How to buy a car

If you’re looking to buy a new car, the first thing you will need to do is research the best new car for you.

Start by viewing our step by step guide and extensive research tools

How to get the best possible deal?

There are a number of things you need to consider when looking to purchase a new vehicle at the most competitive price possible. We have listed a few things that you should consider when making your purchase.

If you want the best deal , you have to be flexible.
Stronger discounts are available on stock (unregistered) cars which are ready for delivery in that particular month.
Heavier discounts are always available at the end of the month or financial quarter when dealers are chasing the last few deals they require to hit target. If you are looking at taking advantage of this, we would suggest having your auction finish between the 20-24th of the month.
Consider looking at outgoing models for a considerable saving.
On average, the right options will add around 1/3 of their original cost. Consider desirable options such as metallic paint, leather upholstery, automatics when ordering to improve re sale values.
If you are concerned about resale value stick with sensible colours as trends can change quickly and you don’t want to alienate yourself because of the colour.
Consider “greener” options by looking at cars with lower CO2 levels you could save money on yearly running costs including fuel and road tax.
Your local dealer’s showroom seems the most logical place to start – and it probably is – but AutoeBid has a few recommendations to take on board before venturing into the lion’s den. It is important to be ready to face the enthusiastic car salesman who will be only too keen to make sure you walk away with his choice of car, not yours.

Tips when visiting the showroom

Closing the deal

It is at this point that the salesman will use all of his skills and sometimes "tricks" to keep you in the showroom and try to get some commitment from you for the time he has spent so far.
Don't feel at this point that you owe the salesman anything; remember he is a professional and is required by the manufacturer to assist you. Reiterate what you said at the beginning about not making a decision then and having to consider all your options before making your final decision. We would not reccomend discussing price as your local dealer will not be able to compete on price with our suppliers and asking questions on price will give them the green light to encourage you to purchase now at a higher price.

Just before you go

Just before they let you go most dealers will have one final attempt at keeping you by offering that little something extra they held back; this just goes to show that they weren't offering you the very best deal in the first place.

If you mention buying on-line or through Auto eBid to the salesman, they will most probably bombard you with reasons not to use our service (after all they want to secure your sale and sometimes will do anything to get it). The most common reasons given are as follows:

"The car will be an import": This is not true, we do not supply imports. All vehicles are suppied by UK main franchised dealers.
"They wouldn’t be able to service the car": This is not true, all UK main dealers would be required to offer full servicing and warranty support under the terms of their franchise with the manufacturer.
"The car won’t have a warranty": This is not true, all new cars come with a full UK manufacturers.
"You will never actually see the car": This is not true, your car will be supplied through a UK main dealer – so it is sourced in the same way as it would be from your local dealer. Which recently conducted a report avaialble here highlighting you actually have more protection buying online than from your local dealer.
"We can get you the car more quickly than if you buy online": We have access to more stock than any other UK supplier. So if there is a potential supplier somewhere who has the car in stock, your local dealer may well not be able to access that car where we can. View our stock section!
"Impossible, we can’t even buy the car for that price!": Because the dealers who generally bid in the auction work on the basis of volume sales, they can often purchase the vehicles at lower prices than some other dealers and then pass on these savings to you.

Even some of the dealers who participate in Auto eBid’s reverse auction regularly use these excuses to stop their customers from using our system: they’re all part of the sales tactics which you can avoid by going straight for the auction and by-passing the negotiation stage!

How it works

On our site, we show the Max Price. This price is as it sounds, it’s the most you will pay including our fees, delivery to your door, 12 months road tax and all other costs for a UK vehicle with a full UK warranty…

In addition, unlike any other service in the market. You could potentially save thousands more than the price you agreed to buy at…

To place an order simply follow steps 1-5 on our site, then the last stage is to pre- authorise our fee to make your order live. Remember that this is a no win no fee service, so if we can't get you your Maximun Price we won't charge you anything. This is a bit like when you check into a hotel where they swipe your card to make sure you have funds in place to pay for your stay.

Our suppliers offer better prices when a real deal is on the table and you have committed to purchase, but remember our fee is only charged on a no win, no fee basis.

Every time you receive an offer it also gets emailed to you and you can ask any questions to each bidder, if require. At the end of the auction (and we recommend just 2 days to run the service) you selected the offer you prefer the supplier then contacts you and you pay them a small deposit by credit card and then the balance only once the vehicle has been delivered to you. Not before, making the entire process entirely safe and secure.

You then take the vehicle to your local franchised dealer for servicing and warranty work.

It’s that simple to get the best deal in the market. No time wasting, No Hassle.