Put down deposit for car-petrol tank almost empty.

porsche959

I put down deposit for car on Monday and am due to collect it on Friday but I noticed when test driving it there was very little fuel left (5 kms according to computer).

What is etiquete here, is it appropriate for me to ask dealer to fill tank or do I just have to toddle to the nearest petrol station after picking up?

endacl

Is there a filling station within 5k of the dealer?

Those lads are not renowned for their generosity...

Toyotafanboi

in most cases you toddle. if they are sound they might throw a drop in but i'd be surprised. you may as well ask though, what have you got to lose!

last time i went with dad to pick up a car he had bought, the fuel light was on. dad insisted the salesman put some fuel in it for him. we drove the car to the filling station and the salesman followed, he put €6 in :pac:

Reggie.

endacl wrote: »

Is there a filling station within 5k of the dealer?

Those lads are not renowned for their generosity...

True but ask him for a luck penny as in enough to at least get ya to a filling station

porsche959

endacl wrote: »

Is there a filling station within 5k of the dealer

That's mainly what I'm concerned about. Dealer is in Dublin but in area where filling stations seem to be quite thin on the ground.

brianwalshcork

Tested two cars over the past week, one had 11km and the other 14.... They have it down to a fine art!

In fairness if they had 30 cars in a years and enough petrol for 100 km in each, that be the best part of €500

You could haggle a fill maybe.

stimpson

Last new car I bought I haggled 2 fills from the salesman. He brimmed it the day I picked it up and I went back and he gave me the company fuel card for the local station.

bazz26

I would be very surprised if a reputable dealer would let you drive away in a car with an empty fuel tank. Very unlikely you will get a full tank but I'd ring ahead and remind them to put some in all the same especially if you have a long trip ahead of you home. The old saying "if you don't ask, you won't get."

Summer wind

I bought a new car two years ago and before I collected the car I was promised a full tank on collection by the manager. On the day I collected the car the manager went through the controls of the car and before I left the garage I noticed the tank was almost empty. I brought it to his attention and it was filled immediately.

So as bazz says if you don't ask you don't get.

CarrickMcJoe

No harm in asking. If he says no, then point out let him know you won't be buying off him again, and you'll name and shame him on boards........

George Dalton

A full tank of fuel would be a significant proportion of the margin a garage would have on a used car. So if you want a tank of fuel then the car would have to be more expensive in the first place. There's no such thing as a free lunch....

George Dalton

CarrickMcJoe wrote: »

No harm in asking. If he says no, then point out let him know you won't be buying off him again, and you'll name and shame him on boards........

Ridiculous post really.

Ded_Zebra

It'll depend on lots of things. It you're spending 20k on a used car I would expect them to fill it or at least give you 1/2 a tank. For under 5,000 I would expect nothing, maybe 5l at a push if it was really low.

mgbgt1978

I'd say if you give the location of the dealer (you don't need to mention names if you don't want to), there should be plenty of people here able to suggest the nearest filling station.....can't be too far away if you're buying in Dublin.
Or assuming you're getting dropped off to collect the car could you just bring a gallon of fuel with you (for peace of mind).

djimi

George Dalton wrote: »

A full tank of fuel would be a significant proportion of the margin a garage would have on a used car. So if you want a tank of fuel then the car would have to be more expensive in the first place. There's no such thing as a free lunch....

How much does a tank of fuel cost in Laois? :eek:

Trojan

I think a big part of it really depends on what end of the market you're at, i.e. how much margin there is.

Doing some maths on it, the Irish Times motoring blog (in 2013) reckoned dealers make 8% margin on a new car.

Taking as an example, all of the 142 reg Ford Focus's on Carzone right now we get an average list price of €22,761. That means there's approximately €1820 of profit margin on that fairly average car (no offense intended, and I currently drive a Focus ).

Assuming the IT figure doesn't already include a tank of fuel, that €1820 margin putting €80 worth of fuel in is reducing the profit by around 4% of the total profit margin.

At the low end there are Focus's on sale from dealers from around €1500 up right now (not including the Sold as Seen one). Let's take a sales price of €2000. Eight percent of €2000 is €160, so all else being equal putting €80 worth of fuel in is reducing the profit by around 50% of the total profit margin.

There are loads of other factors, e.g. if they took it as a trade in they may have already made the margin on the other side of the deal so simply breaking even on shifting the trade in could be good enough for some folks, as would the cash flow issue. If it's desirable they might hold it on the forecourt longer, etc.

But going back to the OP, I would definitely expect enough petrol to get to the nearest filling station at the very least

kirving

I bought 6yr old S40 at the start of the year, from an Audi main dealer. Now maybe I overpaid, but having lookresearched a good bit, I think it was a fair price.

I got four new tyres and a full tank of petrol without ever mentioning it. It seemed as though they just did this by default on every car they sold.

bucketybuck

I've worked for a number of main dealers and the policy was always the same, new cars/trucks would basically have delivery diesel added to the tank, enough to get the customer back to their yard or something reasonable like that. They would never just fill a full tank of fuel as a matter of course.

If you look at it rationally its not a surprising policy, the fuel isn't free so you are basically asking the dealer to give you circa €100 free on top of any agreed deal. Its a poor businessman just throws hundreds of euro away like that.

We also only filled enough air in the tyres for delivery, can't expect that free either.

MarkR

I don't think I've ever test driven or bought a car that had the fuel light off. That low, i'd be asking for a top up. Not great for diesel tanks to run that low, is it?

For Forks Sake

MarkR wrote: »

I don't think I've ever test driven or bought a car that had the fuel light off. That low, i'd be asking for a top up. Not great for diesel tanks to run that low, is it?

When I bought my Octavia last week there was between a half and a quarter tank of diesel in it. Dealer didn't have a filling station either.

porsche959

Well, as it turned out, they only put around a gallon in it, but car was nicely valetted and serviced so can't complain.

darragh o meara

MarkR wrote: »

I don't think I've ever test driven or bought a car that had the fuel light off. That low, i'd be asking for a top up. Not great for diesel tanks to run that low, is it?

That's usually because of the car is nicked while on a test drive, the person robbing it is gonna have to fill up somewhere local where they hopefully get caught on cctv.