March 07 - bought Edition 30 for £24k
October 07 - Edition 30 being traded as part of a deal for £21,695
I'd imagine they will add £1000-£1500 to forecourt price, and have some margin to play with when negotiating with prospective buyer - that £1500 may only become £750 or so once the buyer has negotiated a deal for their car
From that, they have to pay salesman, pay for car to be prepped, transport costs, storage costs, pay other staff costs, and every other overhead that the business incurs, before leaving them with a gross profit that then will be taxed...and all of that before trying to ensure that they couldn't get a better return for the business by simply leaving the owner's cash in the bank, earning interest for doing nothing
I don't think my offer is too bad considering all that ...I wouldn't want to be a used car dealer.
I know what some motor dealers earn in margins, given that I work in banking and often get to see their audited accounts...it's not as much as you imagine.
I totally disagree!! You almost had me feeling sorry for dealers there for a minute.. Lets just remeber they make approx 30% on a new vehicle.. oh yeah and lets not forget that they have to pay for their fancy sales forecourts, coffee machines and petrol for most of there reps to abuse a pick of used/demonstrator cars. Thats a profit of approx 8.5k per car... oh how difficult their lives must be!! providing such a brilliant level of service and always being willing to help... or is that just when they see a reoccuring revenue stream appearing from our pockets?? 
A dealer does not have a gross margin of 30% on a new GTI - you're showing complete ignorance if you think they do.
A VW dealership is lucky to make 2% net margin on all their activities over a year, and may only make 0.5% net margin overall in a poor year
How they spend their money is of no concern to me! I had a copy of my order sheet given to me (as I demanded to see that my extras were listed correctly) and the price they paid VW in Germany for the car was 21.5k and the list was approx 28k. I work that out as an approx of 30%. Lets not get twisted here and wonder about how much the "dealership" makes. the majority of their percentage is eaten up by sales staff and cost no doubt, but VW still makes their money as does everyone who works there! So they are all winners! Its the customer who is paying for all this ...
Really...the customer pays??? imagine that...a business that gets it's money from customers - that will never catch on 
You conveniently forget about VAT being included in the £28k...just around £4000 of your supposed dealer profit is tax 
Oh silly me! only £4000 being profit?? So they dont offset any of their costs against that..
A dealership may only make £1 a year but that still makes it a viable business!
Back to my main point which is the simple fact that even for a £4k profit service levels are sub standard and they will offer you peanuts for a car that previously they told you would hold its value! Thats what we know in the business world as bulldoodoo! Dont get me wrong everyone does it.. they just claim to lie about it afterwards to your face
