GFVs have taken a real kicking with Nov 14 price rise

[CraigW]

MH: Option 2 would be my preferred choice as well purely because it's not tying you into VW in future years. Okay you have to keep the car for three years but given it's the flagship golf thats no great hardship. The issue is if you go with one of the other two options, come three years from now, what VW would you move to?

Yes there might be a new scirocco out by then but it's probably going to look (internally) and feel very much like the golf. After 4.5 years of ownership of a mk7 golf I would be looking to move on and try something different rather than have little choice available.

[Mark V GTD]

I still have the hassle of getting rid of the GTD and there are very few cheap lease spots left now (if any).

There were a week or so ago when I last checked.

If yours is a nice car you will always find a VW dealer that will take it a straight purchase for stock - thats how I disposed of my 2012 Scirocco last spring.

[monkeyhanger]

MH: your attention to detail regarding the figures appeals to the accountant in me - good work!

It's amazing what can be achieved at work when there's nowt pressing on.

[matchboy]

MH: your attention to detail regarding the figures appeals to the accountant in me - good work!

It's amazing what can be achieved at work when there's nowt pressing on.

I don't believe there's ever an occasion whereby work is more important than looking/talking about/ordering cars 

[monkeyhanger]

Keeping Option 2 as my favourite for guaranteed residuals (worst case I hand it back after 3 years) and also remembering that options 2 and 3 are £184 better than option 1 as i'll have access to the £199 3 years servicing deal rather than  24 x £15.99 payments.

Just fired off an email to VWVS with my order number asking them to confirm that I will have access to the £18576 GFV terms that were in place when I placed my order. If they won't, then the S3 might still be back on the table.

[p3asa]

I'm sorry but I just couldn't believe a dealer that told me yeah it is a smaller GFV figure but expect to get £3k - £4k more come trade in time. They will simply tell you anything for that sale. If he is so confident ask him and his manager for some form of written agreement of what they will offer for the car come 3 years time!!

Are you sure Audi work this way as well? Low GFV, higher trade in?

That is pretty gutting they have amended the figures like that. No wonder you have started to look at other options.

[monkeyhanger]

I'm sorry but I just couldn't believe a dealer that told me yeah it is a smaller GFV figure but expect to get £3k - £4k more come trade in time. They will simply tell you anything for that sale. If he is so confident ask him and his manager for some form of written agreement of what they will offer for the car come 3 years time!!

Are you sure Audi work this way as well? Low GFV, higher trade in?

That is pretty gutting they have amended the figures like that. No wonder you have started to look at other options.

I'm sure it is all sales patter too, i've never seen £3k back over GFV on any of my previous 6 VWs bought new, best seen was £1500. If they end up giving you £3k more than GFV at end of term i'm sure it'll come at the cost of leverage to get a good level of discount on top. On the other hand, if used prices stay where I was expecting them to be (£22k for a 3 year old one on the forecourt) because demand outstrips supply, could they really get away with wanting to make £5500 on a used R because they were only offering you £16500 (a grand over the new GFV)? Actually them being greedy fatherless sons is very believable. If Used forecourt prices hold up but p/x prices don't, buying outright and selling privately might be the best option (although we all know how much of a ball-ache selling an expensive car privately can be).

The Audi thing is based on patter I was told when I looked into an S3 about a month before looking into Rs. I went to my local dealership and was shocked that the GFV was only £17500 on a 3 year old S3 when it was still £18600 on the R. The salesman told me that p/xers typically get £2500 more for their S3 than GFV and that Audi GFVs are usually more cautious than VWs. I have no Audi buying/selling experiences to back that up, but at the time it did make sense because otherwise i'd be wondering how the hell is a used R worth more than a used S3 at 2 or 3 years down the line. But again, higher discretionary p/x price makes for less leverage on the discounts.

[Mark V GTD]

The assumption in all these discussions seems to be that the current car will ultimately be traded in - why restrict yourself to that? This is a sure way of reducing and/or masking the savings to be made on the deal for the next car.

My method has always been to get the best deal on the purchase of the new car without disposal of the old one being linked to that deal. That leaves the real purchase cost completely transparent. The next task is to then sell the old car to the highest bidder which could be a private sale or disposal to the trade (in this case a VW dealer looking for high quality one owner stock).

This is what i did on my last transaction - new car purchased through Drive The Deal with maximum discount and old one sold to its servicing VW dealer for 200 quid under advertised private asking price.

[monkeyhanger]

The assumption in all these discussions seems to be that the current car will ultimately be traded in - why restrict yourself to that? This is a sure way of reducing and/or masking the savings to be made on the deal for the next car.

My method has always been to get the best deal on the purchase of the new car without disposal of the old one being linked to that deal. That leaves the real purchase cots completely transparent. The next task is to then sell the old car to the highest bidder which could be a private sale or disposal to the trade (in this case a VW dealer looking for high quality one owner stock).

This is what i did on my last transaction - new car purchased through Drive The Deal with maximum discount and old one sold to its servicing VW dealer for 200 quid under advertised private asking price.

Mark, that's one way of going about it, and the best if everything goes smoothly e.g.. you sell the old car exactly when you want to, and for the best price. Can't see me honestly getting within a grand of p/x price to sell the car back to the dealer, I've looked into it before and been offered £800 more than the WBAC website, that's at least 1/2 of this GFV gap. Selling an expensive car privately is always hard work - people generally want the dealership assurity and service, access to finance etc, even if it comes in at an extra £2k or more.

[monkeyhanger]

Just called VWFS and spoke to someone. They claimed not to have any control over securing the old £18576 GFV terms on a financial deal that were available at the time of ordering and have since changed to affect monthly payments by £96pm, and tried to immediately bounce me back to my dealer. Explained that the dealer said they can do nothing and told me to phone VWFS. I asked if there was the possibility that they could do something, but that maybe the representative was unaware. He went and got his boss, who explained to me that there is nothing they can do and there is no scheme whereby they can pin those terms to my order. I would have to speak to my dealer who may or may not be able to secure those terms through other channels (they didn’t sound confident).

They asked whether I had signed a finance agreement (which I haven’t), and I said the dealer didn’t bother doing that as the terms are only valid for 30 days and my car was 5.5 months away at that point. Back to the dealer methinks, to see if they can find a way to secure those terms.

If not, options are:

1. Cancel order, get my deposit back, ride out the GTD a while longer and, maybe ordering for next Sept.

2. Cancel order, order an S3 (which will cost me 2110 more on the same p/x terms, if I can get them – doesn’t look good so far as they’re valuing it for £18k right now and are non-committal on a probable £17k value in March, making the deal £3610 worse off) and get a GFV about £2300 higher, ending up with additions of lane assist, high beam assist, nappa leather over and above the R spec after adding options and packs to bring it up to R spec on the technology front.

3. Stick with the R on a cash only deal and look to sell privately, or in p/x, hoping actual used prices won’t be representative of the low GFV.

I’m waiting on a couple of call backs about the discounted S3, with value of my GTD being key to the deal.