I never used them before, but i have been considering it since there backup is pretty good and choice is excellent
But since visiting the rochdale site, i may be mistaken but i think the pices are quite expensive?
looking for general opinion on the car supermarket thing,
previously bought from network Q they seem pretty good prices and backup is good, ( i dont fall for the 114million point check,thing but when i had problems in the past they sorted it minimum fuss)
Anyone bargined with carcraft type places, i would be buying p/x + cash so i do have that as a tool
Well to be he honest the sales guy i was talking to said my best bet would be to px or private sell my car and make up the rest to 50% of the value of the new car, and take the rest on 0% intrest!
I've yet to hear a good report about this place. Otoh, you will find plenty of satisfied customers of Fords of Winsford, amongst other supermarkets. (Not me, it must be said - they didn't have what I was after.)
Went to the Wednesbury Carcraft cack. Overpriced, scruffy cars, pushy salesmen, I couldn`t even have a look round without the salesman following me round. I found the whole place intimidating. A Rover 200 3 years old was £8000. It looked like crap, all scratched and neglected. Went to another local dealer who were excellent. Got a Rover 25 18 months old for £7000. I think that speaks for itself.
Car superstores do seem to vary - guidelines I follow (based on VX purchase) are, for S/H
Get the typical Network Q price for the car you want
Look at the price tags on the supermarket cars - if they give a "Loan" price instead of a "ticket" proce for the car (loads of mentions of APR on every price tag - they are selling finance, and you will often find the cars MORE expensive than NetQ!
I went to Carland I think it was @ Cannock (just around the corner from the island) - they are GM-owned and are an outlet for VX fleet cars, w'out network Q. Last car I bought was CHEAPER from NetworkQ than the supermarket (taking into account mileagem, age and warranty!)
Motorhouse 2000 were charging a little under top book for the few decent S/H cars they had - tot up the numbers and you are back to NQ, or the Nissan, Ford etc, equivalents! Some good bargains on new cars though. NO HAGGLING there!
In other words - shop around, and work out the TOTAL price, esp if you are paying cash to the dealer - unles things have changed if you buy from NetQ you get the on-the-road price (Tax, Service ,Warranty, AA etc.) - Nissan is similar, but only 6 months tax not 12. And you are right - NetQ do seem to sort things out.
having said all this, my last 3 S/H cars have been VX - One from NetQ, some problems fixed quick, the next from a car supermarket (£1500 cheaper than NetQ at the time) - no probs with car. Last one @ NetQ, no joy at supermarkets within 40 mile radius.
have a look at
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- might get some usefulcomparisons there.
Also the Parkers web site and the BBC top gear web site have some useful buying tips. Overall (and experince says this to be true) - don't expect any kind of good trade at a supermarket, nor are you likley to ba able to haggle - people queue up to buy from them!
Where...Net Q? this is what im wondering, i dont want to go into net q and try to screw a deal out of them when there just aint any there, dont want to end up looking like a wally, and the staff not being assed with the wally!
This is what im liking, minimum fuss, id rather pay a little more and save the time
Thanks for the advice, i shall have a mooch on weds i think....
Just wondering, how long will net q hold a car on a deposit???
ill check but if anyone knows, will save me asking!
Tom Burton waffled on in a quite bewildering manner to produce...
*engage ex car salesman mode*
Word of warning.
the minute you drive into one of these car supermarket places, i.e. Carcraft, they take a photo of you and your car, they then HPI your car and do a credit check on you. This can sometimes affect your credit rating, even if you don't buy. If a credit company is about to give you credit, and they see that you've had a load of credit checks done on you, naturally they can get wary.
Now you know why some of them have barriers before you can drive in.
I agree about being put off at these car supermarkets by a over bearing sales person following me around. The prices were not that good either. I have just placed an order for a new Clio from the local dealer as the sports extreme was on offer and then I got the family discount scheme on top should be £9k got it with metallic paint for £6,700. However autobytel sourced another Renault dealer for me and could get the same price as I paid but obviously there was no gain and would of meant travelling so I went with the local. No I do not work for them or am connected in any way but I was impressed with their help even though I did not use them in the end as I did loads of research and checking around and they could match the price from another genuine dealer.
wondered about that, glad i parked at the chippy and walked in to gie me time to eat my chips now!
In reply to another another post the ssalesman wasnt at all pushy, if fact i had to chase him around to ask him about the cars.... actually pished me of, didnt think he was taking me seriously....But i do work with salesmen day in day out so i suppose i can spot the hard sell coming and stop it.
