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Model specific boards => Golf mk7 => Topic started by: b80 on 08 July 2018, 16:32

Title: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: b80 on 08 July 2018, 16:32
Hi all,

Today I took a 2014 GTI PP 5 door manual out for a test drive - loved it!

No optional extra's apart from the Performance Pack (which I want) and 'special paint' - can anyone confirm what the special paint is please.

Car was registered Jan 14 and is up for 16950 - approx 20k miles on the clock, full annual VWSH. No previous accidents, appeared spotless, drove fine. Managed to knock down another 500 off the price.

I then ran a cowow search for the same spec and best offer I've received so far is 25848.

Seems the GTI holds it's value well in the 2nd hand market. Hasn't even shed 50% of its original tag despite being 4.5 years old. Would you say the car I drove appears decent value?

Many thanks


Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: Watts on 08 July 2018, 17:30
What colour is it? Oryx White was and still is the most expensive paint finish. The inclusive paint (ie no extra cost) has varied but for 2014 was likely flat white and/or black. All others were at an additional cost with red being the cheapest (as flat) and various grey, silver, blue and black metallics. Value wise, not sure, probably best to guage it against others on Autotrader. Make sure it has a comprehensive and long warranty as some expensive bits can go - turbo, waterpump and clutch. Rear discs can also wear prematurely. They are great cars to drive though, comfortable on a run and exciting where conditions allow :evil:
Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: Gnasher on 09 July 2018, 09:39
In 2014, pure white was also optional - around £250 IIRC.
Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: fredgroves on 09 July 2018, 09:51
GTI PP 2014 ~20k 5 door manual is about 17k at the moment it seems.

A lot depends on the other options, but the price you've got there is about the going rate I'd say.

Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: Bungleaio on 09 July 2018, 20:20
Not sure if this helps but my oct 2015 3door GTI PP with 42k on the clock was up for just under £20k in January. It had VWSH plus interim services every 5k. It had all the options apart from the sunroof and 19inch wheels. It also had the balance of the 5 year factory warranty remaining.
Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: Gnasher on 10 July 2018, 09:02
Nice to see that they're keeping their value - hopefully the 3 door is too lol.
Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: fredgroves on 10 July 2018, 09:10
You have to remember that a VW main dealer will add about 6k to the price they pay you for the car... so a 20k forecourt sticker is a 14k trade in... Obviously selling privately through Autotrader you'll get a slightly better price, if you can be bothered with tyre kickers and scammers...
Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: WarwickGTI on 11 July 2018, 13:16
Bought my 15 plate GTI PP 6mt for about 17k last November from a main dealer. Had 41k miles with optional wheels and Dynaudio. Managed to knock just over a grand off the price if I completed within the week due to the dealers FY coming to an end
Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: mcmaddy on 11 July 2018, 23:22
Not sure if this helps but my oct 2015 3door GTI PP with 42k on the clock was up for just under £20k in January. It had VWSH plus interim services every 5k. It had all the options apart from the sunroof and 19inch wheels. It also had the balance of the 5 year factory warranty remaining.
More like 2k not 6 but 2k on every trade in is still a hell of a mark up.
Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: fredgroves on 12 July 2018, 07:41
More like 2k not 6 but 2k on every trade in is still a hell of a mark up.

Try it.... stick your own car into one of those car buying web pages, see what it comes back as.... then go look on VW Das Auto for a similar car.... its way more than a 2k markup, its more like 6k.
Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: dubber36 on 12 July 2018, 08:41
They do that so that they can offer more in px if you have a car that they would like for stock. WBAC aren't all that far away when it comes to the true value of retailable cars. However, falsely inflated retail prices at the dealers, mean that some customers assume that equates the cars are holding their values well.

