Dealer mark up

I'm used to dealers putting £5k mark up on vans they take in but just read of one owner whose Symbol van was put up for sale within an hour of selling it for £11k more than it was sold for. Unfortunately I don't know which dealer so can't name and shame. No wonder prices are remaining so high .

Also they said the van was on the forecourt within an hour of leaving it with dealer, I have long suspected dealers selling used vans as received and gamble on new owners not returning with issues during warranty period, being willing to take hit for a percentage of warranty issues rather than checking properly and proactively fixing all issues with a trade in

5k is cheap Paul, every time we’ve dealt with any dealer we’ve worked out it’s 10k per vehicle, so if you’re trading in they are going to make 10k on your vehicle & obviously 10k on the vehicle they’re selling you, so 20k per transaction is about right in my experience.

CC wrote:5k is cheap Paul, every time we’ve dealt with any dealer we’ve worked out it’s 10k per vehicle, so if you’re trading in they are going to make 10k on your vehicle & obviously 10k on the vehicle they’re selling you, so 20k per transaction is about right in my experience.

When we bought current van , nearly 7 years ago, we got £21k for our part-ex Nuevo, it went on sale for £24k (which was what we bought it for 5 years earlier). Prior to that we had a Symphony which we paid £14k for , 4 years later we part -exd it for £8.5k towards the Nuevo. The Symphony was too old for resale by that dealer so they traded it out for  £7.5k to a dealer in Weston-super-Mare who sold it within a week for £11.5k . So none have made anywhere near the £10k you quote.

I used to consider about 7k to 8k Mark up.
However at current new prices that must be higher .
10k min I suspect.

Micky

10 k mark up here to Paul, my 16 Warwick duo sold the next day, was happy with the deal as I exchanged for the wee 18 reg Devon at the same price I bought the Warwick for 4 years ago .
Boaby

I was speaking to neighbours on site last week.
They'd just swapped from a motorhome to a campervan and they said that their motorhome went on sale within a day for £8,000 more than they received for it.
I think that's more likely a general figure.

My Rienza was sold on for £10500 more than I got from the dealer.  (Perthshire Caravans).    I originally bought it privately at well below market, and my replacement was also bought privately, so I didn't take as big a hit as I would have if my two had been bought from dealers.

  The new owner was on this forum briefly afterwards.

I suppose it depends whether the dealer is one that will negotiate.  Adding £10k doesn't mean they got that . If they only add £5k they may be rigid on that price or it might be the higher price dealer will give more for your part-ex. Eventually its what you pay to change that matters.

Like I said earlier every dealer we’ve sat down with to discuss trading in it’s always been around the 10k mark up. When looking for a Broadway EB, SMC in Newark offered us 45k trade in on our V-Line knowing we’d paid 60k for it just four months previously, which I thought was pretty mean, however choose leisure gave us 51k & sold it two weeks later for 59k which I thought wasn’t so bad, not sure who Paul is buying from but those trade in prices are a lot different to my experiences.

Don’t forget that the market fluctuates constantly and p/ex & mark up prices do the same. A couple of years back dealers couldn’t get enough stock and were paying top dollar for vans. Today they have full forecourts and are reluctant to add to their stock. All these factors affect the prices offered and the margins.

My trade ins were at least 7 years ago now. The Nuevo was bought from Cotswold Motorhomes at a show (they offered £500 more than next highest). The Sussex was bought from AEG Shrewsbury. They were the only ones at the time that had a Warwick/Sussex in stock in my price bracket. Neither dealer tried to beat part-ex down, in fact we had prepared both trade-ins to such a high level that they were thrilled with the condition, AEG giving it a most thorough check over and had no hesitation in giving us what we wanted. Cotswold weren't that thorough because they weren't going to sell it themselves. Strangely both dealers have been Auto-Sleeper dealers, Cotswold still were when we bought Nuevo, AEG had dropped AS when we bought Sussex but they loved to get hold of used AS .

