bargain plus ?

[HYFR]

SOLD !

[darrenswift]

To you?

[Tomson]

Hi guys I recently sold a PLUS for £22500.00.
I had loads of calls with interested people and once I had done the deal got offered the asking of £23,995.00.
Ok, mine had 54K miles, but it had about 4 previous owners, and was not quite as well spec'd.
To say that a PLUS like this is worth £11500.00, is rubbish, we all know that the market dictates the price not the book.
A good buy for someone I would suggest

[HYFR]

its not rubbish, its the book price, noone said that was the price someone would ask privately, or that a trader would sell at, but its the price they would offer you in trade in.....why would any sound minded business man offer u any less in trade in

[batty]

hi Tomson - that's good to hear you found the market buoyant for a nice plus - as a side note what colour & no ???/999 was yours ? i'm trying to catalogue every plus that's still alive in the UK.
also, I have to agree the book price of 11500 sounds really low to me too. Surely a non-plus avant would realise that value to the trade & a plus should book at another 2k-ish ???
but anyway - the bargain plus has now gone - i hope someone gets a nice car & that this little "error in pricing" doesn't effect future values...

[Tomson]

Hi Batty, mine was 388/999, black with cognac leather, went to a lovely man from Kent.

DK, I want to try and explain my thoughts mate, not wanting to offend are argue - just discuss. This is all only my thoughts and views.

Your question why would any sound minded business man offer you any less in trade in?

I would suggest that they would not offer you less, and that an arrogant car salesman with no experience of the market specialist might offer you the 'book' price quoted.

It is something I am very interested in at the moment, as I am in the throws of setting up a specialist car dealer, so if I am wrong then I won't be in business very long.

Certainly if someone came to me trying to trade in a PLUS, I would consider what the book price was, but I would also look at what cars were actually selling for and the margin on the car they were buying. I would also need to consider my overheads, costs, condition of the trade-in etc - the usual stuff. Taking into account all of the above I would then work the deal. Now on a PLUS like this, if I was making money (a comfortable amount for the business) on the vehicle they were trading against, I would probably offer about £16-17K in trade-in value, leaving some margin to get any issues sorted with the car and re-market it just under £20K.

That’s 5.5K over the 'book' trade in. I still consider myself to be a sound minded and fair business man BTW.

Anyway I suppose my long winded point, is that sometimes and especially with specialist vehicles the 'book' or 'books' (the prices between the available 'books' can be very different) are just way off.

Also just recently I have noticed traders paying way over 'book' for standard vehicles at Auction. I looked at an Mk5 Golf GTI 2005 '55', two owners 55K, no service history and what looked like a blown head gasket. Bottom book was £7K, Auction 'book' even less and the trader paid £9.8K for it before auction costs! Same with a Carrera 2 in Nottingham, auction 'book' price £15.5K, hammer price was £18.8K before costs!

I think traders are struggling to get stock so are paying more than 'book' on virtually everything, even normal stuff was expensive. Anyway my point is that the market dictates the price, whilst the 'book' or 'books' are supposed to be a snapshot of the market, I think (and it is only my view) that they are not a great guide, especially on the rarer specialist stuff. I for one would certainly offer more, on most trade-ins.

Cheers,

Tom

[HYFR]

you make some good points Tom,
i agree regarding specialist / rare cars, book is normally off

although I would suggest that book price is derived from the market, maybe a timing issue sometimes where there is extra-ordinary market conditions as we have experienced

i also think trying to market a 114k car for ~£19k would be a struggle, but thats just my opinion.....alot of people are put off by miles, normally its a unjustified stigma from an outdated view of cars

in summary though, i wholeheartedly agree that for good RS6's (and other similar) the book price 'should' be fairly irrelevant...BUT i dont think the market is quite there yet with that way of thinking....

[AndyIPB]

Hi Batty, just for reference I'm currently running Plus no. 041 / 999 (until around September when it goes back onto the market - NOT at book price by the way!!