Hi :)

I tried. Doesnt work

Hello Caroline

base od personal experience I can tell you that prices of used cars are negotiable.

Two issues can influence the deal:

- if you pay cash

- if you take the car straight away

I believe you can negotiate prices up in a range from 10 to 20 %.

BR

Manuel

I do want to pay cash AND take the car immediately :-)

Please - this is not an add to BUY a car - only seeking information on how to negociate with GARAGES.

....and by the way I am looking for an A3 sportbreak or A4 - nothing else has my interest ;-)

check out the site www.autoscout.ch

they have many garages and individuals from all over switzerland. basically you can get a better deal in the german part of switzerland. always make sure the car has passed its safety test (expertise in fr. or MFK in german part) . and don't forget to make the sure the 2010  highway "vignette" is included!!

Thanks, for the input, I know autoscout, and what to look for, ask for etc.

As I said, I am only looking for inputs on how to negotiate :-)

I got my car (BMW) negoting with the sales guy of the local dealer...  i got about 16 % discount from the new price, so I am more than convinced than for a used car you can get a better deal. my advice is to identify the car and make an offer to the dealer. you can get a good estimation of the value of the car on comparis.ch... you need to register but then you can put in all the details of the car you look for and get a quote.i hope that's enough!

i think epicure is right, here in Zurich the offer of used car is really huge, you may find a very good deal. let me know if you need some other info

ciao

manuel

I actually found two cars near Zürich - both A4 breaks...

One is from Cham and the other from Seewen, so I think I will do a little trip to Zürich area in two weeks. One sales guy already went down 1000 CHF over the phone so a little negociation should be possible :-)

Cham is close to ZUG, the other place I don't know !

let me know when you're coming, I may accompain you there! i like a lot auto dealer

ciao  manuel

Seewen is 20 minutes from Cham, probably the car I am going for :-)

Caroline, I think I have some advice that could be useful.

Its all in the preparation and asking the right questions about the car:

- ask for the chassis no. so you can run the car through the eurotax system before you visited the car. You can find the link on autoscout24.ch

- how long has the car been for sale with the owner or dealer. If it has been with someone for a long time it gives you a good position to negotiate.

- never show that you want the car....show light interest and point out the weak points of the car: milage, scratches, missing service history, etc....anything you can find.

- makes sure you check the car. Has it been washes because you came to see it or has it been taken care of before. Check oil level, tire pressure, the gaps between the body work, see if the engine is dry...no traces of oil or other fluid leakage. 

- don't move to fast until you made your decision

- play hard...practice. There are plenty of good cars out there so it doesn't matter if you loose the first "baby" you fall in love with.

Good luck!

Joest.

Thanks Joest - really good advice you came with...

What is this eurotax thing?

I have been looking for months now so think I have prepared as well as I could, think it will be a good idea for me to bring a guy with me though - somehow it doesnt feel very convincing if I stand there in my high heels staring at the engine hehe.

I actually just went all the way to Lugano to look for a car, having thought I prepared well - the carte grise had been annulled in october and the guy in the garage sent it to me immediately when I asked to see it for temp. plates in case I was getting the car - however he was NOT willing to negociate at all and it ended up being just a long drive back and forth :-)

http://www.eurotaxglass.ch/

Here you can enter the Km's the are has done + chassis no. and it will tell you want the car is worth. High (sold by a dealer with waranty) and low (sold by a private person)

You can bring someone. But is shows you have no clue....Again it better to be prepare or just make a short phone call when you there to you expert "home".

Hi there Caroline,

We got our car from the German speaking area as well (Basel) - I did a lot of research first like you (have you used Comparis to get an idea of the spread of prices for the car - I used that as well as autoscout.ch).

Although we did not get a cash discount (the car was actually very reasonably priced for such a low mileage and it had a full set of snow tyres/wheels) but we did get other things thrown in when we asked for a discount (vignette - 40 CHF, full tank of petrol - around 100 CHF, final service - around 300 CHF). The other thing we had that I would seriously try for in your negotiations if you don't have it included is a warranty from the garage. We got 12 months. We encountered two problems in the first year since getting the car (2002 year, but only had 57k km on the clock) and without the warranty we would have been 3,000 CHF worse off instead of 180 CHF!

Good luck!

Victoria