You've got to be harsh, tell them you're looking around, and if he wants a sale to give you his mobile number and you'll ring him if you find a car you're interested in.
Obviously they're getting a bloody good comission on getting you to sign up for the 0% interest finance payments, and 0% interest may look attractive on the face of it, but at the end of the day it's most probably compensated by the car being overpriced in the first place. Do a good search (nationwide) on autotrader.co.uk to see what decent low-mileage examples fetch in there.
Tim S Kemp waffled on in a quite bewildering manner to produce...
Sounds like bull? Charming! You seemed like a reasonable chap when I met you. Let me explain.
Earlier this year I had an interview to work for Carcraft in their new branch in Liverpool (Holiday Inn, Knowsley Industrial Estate, Liverpool was where they held the interviews) As part of the procedure, they first show you a video all about Carcraft, how they're the biggest retailer in the country, how they spend more on advertising than Peugeot and Citroen put together, how they advertise in every paper in the region etc. After this, you get a one on one interview with the traditional Swiss Toni type character.
This is what he said. IIRC his name was Neil, he was into superbikes.
"Before a customer can get onto the premises, they have to stop at a barrier where a security guard takes their registration, while they're at the barrier, a camera takes a picture of them and their car. Before they've even had a contact with any of the sales staff, the registration number and details of the car are on file. We then HPI the car to see if there's any outstanding finance on it or if it's stolen, a write off, or is a hire / lease / company car. As soon as the customer is in the showroom you ask to take a few details, name, address, occupation, amount to spend, type of car etc to match them to their ideal car and to get them talking to you, you take the details to a member of staff who's job is to check out the car, and the customer. Try and get their car keys so we can get the car appraised for trade in, we have trade buyers on site most of the time for the older stuff. We normally have 5 or 6 people doing this all day because there's up to 250 potential customers on site most days, up to 500 at the weekends. They'll give you a list of the cars that fill the criteria the customer has given you. We also run a credit check on the customer there and then. You show them a car or two. When you return from the pitch, you come back to the computer to give the customer a few moments alone. We'll then give you the nod if their car is ok, and they are credit worthy. Then you either deal them, or if they're not going to get credit, you get them out without embarrasing them. No point in having people around if they're not going to buy."
How else do you think they can let you drive away in under an hour? Do you think they take your word for it that you're credit worthy and your car hasn't lost more fights than Frank Bruno? They check you out the minute you turn up. It's a multi million pound outfit. Carcraft OWN every car on site, no manufacturer owned cars, no sale or return stuff, they own the lot. Most main agent dealerships have forecourts stuffed with cars owned by the manufacturer, SOR cars they're called. If they don't sell in a few months, they get transported away and you get a transporter full or cars someone else couldn't sell.
They can afford to HPI every car, and credit check everyone. If there's 250 people a day wandering through and they manage to sell 50 cars, then that's about £50000 a day profit. It's a drop in the ocean to them. The salesmen earn between 30 and 60k a year, £1000 bonuses are common place. 1700 cars on the pitch, 35 ramps in the workshop, 30 salesmen, not difficult to pay a couple of grand a day for a few HPI checks is it?
As for being illegal to credit check someone, they do it, so there must be a loophole.
Try that with me, and you'll have to prise them out of my cold, dead hand. You'd have a job though, because by that point, it would be 6 inches up their arse.
FWIW, it only took an hours worth of work at Fords of Winsford to get my car. I went along, chose one, left a deposit. In the 4 days between then and when I got it, it was valeted. I then came back, filled in the paperwork, and left.
If they hadn't valeted the car, there's no reason why I couldn't have left.
The difference is that they asked my permission before they ran any checks on me or my car.
By law anyone who wants to check the files of a third party for any reason (credit, address, name check, obtaining a reference etc) must get express permission from you first. If you did not give express permission they have broken the Data Protection Act.
What Carcraft are doing is illegal, and as well as that, it's also _wrong_.
If you walked into Dixons or B&Q, and were stopped, and they asked if they could run a credit check on you, I'm sure almost everyone would tell them exactly where to go.
They're probably "able" to do it, because by turning up to the place, you're going with the intention of buying a car, and therefore entering into a financial contract, and that's enough. They're probably taking it as being "implied permission"
They _do_ have to (by law) tell you that they're carrying out a credit check however.
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