are there any dealers out there offering any discounts for the GTI??

[JellyCat]

Up to about 2 weeks ago when I placed my order, the best discount I saw was £1600, then the local dealer matched it. Since them saw one broker at just over £1700. These were with no trade in.

[Rolfe]

Anybody know why the discounts are so much poorer than they were just a few months ago?

DealDrivers were offering a discount of about £2,500 on my spec, plus the £2,000 scrappage on top if you had an eligible car.  I actually took a deal with £2,000 discount on top of the £2,000 scrappage.  I thought discounts would get better as scrappage cars dried up, but apparently not.

Rolfe.

[Exonian]

Anybody know why the discounts are so much poorer than they were just a few months ago?

DealDrivers were offering a discount of about £2,500 on my spec, plus the £2,000 scrappage on top if you had an eligible car.  I actually took a deal with £2,000 discount on top of the £2,000 scrappage.  I thought discounts would get better as scrappage cars dried up, but apparently not.

Rolfe.

It's to do with a good few reasons Morag. Firstly the Golf was a slow seller when it was introduced due to it's high price versus a dead market, secondly the dead market meant dealers would do deals just to shift metal and thirdly thanks to the scrappage scheme sort of artificially kicking life into the new car market and factories on reduced output owing to the aforementioned a huge waiting list has now appeared and most have sold their full allocation of GTIs.
Added to this because of the scrappage scheme there is a huge vacuum of used cars available for dealers to sell so they know they can stick any pre-reg'd stock on the forecourt and ask silly money for them as many people (self included) can't be arsed with long waiting lists.
Then there's the time honoured policy of German car importers in the UK of skillfully limiting the number of cars imported to just less than the number of orders they have calculated they will have. This keeps the new cars away from the big discounting and keeps the re-sale good which in turn generates a lot of VW part exchanges for dealers to stick on their forecourts at fairly profitable prices thus keeping a large amount of VWs under the dealership umbrella (this in turn keeps VW Finance busy too). ££££££

VW must now be in the position of needing to discount very little and still know their dealers aren't going to go the way many did this time last year.

Take the outgoing Polo model for example, normally these would be sold off fairly cheap to clear the way for the incoming model. Not so this time round from what I'm reliably told. Thanks to the scrappage scheme VW could sell almost as many Polos and Foxes at full list (obviously minus their £1000 contribution to the scrappage) as they could lay their hands on. Especially considering the Fox was a very slow seller to start with.

A friend of mine is a fleet manager and his company buy a lot of brand new cars. This time last year they almost stopped ordering new cars full stop because of the impending doom we were waiting for. This summer they have been so desperate for stock they have been buying them in from Eire as well as through proper UK channels.

[HA54SYM`]

Well most of the brokers I spoke to could not give an allocation until Jan 2010 and then looking at how long August orders have been you would be looking at April / May delivery, and we wanted our car in March to replace the Edition 30.

So went to our normal dealer with some quotes from Brokers, had the usual discussion about allocation and fleet buying in bulk etc. Anyhow we got just over 1k off list based on the new VAT price, and free servicing for 3 years which we settled on, so about £1800 if you add it up as a whole.

I'm quite happy on that score, and they have allocation today as its a small dealer so delivery in March.

Just go to start saving now.

Good luck with anyone else trying to get a good deal, definatly do your homework and get some figures in writing from the brokers on line, that have guaranteed allocations.

Dave

[Rolfe]

I rather thought the scrappage scheme might have made second-hand cars harder to shift.  On the basis that some people with older cars who might have been considering a used car as a replacement, decided to go for new because of the £2,000.  Of course it would take old cars out of the second-hand market, but I thought it might leave a glut of newer used models.

Also, given that there was a lot of squealing in June/July about the scrappage deal possibly ending in September or October, I rather thought most people considering going for it might have taken the plunge during July - certainly, that had a lot to do with me ordering in early July.  I'm mildly surprised there are still so many people with eligible scrappage cars who have waited till now.  Well, maybe I didn't need to move quite so fast, but I seem to have got a better deal than I'd have got if I'd waited, say for the 10 plate.

Rolfe.

[keelaw]

Well most of the brokers I spoke to could not give an allocation until Jan 2010 and then looking at how long August orders have been you would be looking at April / May delivery, and we wanted our car in March to replace the Edition 30.

