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I had a promo on my pink Fiat500 (buyer gets a night of bliss with me, I thought the phone would ring of the hook)..... Anyways, it sat there for 6 months, not one call..... Ended promo, sold said Fiat500

I set out to sell bolt on's not give money off via Promotions Upgrade my own 6 month warranty £199 Best added into finance quotes as you get a commission on the £199 then too Paint sealant £199 Its very shiny now , bet you want to keep it that way don't you Upholstery protection £99 stops the kids devaluing your seats Windscreen Water repellent £79 all plus vat saves lots of money on wipers Screen price and get 6 month warranty engine , gearbox, warranty free but you can upgrade it to £199 to cover these extra parts too . 25 cars a month with average 60% taking £280 of extras = £4200 x 12 =50k 80% mark up a year and that's not counting Finance commissions on top gives us a good profit . Sold a car Sat and he bought paint sealant and warranty upgrade took £398 extra off him added to finance as bolt on's with finance commission at £709 it was £1,107 extra on top of screen price . To the starters in this industry my advice is hold your hand out for bolt on's every time , take a little extra as it adds up over a year to huge money . Do your sums , knock £100 off each car = 30k DOWN based on 300 a year Take extra £200 on half the sold stock is £200 x 150 cars is £37,500 UP , lot of money in a working career over 30 years . Hit them with screen price and you get this warranty BUT for this little money extra you get this which is worth more than 100quid off to you and NO warranty cover as I cant give you both discount and warrant the car can I . Guarantee they will agree with you three rules in business my dad said , Profit , profit , profit

I think it’s safe to say we work differently to most folk on here. We often use a bribe to sweeten a deal but you have to be very specific to make it work and not cost you money. For example we sold a polo last week 2008 black three door 1.4 62k £2795 the farther couldn’t fault it but the son was more worried that he couldn’t play his music through the car radio so we offered him a FREE aux in lead kid was chuffed dad assumed that was an expensive option where as it cost us £38 hardly a huge discount but got the deal done. As in everything we all do you have to work out what your selling and who your selling to and see if there is room to bring something in quirky. After many moons even i have now thrown our hat into the finance market only last week signed up with close brothers, times are definitely changing and imo you can’t stsnd still in business what worked for us 5-10 years ago no longer works.

Pmsl!!! I do get it but can’t help some of the old school in me.

This OEM paint from Porsche is perfect for the L&C pen. I've just laid another coat about 30 mins ago so I'll do another in a minute and then leave it for the day to air dry. It's difficult to know how much to leave for clear coat really but this scratch is deep given the poor car was keyed by some ****.

Unfortunately sometimes offers come in after they've driven the car. At least they do the way I progress the conversation. They see it, they drive it, we talk numbers. It should be the other way around though.

Something else I've never heard of, I've always used golf tees. Anyway, that's another product ordered. This is one expensive thread !

if they have a few to look at I don't mind a drive but I wont entertain any offers or discounts until they decide its the one for them. and again if we are not pretty much agreed on figures or in the same ballpark they are not driving the car.

Must admit we have started to look at valuing part exchanges pretty much straight away before a test drive if we think we will be miles away on figures. Had a lady with a DS3 yesterday knew she wanted brewsters for it. we offered £2800 she expected £3500 wasn't any movement from any side so we both moved on

Bloody hell! There's £75! Second coat of paint today. Its looking good although proof is in the pudding once clear goes on, sets and then Festool'd :-)

Which to be fair, isn't altogether surprising. Some of the whining from a few on here, none on this thread incidentally, about how people expect new cars for used money and want discounts etc etc, is at times, cringe worthy. As if any of us never try to negotiate something that is already cheap, to be cheaper.It's just what we do. The solution to it is either accept it as part of the game or, fix the price, make it clear before people travel and terminate the conversation if anyone ignores what you've made plainly clear. I'll discount a car in the unlikely event that someone finds something I haven't seen, usually when someone is very keen to see a car and I've probably not been round it with a magnifying glass as usual because I don't want to stop a punter who must have the car ASAP. But 99% of the time the price is fixed, discussed on the phone and not revisited until it's time to write them up an invoice. Back to the point, I can't personally see how any promotion offers will really help. If I reduce the price of the car I'll make that clear, like "£500 off, Sale on!" etc but whatever you offer, people will think there's more to be had.

Hahaha, this was funny. Better solution is to let some gas out of the valve so the system pressure drops and the A/C compressor stops coming on. Then tell the customer that "it probably needs a regas but might be something else" and put on PDI that aircon system does not work. Had the exact same problem last month with a high mileage p/x Honda Jazz (was very annoyed with myself for refilling the aircon) but it was so hot I preferred to sell it with a working albeit noisy A/C. Buyer was OK with it, I did put on the PDI Aircon pump noisy.

The deal I’m looking to do is the advertised deal I’m with EPV on this. This week I don’t know how many emails I’ve had from the ‘last price’ brigade - you can’t work a deal with these people unless you want to slit your own throat. Half of them haven’t even got the money they’re talking about & the other half are fussy/cheeky bastards who’d come & take the piss anyway.

Ive always been against extras as an incentive,back in the days pre immobilisor/ fiestas /astras /novas used to get twocked all the time so i bought in a load of steering locks and tried to upsell at pos i asked probably 15 nicker for them from a boy to a man every customer said i should throw it in free ,so i dont do anything like that except to remind them that im established been here longer than the man in the moon im always here to help and offer them a fixed price for their mot and service a year from now.Thats it ,i also always thank them for the sale once completed usually with a handshake,i only deal with customers i like mind.

Very true, but if you’ve done your job right you should be able to work a deal. Be honest the margins aren’t that tight and if they are then something is wrong.

So much has changed over the past years. Main dealers used to give a bottle, box of chocs and a bunch of flowers. Our local Vauxhall’s dealer gave a weeks holiday in Spain with every new car. Many decent pitches also gave a little something. I am very much old school, don’t screw every customer, give a little and you will get more back in return. I appreciate times have also changed financially but I am still on the side of offering a little back. It doesn’t have to cost the earth and preferably something unconnected with the car i.e flowers or chocs not an MOT voucher or a dangly air freshener!

Ok, so scratch cleaned out and I managed to get rid of some of it through polishing as part was clearcoat. On to the Loew Cornell Fine Line Painting Pen now and inspection glasses!