Another question about: buying a car

aguy · Post by **aguy** » Mon Sep 22, 2014 9:43 am

Aloha!

I want to buy a car and wanted to ask if it's common in Finland to bargain the price? On nettiauto you can find booth private and companies selling cars. I can guess you can bargain with a private person but what about a company?

Kiitos!

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harryc · Post by **harryc** » Mon Sep 22, 2014 9:55 am

Pray tell - what place on earth do you NOT bargain on the price of a car?

aguy · Post by **aguy** » Mon Sep 22, 2014 10:12 am

harryc wrote:Pray tell - what place on earth do you NOT bargain on the price of a car?

Well I never owned a car, and I know in Finland you pay the listed prices for everything except for houses/apartments! Where I'm coming from we bargain prices even in stores like Stockmann

. But this is Finland so you don't do that.

I just need to learn how things work in here so I will not walk in a car shop and start bargaining and they will kick me out

harryc · Post by **harryc** » Mon Sep 22, 2014 10:34 am

I think these days they won't let you leave the car shop without THEM bargaining!

(Shop prices in Finland are usually the 'price' - especially as most retail is controlled by the 'oligopoly' - the individual shop owner has gone the way of the Dodo bird for the most part)

Ligence · Post by **Ligence** » Mon Sep 22, 2014 10:45 am

You can bargain as long as you don't haggle

I think it's alright to bargain if you have some valid points to base it on. I wouldn't drop the price of my car just because someone doesn't want to pay that much, but if they can provide compelling arguments, then sure.

aguy · Post by **aguy** » Mon Sep 22, 2014 12:06 pm

Few more questions:

As I am not that good with cars, I mean checking the car to see it''s in a good shape and so on. Is it common in here to bring a car to inspection before you buy it? Assuming my knowledge about cars is low, and I decide to buy a car, as I will not know if the car has problems, I want to bring it to a service for inspection. If the car is in good shape I buy it if it's not in good shape I don't buy? Whom should pay for inspection? How much does it cost? Is this common practice when you buy a used car?

What is the difference between buying a car from private person or from a company in terms of guarantee? Do you get some guarantee time like months or kilometers driven?

What if I buy a car from a private person and the engine will brake after 1 month? Does the seller has some responsibility or is the buyer's problem once the selling is done?

harryc · Post by **harryc** » Mon Sep 22, 2014 12:09 pm

I wouldn't drop the price of my car just because someone doesn't want to pay that much

Doesn't that depend pretty much on whether ANYONE wants to pay EVEN THAT much?

DMC · Post by **DMC** » Mon Sep 22, 2014 1:32 pm

aguy wrote:Whom should pay for inspection? How much does it cost?

Take a look at the Autotohtori service provided by some Katsastus centres. I had a car inspected by them about a year ago and was quite impressed with the report I got back. It cost about 85 euros I think. I would suggest haggling over the price before taking the car to the inspection, as you will be in a much weaker bargaining position after you have shown your hand by paying money to get the inspection done. Also make it clear that any offer you make is subject to receiving a good report from the inspection, and use any faults found in the inspection to get the price down further.
You may be able to persuade the seller to contribute to the cost of the inspection but I wouldn't rely on that being possible.

sinikala · Post by **sinikala** » Mon Sep 22, 2014 1:42 pm

aguy wrote:
harryc wrote:Pray tell - what place on earth do you NOT bargain on the price of a car?
Well I never owned a car, and I know in Finland you pay the listed prices for everything except for houses/apartments!

Nonsense, the verb is"tinkeä" ... you can ask for a reduction or discount in most stores, I don't usually bother unless it's in the hundreds of Euros. I always ask for a discount from white goods which aren't on sale, especially you need to ask if there are several stores carrying the same item, print off details of the item from several shops take them with you, and play them off against each other. In places other than Stockmann, a sales manager will always have the authority to cut 10% off the full ticket price.

You need to ask something like "mikä on loppuhintä?" to send the message that you are not interested in the ticket price, but want to know the bottom line, what price can they drop to? Also if you are buying several of something, ask what is the discount for buying several... couple of weeks ago we bought two bike saddles, I asked "onko allenus kun ostamme kaks?", we got €5 off ... = practically nothing, but that €5 is better in my pocket than theirs.

Back to cars ... we set a budget of ca. €10k for a new(er) car in june. We saw a Ford we liked the look of at a Volvo dealer. Original price was €11.5k with an offer of a €500 gift voucher .... According to the handbook, the car had been lightly driven since the last service 20 months previous, and at 7 years old having driven €96k still had the original tyres manufactured in 2006, and no cabin heater, and an ugly tow bar to be removed, and no front fogs ... so plenty needed to be done, but generallya solid car.

We would have been looking at €11.5k - €500 gift voucher + €1k for new tyres + €500 for a service and the cabin heater wiring = €12.5k min... so the car was too expensive at that price, I offered €9.5k in light of how much needed doing. The counter offer was something daft like €11k. You have to be prepared to walk away and let the seller stew - risking that in the meantime someone else will come along and pay the full asking price.

One week later we paid €10k and told them to forget the voucher, but fit a new set of Continental summer tyres instead.
After paying the service ourselves at our our own garage where we also bought a set of €780 winter tyres out of season for €500.... our total outlay was €11k, if we had not haggled that would have been €12.8k. Saving €1800.

It may not be in the local genetic makeup to ask, if they want to pay more that's up to them; if you don't ask you don't get... the worst the seller can do is say no.

sinikala · Post by **sinikala** » Mon Sep 22, 2014 1:51 pm

DMC wrote:You may be able to persuade the seller to contribute to the cost of the inspection but I wouldn't rely on that being possible.

I used a similar technique in England in the 90s. Both times I asked for an independent (RAC) inspection.

I used the approach of ... if the car passes I pay the agreed price plus the inspection fee, if it fails you pay the inspection fee and I walk away. The onus is then on the dealer to prove he's not selling you a piece of crap.

The first car failed and I paid nothing, when that fell through the next car (from a main dealer) passed and I paid up. Worked well.

Kartell · Post by **Kartell** » Mon Sep 22, 2014 8:19 pm

I've sold a couple of cars privatly here in Finland and what I really hate is that people already start haggling on the phone.. Come on people, price might be negociable but atleast look at the car before you make me an offer! One guy just sold his car for 2k so that's what he was willing to pay for mine, nevermind I was asking 3 times that. Can you imagine the nerve some people have? I'm talking about normal, perunamuusi and lihapullat with kiiseli for dessert Finnish people so I guess it's socially acceptable to make ludacris lowball offers when shopping for used cars.

Upphew · Post by **Upphew** » Mon Sep 22, 2014 8:22 pm

Kartell wrote:I've sold a couple of cars privatly here in Finland and what I really hate is that people already start haggling on the phone.. Come on people, price might be negociable but atleast look at the car before you make me an offer! One guy just sold his car for 2k so that's what he was willing to pay for mine, nevermind I was asking 3 times that. Can you imagine the nerve some people have? I'm talking about normal, perunamuusi and lihapullat with kiiseli for dessert Finnish people so I guess it's socially acceptable to make ludacris lowball offers when shopping for used cars.

And it is just as fine to laugh at them and tell that they can get the mother in law for that money.

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