Speaking as one who started his first business over 45 years ago (and has been unemployable since!) I would have thought that a 10k mark up on let's say a 60k van was about right, possibly a tad modest. It isn't all clear profit. Consider:

1.   Possibly time and travel to inspect & buy a bought-in vehicle.
2.   Inspection and repairs to known or identified faults, whether completed before or after putting the vehicle on the forecourt.
3.   Valeting.
4.   Repairs to defects identified by a buyer or his vehicle inspector.
5.   Replacement of missing "standard" items.
6.   Negotiation factor: discounts or "freebies." We negotiated a £600+ (?) towbar install as part of the sticker price and would probably have pushed for (and got) more if not buying during the freak covid rush for motorhomes.
7.   Admin and all the normal business overheads (rent, rates, insurance, wages........)
8.   Risks / costs associated with compliance with Consumer Rights Act
9.   Warranty. That is the biggie, and obviously a gamble, particularly for dealers who self-insure the warranty.

We all know that trading-in is a convenience thing, so should expect to pay a bit for that, and buying privately is risky (Caveat Emptor) so should expect to pay a bit for statutory protections buying from a business.

We found AEG motorhomes absolutely terrible, not only were they uninterested they offered us 12k upping it to 14k when I noted my displeasure for our Nuevo part ex against a Broadway EL at 40k we didn’t even get a drink despite them knowing in advance we were travelling almost 4hrs from Norfolk specially to view their vehicle… Needless to say we have never left a dealership so fast & so disheartened, doubt we were even there 10 mins. 

Marquis Northants on the other hand gave us 25k against their Broadway EL at 36k which we went on to purchase but gave us the option to sell privately if we could, which we did & sold it for 27k after putting it on the road just outside our house with a for sale sign & sold it in a weekend.

3rd try!!
I went to an auction in 2018 time.
Motorhome sold for 29k.
Same Day! on sale for 39k!

Micky

CC wrote:We found AEG motorhomes absolutely terrible, not only were they uninterested they offered us 12k upping it to 14k when I noted my displeasure for our Nuevo part ex against a Broadway EL at 40k we didn’t even get a drink despite them knowing in advance we were travelling almost 4hrs from Norfolk specially to view their vehicle… Needless to say we have never left a dealership so fast & so disheartened, doubt we were even there 10 mins. 

Marquis Northants on the other hand gave us 25k against their Broadway EL at 36k which we went on to purchase but gave us the option to sell privately if we could, which we did & sold it for 27k after putting it on the road just outside our house with a for sale sign & sold it in a weekend.

Odd how you get such different experiences.  AEG were brilliant for us, replacing awning fabric when THEY found a cut in it before we took delivery and replaced washroom taps under warranty,  took us to shopping centre while they did the work and picked us up again when they had finished. They sold our Nuevo to a guy all the way from Aberdeen.

I guess it all depends who you deal with on the day Paul. 

As said on the forum elsewhere our experience with Choose Leisure is the best we’ve experienced, nice friendly greeting upon arrival from reception each time you visit, excellent comfortable customer waiting area with drinks machine, crisps & snacks, sweets, doggie treats etc just help yourself, anything we’ve asked of them they’ve just got on & done without any quibble, in house warranty that covers ‘Everything’ not your usual third party warranty, completely different to anything we’ve experienced elsewhere.

Bilbobaggins wrote:Also they said the van was on the forecourt within an hour of leaving it with dealer, I have long suspected dealers selling used vans as received and gamble on new owners not returning with issues during warranty period, being willing to take hit for a percentage of warranty issues rather than checking properly and proactively fixing all issues with a trade in

I’m 100% convinced that some car dealers do that, so I’m sure some Motorhome dealers do that too.

I’ll be honest I’m not really too bothered what a dealer would sell mine for, as long as I’m happy with the price I got for it.

We went to look at vans at AEG Stourbridge, maybe it was because we turned up in a car I don't know but never been treated so indifferently, having visited about 10 to 15 dealers that year they were by far the worst.

Maybe I looked like I couldn't afford one, you should never judge a book by it's cover. lol
Pete

Glad it wasn’t just us, did wonder if it was personal, definitely the worst reception we’ve ever experienced, their loss as wouldn’t bother with them again.

Maybe it was the particular salesman that dealt with us. I know he's no longer there, he went to sell static caravans somewhere.