So went to our normal dealer with some quotes from Brokers, had the usual discussion about allocation and fleet buying in bulk etc. Anyhow we got just over 1k off list based on the new VAT price, and free servicing for 3 years which we settled on, so about £1800 if you add it up as a whole.

I'm quite happy on that score, and they have allocation today as its a small dealer so delivery in March.

Just go to start saving now.

Good luck with anyone else trying to get a good deal, definatly do your homework and get some figures in writing from the brokers on line, that have guaranteed allocations.

Dave

Congrats dude. Look forward to hearing all about it. Esp how it compares to your Ed30

[HA54SYM`]

Well they lent me one for the day, whilst our Edition 30 was being serviced, pretty much same spec as I've orderded bar Winter Pack and rear view camera.

3dr Candy White
Manual
18's
RCD 510

Comparisson against the ED30....

Well it is slightly slower, not sure if that was beacuse this one only had 700 miles on it, or the fact that it is 20 bhp down. Even so its not that noticeable, and not something I'd really worry about.

Best thing for me on the mk6 is its queiter in the cabin, especially at motorway 70/80/90 speeds than the ED30, which can be a bit droney on long motorway runs which we do a lot of.

Also cabin is way way better than the mk5, that to me was a big selling point.

Worst thing for the mk6, Xennons are over a grand 

So we have specced the car without them, which I'm still not sure about to be honest. I think the mk6 headlamps look ok, better than the mk5, but I just can't justify over 1k on Xennons when we also need a new kitchen!

Therefore I deffo need some H15's in white to get rid of tem cheap yellow DRL's

Dave

[Tailpipe]

Anybody know why the discounts are so much poorer than they were just a few months ago?

DealDrivers were offering a discount of about £2,500 on my spec, plus the £2,000 scrappage on top if you had an eligible car.  I actually took a deal with £2,000 discount on top of the £2,000 scrappage.  I thought discounts would get better as scrappage cars dried up, but apparently not.

Rolfe.

It's to do with a good few reasons Morag. Firstly the Golf was a slow seller when it was introduced due to it's high price versus a dead market, secondly the dead market meant dealers would do deals just to shift metal and thirdly thanks to the scrappage scheme sort of artificially kicking life into the new car market and factories on reduced output owing to the aforementioned a huge waiting list has now appeared and most have sold their full allocation of GTIs.
Added to this because of the scrappage scheme there is a huge vacuum of used cars available for dealers to sell so they know they can stick any pre-reg'd stock on the forecourt and ask silly money for them as many people (self included) can't be arsed with long waiting lists.
Then there's the time honoured policy of German car importers in the UK of skillfully limiting the number of cars imported to just less than the number of orders they have calculated they will have. This keeps the new cars away from the big discounting and keeps the re-sale good which in turn generates a lot of VW part exchanges for dealers to stick on their forecourts at fairly profitable prices thus keeping a large amount of VWs under the dealership umbrella (this in turn keeps VW Finance busy too). ££££££

VW must now be in the position of needing to discount very little and still know their dealers aren't going to go the way many did this time last year.

Take the outgoing Polo model for example, normally these would be sold off fairly cheap to clear the way for the incoming model. Not so this time round from what I'm reliably told. Thanks to the scrappage scheme VW could sell almost as many Polos and Foxes at full list (obviously minus their £1000 contribution to the scrappage) as they could lay their hands on. Especially considering the Fox was a very slow seller to start with.

A friend of mine is a fleet manager and his company buy a lot of brand new cars. This time last year they almost stopped ordering new cars full stop because of the impending doom we were waiting for. This summer they have been so desperate for stock they have been buying them in from Eire as well as through proper UK channels.

Really excellent and helpful post. Thanks for taking the time to write it. If only the £ / € would return to normal, then maybe we could all go to Germany and order our cars there for a quicker delivery. I just hope VW ramps-up production again.

[Rolfe]

Hmmm, maybe now is normal?   

Rolfe.

[daviescotland]

just a wee update regarding what i finally ordered.

Candy white
18" monza
Xenons
Sunroof
RCD510 & dynaudio
Rear camera
Cruise & Service Plan

should be good for march 1st delivery or thereabouts, got a deal that i'm happy with, sounds similar to HA54SYM's deal. So just playing the waiting game. Dealer ended up being Verve Wishaw, which is a bit of distance from me, dealt with a trainee salesman and sales manager. Can't wait