Hello fellow OZBs
I am in the market for a new car and thought of using the current Financial year sale that gives extra warranty, price cut etc.
I haven’t bought a brand new car till now. My current one is a Corolla Sport bought 3 years ago when it was 1.5 years old and I paid around $15.5K for it (35,000KM). It drives well and has absolutely no problem at all. Recently I started having sciatica pain problem (nerve compression due to long sitting positon at office and some by birth ‘manufacturing problem’ :) ) and this is kind of killing me. I was thinking if I could switch to a SUV to get a higher sitting and more natural chair like position than the cramped bucket seat.
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I am looking for a medium car (30-35K max) and so far short listed (since the pain started , I drive around 5-6K max/year)
1) Honda HRV
2) Suzuki Vitara Turbo (small but ideal for city. In line with Corolla)
3) Kia Sportage (my son wants this :) )
4) Subaru Forrester ( AWD, nice to have but $$$$)
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I want to sell my current Corolla and buy new one. I was looking at the carsales.com.au and found the DriveAway price. This is where my confusion is
1) I saw on OZB posts that we can haggle down 10-20% price. Is it on the manufactures recommended price? Or can I bargain (yes, we are OZBs) still 10% on the carsales.com.au price, which is said as ‘On Special’?
2) Suzuki Vitara Turbo seems a good option with currently promoted 29,990 driveaway. Has anybody bought one recently? Can you please give some comments on this? Can I still bargain on this and what would be the best price I can offer (I heard new models are like buy-if-u-want. User ‘Spackbase’, where r u mate? Help me…). Or I can wait until the year-end if that will help me as I don’t drive much nowadays and will roll with Corolla until then.
3) Is trade-in a good option? Or sell to 3rd party used-car agents? Private seller option is hard as can do it only on Sat/Sun.
4) Any other suggestions on the list of car. And suggestions on negotiating the price please.
5) Anyone suffer from sciatica pain? How do you get around it while driving? Used cushions, lumber support, went for Chiro, stretching etc but without much success.
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As always - A big Thank U
Some RRPs are highly inflated, some aren't. Have to be aware that RRP doesn't necessarily mean the current sale price. Sale price could be easy 20% off RRP, if not more in some cases. Best bet is normally to take the cheapest advertised price on Carsales as your benchmark for a negotiated price. That dealer will have chopped out any possible profit, to get your attention on Carsales (lets face it, most people search price: high to low)
Oh hai!
On the $29,990 price (for white, $475 more for silver/black/grey, $995 more for red/orange/ivory/turquoise), there's probably about $1500 left to work with. Suzuki has a sale starting Monday, bonuses from that will help you achieve that sort of discount. Obviously I'm biased, but I do love the car. If you don't need an SUV any bigger than that, I don't know what areas the Vitara wouldn't win against the competition in it's price range.
Private sell is always the best option for your money. Get a trade-in quote from the dealer, advertise it privately for $500-$1000 more, it'll be gone by the end of the weekend. And the extra money will be a big help. Some dealers might even let you have a loan car while you wait for the new car (if you have to wait)
Know what car you want before you negotiate. Don't still be looking at other options if you want the dealer to take you seriously. If they know you've narrowed it down to that 1 car, they know you're serious, and that they can earn your business. They know that you're not going to turn around and say 'well I still need to look at Car 'Y' ", you're there to buy a car if the price is right.
Another thing that can help with negotiation. It's ruthless but we have no way of proving otherwise a lot of the time… Say you've been offered 'X' deal on the car from another dealer, ask if they can match it or slightly better it, as you're the closer dealer and I want to buy from you. Just don't be stupid with the price, we'll call your bluff if it's an absolute negative!