- This topic has 40 replies, 12 voices, and was last updated 2 years, 7 months ago by Glos Guy.
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- October 4, 2018 at 8:51 pm #62253Winston
Hello Folks,
hope everyone is well ?
Im sure this subject will have been covered before so apologies in advance
as I’ll be able to order a new car in Jan I’m still sitting on the fence with regards to extending the lease on my current car
but I’m going to venture into a few dealerships soon , arrange a few test drives and see what deals I can secure ( if any )
So I really want to make sure I have the right info and response to the automatic dealer stance of “we hardly make any money from a Motability car “ ( excluding options obviously )
So…. can anyone explain to me just how much a dealer makes per Motability car? Does it vary on the AP, RRP etc? Or is a flat set fee
haggling and saying no isn’t a problem for me, but knowledge is power and I’d rather hear how the fee is worked out from some of the experienced members on here ?
thanks guys , and gals ?
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- February 17, 2020 at 10:20 pm #106952Littledave
Not all manufacturers include Motability sales in their sales targets. Vauxhall certainly didn’t.
August 5, 2021 at 2:42 pm #160734LouiseVisited a Renault garage for the Zoe E135. Wanted the GT in quartz but there’s an AP of 499 even though it shows 399 on mobility website. I agreed on it as Was told that no EVs come without AP yet I found the Iconic on the website. Are they looking at a different list of cars to me ? First told it was on a transporter on route dor end of month and a day later told it’s not and I need to upgrade to winter pack to get quartz white. ? Or choose another colour Am I being scammed?
August 5, 2021 at 3:44 pm #160741With regards to the payments dealers make…..
a salesman showed me this to prove how much dealers get
Don’t think I’m allowed to link to the site? @wmcforum please delete if not appropriate
August 5, 2021 at 3:54 pm #160747No wonder the dealers don’t bend over backwards for us.
August 5, 2021 at 6:04 pm #160760Mike11I was told £150
August 5, 2021 at 9:30 pm #160765Don’t forget that the service , warranty and repair work that the dealership will get from the car over the 3/5 years we have it
if we decide to use that particular branch obviously
When life hands you melons...,
Make melonade!August 5, 2021 at 11:12 pm #160770In a broader sense, main dealers get the benefit of the sale of Motability cars three years down the line when they feed the secondhand market. Without new car sales there can’t be used car profits.
August 5, 2021 at 11:14 pm #160771The dealer who supplied our recent car told me they get something like £230 for every Motability car. The salesperson probably only gets a proportion of that (hence why some will say things like £50). However, keep in mind that Motability orders count towards dealership, group and manufacturer volume bonus schemes, so your Motability order could be the one that triggers a bonus of many thousands of pounds! My dealer gave me around £800 discount off the AP and options and will have still made a sizeable profit on the transaction, so I strongly suggest that when people are negotiating for their next Motability car they don’t let sales people get way with all this “we only make £50” hogwash!
August 5, 2021 at 11:34 pm #160772Glos Guy, when we got our X1 three years ago we got a similar discount, being £500 off the AP and 20% off the extras. This does seem to be a BMW/Mini thing and I suspect the £500 doesn’t come from the dealer but further up the line. Of course there can always be wriggle room on the price of extras – when I phoned around we were offered 10% by Volvo dealers but nothing off the AP anywhere. So money off the AP isn’t always achievable.
Incidentally I got a copy of the Volvo dealer invoice to Motability and they get 10% discount off the list price. I can’t remember what discount BMW gave but it was much higher. Our previous Nissan was discounted by 17%.
August 6, 2021 at 7:34 am #160777Visited a Renault garage for the Zoe E135. Wanted the GT in quartz but there’s an AP of 499 even though it shows 399 on mobility website. I agreed on it as Was told that no EVs come without AP yet I found the Iconic on the website. Are they looking at a different list of cars to me ? First told it was on a transporter on route dor end of month and a day later told it’s not and I need to upgrade to winter pack to get quartz white. ? Or choose another colour Am I being scammed?
Hello Louise,
I fear your post has been rather overtaken by the course of the thread. Perhaps you could have posted it as a new topic, or the mods might create it as a new thread for you?
Anyway, what stage are you currently at? Have you actually ordered the vehicle, or are you still at the ‘looking’ stage?
If you have already ordered, the AP should be for that model as promulgated on the Motability Scheme website at the time of the order. If it was in the previous quarter (or even prior to that), I do not know the Advance Payments.
The current AP’s (assuming you aren’t a war pensioner) for the Zoe with GT in the title around the prices you quoted are:
As you can see the £399 model isn’t marked as ‘rapid charge’ whereas the £499 models are ‘rapid charge’ varients.
Also, from the Renault website, it shows the following:
I cannot explain the difference in prices quoted for the model shown as £549 on Renault’s website!
However, the £399 model is marked as ‘MY19’ meaning Manufacturing Year 2019 – so it may not be available anymore, or there may only be very few available in stock somewhere. This is reinforced by the fact that when you try to build a Zoe GT Line on the Renault Website, only the ‘Rapid Charge’ variant is available to be built.
Also, Quartz White is shown as a £700 ‘special paint’ option, versus the £600 metallic options, so it maybe that the £100 is to cover the difference in paint (a normal thing with the scheme where you get metallic paint free but pay the extra for special paint colours).
As for the ‘winter pack’ – when you try to build a Zoe GT Line on the Renault website, it shows as a £500 optional extra.
To be honest, it doesn’t seem like the dealer you have visited has been very clear about things.
The ‘on a transporter’ can be used by salespeople as a lure to get you to order there and then. Only for it to magically disappear (or be sold to another customer) etc. It maybe the dealer has one coming in quartz white but it has the winter pack already fitted and they are trying to ‘offload’ that particular one.
I would say, as the dealership has not been very clear and obviously left you somewhat confused, that you try a different Renault Motability dealership and see how good they are at explaining the position to you.
Don’t leave the dealership until all your questions have been answered (write them down in advance so you don’t forget any of them).
Pin them down to the exact model availability and get them to write down the actual AP’s and any other costs (paint, optional extras etc).
Good luck.
August 6, 2021 at 7:49 am #160778Glos Guy, when we got our X1 three years ago we got a similar discount, being £500 off the AP and 20% off the extras. This does seem to be a BMW/Mini thing and I suspect the £500 doesn’t come from the dealer but further up the line. Of course there can always be wriggle room on the price of extras – when I phoned around we were offered 10% by Volvo dealers but nothing off the AP anywhere. So money off the AP isn’t always achievable. Incidentally I got a copy of the Volvo dealer invoice to Motability and they get 10% discount off the list price. I can’t remember what discount BMW gave but it was much higher. Our previous Nissan was discounted by 17%.
Wigwam – I accept that discounts off AP’s vary by manufacturer and dealer, with some offering near permanent discounts and others none. I also agree that most dealers will offer between 10-20% off optional extras, even if no AP discount is possible.
As for the discounts that Motability Operations get from manufacturers, I have no firm knowledge of this but am sceptical that the discounts that we see on the invoice are the entirety of the deal. As you probably know, when you buy a new car privately there are usually three layers of discount – manufacturer, dealer and finance. Clearly the latter won’t apply in Motability Operations case, but I suspect that the invoices that we see only shows one of the other two. Over the last 5 years or so I have purchased 3 new cars from 3 different manufacturers (BMW, VW and Hyundai). The discounts that I achieved were between 18 and 25%. I accept that the climate may have changed over the last year or so, but I struggle to believe that one of the biggest car leasing companies gets a worse deal buying thousands of cars from a manufacturer than little old me does buying one!
August 6, 2021 at 8:48 am #160781Ray PennDon’t forget also that Motability has a huge chunk of money they don’t have to find:
VAT
August 6, 2021 at 4:24 pm #160816mattMotability dont lose money on any car they buy most are low milage and like above they dont pay vat plus a good discount from the manufacturers.motability is a business not a charity even though they say thay are.not while there owned by big banks
August 6, 2021 at 5:12 pm #160822Motability Operations have never claimed to be a charity. They provide a service to Motability the charity, and are funded by the big four banks who take no profit.
August 6, 2021 at 8:08 pm #160829Motability Operations have never claimed to be a charity. They provide a service to Motability the charity, and are funded by the big four banks who take no profit.
Correct. In fact every single person that we ever speak to or deal with works for Motability Operations, which is a commercial leasing company just like any other (aside from than the fact that it has a monopoly on providing VAT free cars for disabled customers through the Motability scheme). This begs the question, how many people does Motability (the charity) actually employ? I don’t know the answer but suspect that it’s tiny. The CEO, a small management team and a few admin staff I should think, given that the trustees will be volunteers (if it operates like other charities). Does anyone actually know?
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