Pug 406 exec

[Captain Jack]

We had a new car shop open here in Swindon this month. Looking at their site, they have a nice 406 2.2L HDi Exec there for 6.5k. While that seems like a lot, it's quite low mileage (57k). I might go have a look at it today and see what they could potentially offer for my car in part exchage. While I'd probably not give my car up... ever, would still be nice to see what it's worth (maybe even over £1000 )

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[Welly]

For the love of God, be careful with the 'Car Shop'.

Great prices but they are *Very* heavy with you.

They are all trained up the same and follow a set pattern of sales patter.

They even get you to agree to the purchase BEFORE they value your part-ex i.e when it's too late and you can't easily go back a step.

They don't own any of the cars they sell but just move them on, on behalf of big lease companies etc. at trade prices.

The Car Shop make their money by selling Warrenties, Special 'Diamond' care (like scotchguard ) and Gap insurance etc.

You have to be extremely determined and very firm with them to fend off all the crap they will lob at you as soon as you walk through the door.

In other words, it's like an automotive catlemarket

[Captain Jack]

How can they get me to agree to a purchase before the part-ex value is given?

Can't I just buy a car without any of the crap they lob at me? i.e. I'd just want warranty obviously but nothing more than that.

You seem to have some experience with the car shop?

[Welly]

My collegue has only just bought from them.

It sounds stupid here but they really do steer you into the purchase before they even look at your part-ex.

Let's not forget that you are going in there because you want a new car. They focus heavily on getting you your new car and, to an extent, you will go along with it thinking (like you do) that my car must be worth £xxxx only to get let down when this is done right at the end of the process.

So, there you are 'pen in hand' and they now say your car is worth £400.00 less than you thought. Well how many people do you think actually walk away at this point? not that many

You don't deal with one salesperson either. You will deal with around 4 different people and basically get further dragged in as you move down the line towards your new car.

My friend would not take ANY of their 'packages' not even the warrenty as the car was only 2 years old and still under manufacturers warrenty.

He had a right job getting them to void all [s]their wages[/s] packages and at one point had to get up and leave the building to make a point.

Eventually though they had him on a 'Credit Card Surcharge' of £260.00 on collection of the car because he paid by card when no mention of the surcharge was ever tabled before.

I know that Car Shops prices are very keen but you must put your foot down with them. That £6,500.00 406 will end up nearer to £7,500.00 by the time they've finished with you

[mjb]

I had a look around a "Yes!" place. They're worse - much, much worse. To the point they don't even price the cars until you're about to sign on the dotted line (which they will LITERALLY put in front of you within 20 minutes of walking into the place!) because they want to work out how desperate and how much of a chump you must be.

Don't get me wrong - no way was I going to buy anything from them... But I did go through all the motions with them just to waste their time in retaliation for their heavy sales approach. Ha! But boy, did they try to use every trick in the book to get me to sign... And then I got home, read up on them, and laughed my ass off


Cptn Jack mate, £6500's a heck of a lot for a 406 with more than 10,000 miles on the clock! Plus it's coming close to major bend-over-for-the-stealers service time ain't it?

[Captain Jack]

Oh no, there's no way I am buying that or anything other than a 406 Coupe HDi in the future. I just wanted to see what peoples opinions were on this. After all, I spent a lot of time making my car feel like an Exec (leather, wood trim, bumper blingies etc...) and here it is handed on a plate (well, a 6.5k plate!).

Keep these dealer stories coming, they are a good read

[DaiRees]

I hate all those pushy car supermarket type places, had far too many uncomfortable experiences. Everything from over pushy to down right rude salesmen and blatent lies.

Once rang carcraft when I was looking for my estate, 'twas a sunny Sunday afternoon in the summer of 2002. They have a central call centre, I said "I want a 406 estate 2.0 petrol Executive or GTX, less than a year old with less than 10000 miles please." Dipsy bint says, "there are absolutely loads of 406 estates in the Newport branch, all trim levels and all ages from nearly new up to 3 years old, they have several that meet those criteria for you to chose from. Ask for Andrew White, they close at 4pm. It was already gone 3 so we screamed along the M4, went in through the door and a bloke met us, "Good afternoon, my names Stephen, how can I help you today?". "Hello, we've been told to ask for Andrew White". Stevey boy says "oh right, that's me then" . "Eh?", "Yeah, they just give you a name on the 'phone to make the service feel more personal"....

So I'm already pissed off within 30 seconds, luckily we'd found the one decent and truthful bloke in the place. After 15 minutes of obviously forced bullshit about how enjoyable the buying experience would be (I reckon Stephen wanted to be there even less than we did), he eventually asked what car we were looking for, so we told him the very specific criteria and before he even consulted his list he said "ooooo we haven't got anything you'd be interested in....." . Rustled the papers for a few seconds then says "there's a red '97 LX estate over there with 112000 miles, a '98 GLX over that side, but that one's a diesel and it's been to the moon an back, and there's a 2000 facelift model LX, diesel again with 55000 miles, that's the closest one to what you're looking for, oh no, hang on, that one's a saloon". I told him what the bint on the phone had said and asked if he was attempting to extract some urine, and the poor guy just apologised, wasn't his fault, obviously seen it all before, "They just tell you what you want to hear to get you though the door. Thing is most people don't really know what they're after, so they get them in here then it's up to us. But when people have very specific requirements like yourself it backfires. There's no point me trying to sell you anything because you know exactly what you want, and we don't have it! They'd be better off telling you the truth on the 'phone, they've just pissed you off now now, you'll probably never set foot in here again now will you?" Oh how right he was! So we made some dissatisfied noised in earshot of the other staff and customers and skulked off home.