When I'm looking to buy a used car I get both valued at WBAC to give me the true difference between two. Then I know what I'd consider to be an acceptable price to change.
Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: davyk31 on 12 July 2018, 11:29
Can’t see a VW getting 6k markup on a 20k sale. More like paying about 16k for trade in, retail at 20k but factor in some negotiation, refurb costs and VAT on margin takes them down to maybe a 2.5 to 3k gross profit.
Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: Guzzle on 12 July 2018, 12:44
I'd have expected dealers mark-up on a used car to be somewhere around 15 to 20%. Obviously the greater the mark-up the more room for negotiation. 
Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: fredgroves on 12 July 2018, 15:39
As I say, easy to see - check out the value of a car you can see on Das Welt Auto using one of the tradein calculators and compare it to the VW sticker price...
Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: P6GTD on 12 July 2018, 16:47
I have traded in three previous performance Golfs, all through different Scottish VW dealers.
In each case they have advertised the cars immediately for next sale at around the same mark up on the price they gave me.
That mark-up was around £2,000 each time and each time the cars have sold within a couple of weeks. 
Cross-checking with Parker’s and WBAC verified all figures were in the right ballpark.
I do understand that is not the whole picture because as ever it’s the cost to change that really matters.

Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: fredgroves on 12 July 2018, 17:29
but a 2000 pound margin on what price car? If its 25k that's not much, if its 5k its a lot...
Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: dubber36 on 12 July 2018, 17:37
I have traded in three previous performance Golfs, all through different Scottish VW dealers.
In each case they have advertised the cars immediately for next sale at around the same mark up on the price they gave me.

The price they gave you, and the true value that they would have written your px back to are two different things. It is all about cost to change, but hiked up px and retail prices give a sense of security to some customers. If you were to see the dealers VAT returns, the figures would be much lower.
Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: P6GTD on 12 July 2018, 18:31
Cars were priced between 13K and 16K......
Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: dereks on 12 July 2018, 20:31
I sold my GTi to a vw dealer for 14.2k they put it up for £17k and my R to a used dealer for 21k and the put it up for 25k both straight sales to them.

Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: evo1986 on 12 July 2018, 20:32
The average profit on a used car at our dealership and pretty much across our entire group is between £400-£600.

We buy and sell aggressively like most groups. Small independent VW garages might hold out for more but the car would need to be pretty special......

£6000 between trade and retail is high end low volume margins at the likes of Porsche etc
Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: Guzzle on 13 July 2018, 00:11
Presumably though, you will have costs on top of that £600 profit though if they're cars traded in that are going into stock;-

Cleaning/valeting
Minor repairs
Garage/forecourt overheads
Sales incentives/commission
VAT etc
Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: P6GTD on 13 July 2018, 00:27
.......and if you buy VW DVA you get a 1 year warranty plus 14 day exchange and sometimes a service, new tyres if below a certain limit, etc, etc.
I have always found reassurance buying used Golfs this way. I guess enough others feel the same especially with performance models.
Everything comes at a price. It’s a free market and if you don’t like what’s offered you can just walk on. Dealerships are not charities and everyone needs to make a bob in this world.
Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: Jim_mk7.5 on 13 July 2018, 07:02
Not sure if this helps but my oct 2015 3door GTI PP with 42k on the clock was up for just under £20k in January. It had VWSH plus interim services every 5k. It had all the options apart from the sunroof and 19inch wheels. It also had the balance of the 5 year factory warranty remaining.

What 5 year warranty is this, an upgrade done?
Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: mcmaddy on 13 July 2018, 07:24
Never done a 5 year factory warranty it was a paid additional warranty bought either when ordering or once the car had arrived. Sure it replaced the third year with the additional three.
Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: fredgroves on 13 July 2018, 09:26
The average profit on a used car at our dealership and pretty much across our entire group is between £400-£600.

That's got to be net profit, factoring cost of sales, warranty purchase etc

If not, then its a business hardly worth doing...

Either that or you sell a lot of sub £3k cars.

