechanic on €40 an hour? Even having to buy parts (rarely I'd say) that's being very generous with the amount allocated.
I understand that the premises costs money and staff cost money, but adding plates and fuel to cost is strange - fuel is always part of the bargaining deal. If you're paying €150 per car for a valet then I'll come and do it for you, for €140 per car! I'll even buy my own stuff. If I get 4 cars a day I'll clean up!

I don't know how much it costs per valet in our dealership, but I do know we have a very large industrial unit for valeting. This has rent, light, heat, insurance, maintenance etc. due on it each month.
There are also 4 full time valeters.
Materials are probably a pittance compared to rent & wages, but they're there.

If it were as cheap to valet cars as some people think it is, either all the valeters who are currently operating in our multi-storey carparks would be driving around in S-Classes, or a pricing war would break out.

gabgab

Biro wrote: »

To be honest, I also find it hard to believe that a dealer pays €150 on a car to valet it. €80 for an NCT check? Would it take 2 hours to do this on every single car? Even on average? If so, is the mechanic on €40 an hour? Even having to buy parts (rarely I'd say) that's being very generous with the amount allocated.
I understand that the premises costs money and staff cost money, but adding plates and fuel to cost is strange - fuel is always part of the bargaining deal. If you're paying €150 per car for a valet then I'll come and do it for you, for €140 per car! I'll even buy my own stuff. If I get 4 cars a day I'll clean up!

How much would he pay then for what could be two, or 5 hours work?
What has the salary of the mechanic got to do with anything?
Fuel is bargaining tool, but who pays for it? The money has to come from somewhere,

All I am trying to do is to point out the elements involved in buying and selling cars, too many people look at carzone, look at a forecourt price and decide what their car is worth with no consideration for the realistic price it will fetch, and what money has to be spent on it,

Alun

Put it like this .. assuming the garage in question doesn't have valeters, mechanics and other staff just sitting around on their arses all day doing nothing (and if they do, then they have other problems) then anyone spending time doing an 'internal' job 'for nothing' could better be employed doing the same for a real, live paying customer at the full retail price, so in that sense it is actually costing them that amount.

L-M

Robertr wrote: »

Also, the figures work out nice and handy when looking at an 8k car but how about a car that retails at about 50k. By your rationale, the garage would be taking at least 6k profit and offer me about 43k? Doubt it. I’d say he would give me 35k if I was lucky and also be earning the profit on what ever I'm buying.
QUOTE]

And what if ur 50K car is sitting on the dealers forecourts for 6 months +, costs only increasing, and value only decreasing? There has to be some sort of margin to allow for this and also all of mention in the first post. It's not all money making, money is lost too.

Cyrus

The original post would make sense in some limited situations, but of course there are very few garages that will go by something like that.

more than likely the salesman will do a quick walk around, make sure it isnt badly damaged and then check the trade value of the car, and thats it, that is regardless of the fact that the car traded in may be in pristine condition with good tyres, 2 year nct, low mileage etc, doesnt matter a toss.

Thats why ive never traded a car in

Biro

gabgab wrote: »

How much would he pay then for what could be two, or 5 hours work?
What has the salary of the mechanic got to do with anything?
Fuel is bargaining tool, but who pays for it? The money has to come from somewhere,

All I am trying to do is to point out the elements involved in buying and selling cars, too many people look at carzone, look at a forecourt price and decide what their car is worth with no consideration for the realistic price it will fetch, and what money has to be spent on it,

Look, it's fair enough, you've provided a good thread with information, and you're right, people over value their cars because of what they see on the forecourt. In the UK it's a case of forecourt prices are one thing and private prices are a bit less, and everyone knows the reasons why, but that's not the case here.
What annoys me though is two things. One is that sales guys do tend to whine a lot about their job being underestimated, but if you weren't making money you wouldn't be in the business. Fair enough, you're supposed to make money. But what really annoys me is the fact that I'm frequently ignored by sales guys. And I've never yet gotten a call back from any of them.