Used to look at all the car supermarkets everytime anyone in the family was in the market, but never felt confident or comfortable with any of them. The only one of those places that feels OK is Skinners, but maybe that's because we've been buying cars of him since they were a small backstreet garage, and the owner's sons never forget a face. While they no longer deal with you themselves they always make a point of coming over to say hello and exchange niceties when they see you. That kind of thing goes a long way I reckon:?

[darrenwall]

I had a look around a "Yes!" place. They're worse - much, much worse.

i went to one of them about 2 or 3 years ago when i had a bit of credit problem and needed a newer car , the only one they offered me was a p reg escort 1.4 3 door basic model and the bastids wanted £189 per month for 5 years £11340 for a 6 year old car that cost nowhere near that much when brand new and was worth about £1000 at the very very most

[Welly]

I remember when 'Yes' went bust.

When questioned afterwards about their 120 point safety check the head mechanicy bloke said..''yeah, well we just tick all the boxes anyway''

[TooT]

Back in 1999 i bought a 98R Punto TDSX from Motorpoint of Derby.

When i was i was looking at it the key they gave me was a blue key which had a snapped lug (so it couldnt be put on a keyring).

I decided that i liked the car and wanted to buy it, i said to the sales bint i will have it, has it got the other keys (which with Fiats are another blue and a red master key) "oh yes sir they will be given to you when you collect the car. Ok.

One week later i went to collect it and guess what they gave me the one broken key. Wheres the other keys i said "we dont seem to have them sir, we will get in touch with the previous owner and send them on to you" Grudging i agreed and drove home in my new Punto.

Weeks followed and i heard nothing. With that i just kept ringing and ringing to se where the bloody keys were and each time was the same "we dont know". I needed the red master key so i could get i new blue one cut and programmed so i could put it on my bunch of keys.

I got that so pissed off i wrote a letter to head office stateing what had happened and they were just as useless quoteing blueshit from the small print. I can't remember now but after several more letters they aggreed to get me a red key but they needed the car back because it needed to have the locks, ignition etc etc to be changed. So i did, i went down (a 3 hour drive) and left the car.

One week later i went back to get the car and Yes they gave me a red key but only a red key i thought this was strange i though i would get a full set off keys. Another bint said we manged to get you the original key. MMMMMMM ok.

So home i went and straight to my local Fiat dealer to get another blue key cut. Couple of days latter my Fiat dealer rang and said theres nothing we can do with this key basically it just a blue key with a red case there is no internals which a red key should have, somebody has fobbed you off here mate.

Thats when i just gave up. Moral of the story these big supermarkets are absolute wankers and they dont want to know you once they got your money. I dont care how cheap their cars are i wont be buying one from them again. You might pay more at the main stealer but their aftersales are better.

[DaiRees]

Oh man, no way! Bastards!!

I wouldn't have given up though - trading standards are your friends. Also the media have their uses in situations like that!

[Captain Jack]

Hah... oh my God..... this is soooo bad! Welp, I bought my car from a dealer in Bristol, which had been "RAC Approved". Lovely. A year and a half later, I read in a local paper that the company has been busted for falsely claiming that the cars were RAC Approved. Mhh... now I know why I had a faulty needle lift sensor. It was never checked to start with.

oh well... could be worse I guess...

[neildavies]

A mate of mine had credit problems due to being newly self employed and went to one of these places (carcraft). He bought an R plate astra estate for £7,000 (they were everywhere else for £4,000 at the time). He had it 6 months and had no end of trouble with it and had to get rid, so he went to a better place, managed to get finance and they gave him £1500 for the Astra that he paid £5,500 more for 6 months before.

I hate the way these people take advantage of people. Their obviously having trouble moneywise, and what do they do, kick 'em when their down.

[Welly]

It's funny but I think we've all been guilty at some point of accepting the promiss of a car seller ony to find later it was untrue.

You get rose - tinted spectacles sometimes and just want that car regardless.

I have to say, the trader I bought my 6 from was quite decent. I was buying a T reg 406 just over a year ago and it had 96000 miles and came with a 3 month/3000 mile warrenty and I had the following done under that warrenty:

• Cambelt (because I checked with previous keeper who never did it)
  Broken Road Spring
  New rubber door strip thingy
  Air Con Re-Gass
  Front bumper re-spray (they admitted to me when I collected that they accidentally caught the front bumper very slightly when parking it so offered to re-spray it)
  Air Con Condenser & Re-gass (although this was 6 months so I agreed to pay half £150.00)

Each time it went in for repairs (about 4 times) they gave me a courtesy car, only an old shitter but hey.

I think I paid about £300.00 more than I should for the car but it was worth it for the decent service I got back.

[ThePrisoner]

I still personally feel if you have the readies to hand, then it is always better to buy privately. Obviously you need to know what you are looking for, as you wont get a warrenty but it is easy to walk away without the hassle of an over excited salesman trying to get his next bonus.

Also you can call the shots with regard to price, haggling if its due for a service etc...

I bought my car for £2,350 on eBay which I thought for the low mileage (and I checked it was low mileage) was a bargain. Caught the train up to Chestfield to collect it, and the cars front two tyres were almost bald, when they were advertised of having plenty of tred left.

Although I had agreed to pay £2350, i told him to knock £100 off so I could replace the tyres otherwise I was walking away. Glad it didnt backfire otherwise I would have wasted a day on the train for nothing, but the point is you are the buyer, you are in control.

Would never buy from a car showroom unless getting a really good deal on a Brand new car. But I wont go into that because I wanted a brand new skoda Fabia vRS and the missus wouldn't let me!

Pris.