I'd expect to see a gross margin of 20% minimum for any business that's still going to be trading in a years time.
Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: davyk31 on 13 July 2018, 09:41
Dealers don’t make any money on new cars and don’t make any money on used cars so you wonder why they bother! Dealers look at thing very much in the average and put silly amounts of refurb costs against every vehicle, some will need money spent and others won’t and therefore are much more profitable. For example my local BMW dealer put a 2k allowance against every trade in for cleaning and refurb, my cars were immaculate therefore didn’t even need cleaning so the 2k was simply extra profit. For that reason their offer to me was too low and I sold the car elsewhere for generally at least 2k more.
Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: dubber36 on 13 July 2018, 09:44
There are a lot of wages to pay in main dealers. Those preened people that take one piece of paper from one office to another and back again don't come cheap.
Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: Arnold_Lane on 13 July 2018, 10:16
The average profit on a used car at our dealership and pretty much across our entire group is between £400-£600.

That's got to be net profit, factoring cost of sales, warranty purchase etc

If not, then its a business hardly worth doing...

Either that or you sell a lot of sub £3k cars.

I'd expect to see a gross margin of 20% minimum for any business that's still going to be trading in a years time.

Also consider that they might have made a good profit on the car they sold for which they took that px in and that a finance deal might have been included too.
So if you take just one car in isolation it might not look like a large profit, but considered over the whole dealership and throw in manufacturer incentives and that profits probably vary from one deal to the next, and overall they make a decent profit. Probably fits Pareto's Law (80/20) in fact.
Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: fredgroves on 13 July 2018, 11:36
Yes but these businesses have been around for a long old time usually.... I'd not expect to see tiny profits on the capital they have in premises, stock, tooling etc. If I had 3 million in capital, I'd want to see it work harder than returning percentages I could get safely and predictably with a financial product on my capital.

Probably though, second hand car retail is just a small element of their business. New cars and service (particularly service) will be where the real money is.

I'd expect a used car only sales operation to be slim pickings.
Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: Arnold_Lane on 13 July 2018, 13:42
I'd expect a used car only sales operation to be slim pickings.

I'm not sure about that given the likes of WBAC and all the others that seem desperate to buy your used car off you. The likes of Fords of Winsford and the like have grown and expanded quite considerably over the years.
Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: fredgroves on 13 July 2018, 14:04
I'd imagine WBAC is a bit of a gamble on their part.

Like any second hand dealer of any sort you'll find some golden nuggets and you'll also get a load of dross. Its how you handle the dross thats the key to success because the dross will drag you down.

I'd imagine they triage their purchases into different paths to market, but you still need an effective way of dumping the unsellable or you'll rapidly end up with too much capital held in dead stock. Better you sell the dross quickly at cost (or even cost minus) than keep it.

The secret to their obvious success must be in getting those numbers balanced somehow. I'd imagine having good cost controls on storage, transport and auction fees will be one key element of the operation.
Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: davyk31 on 13 July 2018, 19:27
WBAC are owned by one of the big auction groups so they are just buying stock for their auctions. They make money on whatever markup the car achieves along with buyers fees
etc.
Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: Jim_mk7.5 on 13 July 2018, 20:13


I'd expect a used car only sales operation to be slim pickings.

You joking?! Selling £3k cars maybe but you want to see the money some of the prestige second hand car dealers are making. A guy I know has a yacht, a fleet of Porsche’s, bikes, latest watches and of course a nice house. From a single site prestige used car garage.
Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: Arnold_Lane on 14 July 2018, 14:19
I'd imagine WBAC is a bit of a gamble on their part.

Not in the least as they inspect your car thoroughly before parting with any money and will adjust the price (downwards) for unexpected wear/tear or damage.

I just got a quote for late father-in-laws 2006 Focus and were offered £265 on WBAC. A quick look at Autotrader / Ebay suggests it should fetch around £1K+, so buying it for £265 still offers them a fair margin.
Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: dereks on 14 July 2018, 15:12
A 2006 focus would go straight to auction.
Title: Re: 2nd Hand GTI - Good Value?
Post by: mcmaddy on 14 July 2018, 16:11
A 2006 focus should go straight to the crushers  :grin: