New Freelander

The trade in price is pretty much irrelevant. If you are buying a new motor from them then you are interested in the "price to change" - how much are they knocking off your new vehicle?

Trade price books are, IME, a good guide, but the reality can be very different, especially at a main dealer who may give hugely distorted prices to meet a target, fill a gap on their forecourt etc.

Take it to another dealer and see what they offer, or take it to a dealer from a different marque and see what they offer. I've seen some major differences even between Guy Salmon in Wakefield and Guy Salmon in Sheffield.

As for your last question - you start by bartering and then walk if it isn't going your way. There are lots of dealers out there, so don't be afraid to play them against each other. If your dealer is currently looking at 4500 on your trade in, you can be damned sure that the dealer in the next town will be happy to do it for 3500. And so on...

Tim Hobbs

'58 Series 2 '77 101FC Ambulance '95 Discovery V8i

I shall be walking - from Land Rover.

Reason being that the dealership have just contacted me to advise that they won't cover the cost of replacing the sump gasket which has spilt oil on my garage floor, that sump gasket (and sump cover) having been changed by them at the major service they carried out 3 months ago.

Letter to Land Rover head office now printed and ready......

PoP

But this is a Landrover site......... (You can't count YUKs as Landrovers....)

Copy local Trading Standards, Autocar and Top Gear magazine (and make sure the fact is visible in the copy you send to Land Rover). This tactic with a local Ford dealer made an expensive warranty part that had been 'very hard to source' for three weeks miraculously appear on the shelf the very same day that the letter arrived.

Tim Hobbs

'58 Series 2 '77 101FC Ambulance '95 Discovery V8i

On or around Thu, 09 Oct 2003 21:04:57 +0100, Tim Hobbs enlightened us thusly:

and as with the other chap with the dodgy disco, you shouldn't need to resort to such tactics. If the dealers did things right in the first place, things'd be better all round. Buggrem. 's not as if they do things on the cheap, either. But the LR dealer philosophy seems a bit shaky in places. Had no trouble with the ones round here, inasmuch as I use 'em, for spares etc., to be fair.

Yep!

Did just that, recently bought a TD4 Kalahari beatiful car btw, anyway went and did a lot of shopping around my px was a rover 420d with 107k on the clock, first off was something like 19600 to change.er no thanks did more shopping around and after a few days actually got down to just 17000k to change, so went back to my local dealer and after a few grumbles from them got it for 17300 to change which I dont think is to bad for a list of 21200 as the old rover was only worth 800 quid plus its my local dealer with local plate etc etc, so my experience...shop around (also think got a better deal with new model coming out next month) and dont be scared to be cheeky all they can say is no!