Cyrus

Limerick-man wrote: »

Robertr wrote: »

Also, the figures work out nice and handy when looking at an 8k car but how about a car that retails at about 50k. By your rationale, the garage would be taking at least 6k profit and offer me about 43k? Doubt it. I’d say he would give me 35k if I was lucky and also be earning the profit on what ever I'm buying.
QUOTE]

And what if ur 50K car is sitting on the dealers forecourts for 6 months +, costs only increasing, and value only decreasing? There has to be some sort of margin to allow for this and also all of mention in the first post. It's not all money making, money is lost too.

if its sitting there for 6 months thats the garages fault for over pricing it

a fairly priced car will sell quickly

L-M

Cyrus wrote: »

a fairly priced car will sell quickly

Not true, u can be a fairly priced as u like and if there isn't a market for it, it won't sell.

mkdon05

garages make a profit on taking your old car and also make a profit on selling you a new car. Thieves disguised in a shirt and tie.

That said if you dont like their trade in price, stop whinging and sell privately.

Cyrus

Limerick-man wrote: »

Not true, u can be a fairly priced as u like and if there isn't a market for it, it won't sell.

there is a market for everything, has to be (within reason) thats why it sold in the first place, prices are too high thats why they dont sell

gabgab

Cyrus wrote: »

Limerick-man wrote: »

if its sitting there for 6 months thats the garages fault for over pricing it

a fairly priced car will sell quickly

You're dead right there, but a fair price will not always be accepted by a customer or potential customer.

A fair price from a garages perspective, with costs as discussed, and showroom, and staff is going to be very different to somebody selling a car on the side of the road and with no warranty or overheads. That is the same for every facet of business,

gabgab

mkdon05 wrote: »

garages make a profit on taking your old car and also make a profit on selling you a new car. Thieves disguised in a shirt and tie.

That said if you dont like their trade in price, stop whinging and sell privately.

Please show me an example of us making a profit on both parts of a deal, or how it is done

L-M

mkdon05 wrote: »

garages make a profit on taking your old car and also make a profit on selling you a new car. Thieves disguised in a shirt and tie.

Lol, so when we trade in a car, service it, clean it, and advertise it we make money? Invite me to ur world please

Biro

Limerick-man wrote: »

Lol, so when we trade in a car, service it, clean it, and advertise it we make money? Invite me to ur world please

Do you make a loss on every traded car? If so why do ye accept trade-in's?

L-M

Biro wrote: »

Do you make a loss on every traded car? If so why do ye accept trade-in's?

We don't make money on a car we trade in. We make money when it's sold.

Biro

Limerick-man wrote: »

We don't make money on a car we trade in. We make money when it's sold.

I see now what you meant.

gabgab

Biro wrote: »

Do you make a loss on every traded car? If so why do ye accept trade-in's?

No but we make a profit on some and a loss on others, its a speculative game where people are hoping they have it right based on their knowledge, experience, and current market trends.

I posted it up to try give some people some insight, but the same prevails as always, were thieves and the poor customer is getting fleeced.

People that claim to be being robbed are regularly ones with the least knowledge of how a deal, any deal where something is being part exchanged against it, works. We all believe, me included that we know what something is worth, when i fact we rarely do unless we have done extensive studying and research,

To be fair, and to argue the point back, I have had plenty of cars traded into me, that are one owner cars. A one owner car, should have no paintwork that the owner does not know about, unless it was damaged and repaired before being sold to them, or damaged and repaired without your knowledge, unlikely but does happen.

How many customers tell us, when asked directly has it been painted at any point? Not many, when shown that it has been painted, the response is
"oh it was a small scratch" which can be true, but rarely is

Jonny303

Clare_Guy wrote: »

Do you really think it costs a garage €150 to "valet" a car, how much does it cost the "man-on-the-street"?

They'll have a young fella to do the "valet".
QUOTE]

Yes i do actually, cos it costs me 100 + the vat a pop, so there!!

Clare_Guy

Jonny303 wrote: »

Yes i do actually, cos it costs me 100 + the vat a pop, so there!!

am... €100 + vat @ 21% is... €121, so there!!!

Dancing_Priest

Gabgab and Limerick-Man;
Fair play guys, Ye have done a great job of trying to explain the internal processes of a dealership. People just never seem to believe that you dont make 30% profit on a car, and try to explain to them that in a lot of cases your mark up on some models is less than the price of a night out....
Anyway back to the grindstone... It's writedown time again, Yeayyy!!!
D_P

L1011

Clare_Guy wrote: »

am... €100 + vat @ 21% is... €121, so there!!!

Utterly pointless and pedantic post; and most likely wrong - 13.5% VAT most likely applies in this case.

peasant

MYOB wrote: »

Utterly pointless and pedantic post; and most likely wrong ...

Takes one to know one, I guess

L1011

peasant wrote: »

Takes one to know one, I guess

Oh of course, I will never deny my pedantry