Carwow prices

[Chuck Norris’s beard]

Has anyone ever bought a car from a dealership, following a quote from Carwow?

I went into the dealership a couple of weeks ago and was about to pull the trigger on the facelift VZ1 333. However a couple of days ago I did a quote via carwow and the OTR prices offered by the dealerships who replied (including the one I had been to in person) were about £4K cheaper!!!

How can that be and are there any hidden extras or disadvantages of the carwow quotes?

I don’t understand how the price can be so much different?

 

[KJA]

I have always used quotes from carwow.
Even the dealership which are not in carwow list.
When told them that xyz dealership is giving me this price they then try to match if they want to do business.

 

[SRGTD]

@KJA - When I bought my current VW, the dealer I bought it from pretty much matched the best of the Carwow or Drive the Deal price (can’t remember which was the cheaper of the two prices).

@Chuck Norris’s beard; to answer your question ‘are there any hidden extras or disadvantages of the Carwow quotes?’. No, pretty certain there aren’t. The Carwow price is a price quoted by the actual dealer - not Carwow - and if you decide to take up one of the quotes, you deal direct with the dealer; there’s no further involvement by Carwow.

I consider Carwow to be a bit like an aggregator / comparison website for insurance; you input your requirements to Carwow’s website and you’ll get quotes back from a selection of (five?) dealers who have subscribed to be on Carwow. Carwow’s remuneration probably takes the form of either a fee from each dealer providing a quote or a commission from successful dealers in the event of a sale.

The only potential disadvantage I can think of is a dealer quoting the cheapest price might not be particularly local to you, so you may need to travel to collect the car - and also if you’d prefer face to face discussions / meetings with the dealer prior to vehicle collection. Having said that, most dealers will offer a delivery service; driven delivery may be free (would depend upon the dealer‘s delivery policy and the distance involved), but trailered delivery is usually chargeable at so much per mile. I used Carwow’s website a few months ago just to get an idea of possible discounts available off a potential new car purchase in a few months time. The closest dealer to me who provided a quote was around 45-50 miles away from where I live and they were the second cheapest.

It’s also worth noting that Carwow provide a car buying service if you have an existing car to sell; they acquired Wizzle (car buying service) In 2021. My understanding is that it works in the same way as the Motorway car buying service; you provide details of the car you wish to sell with pictures and interested dealers will bid for it. Theres no obligation to accept any of the bids offered by the dealers if you subsequently decide not to sell or you’ve been able to get a better price elsewhere.

 

[Chuck Norris’s beard]

@KJA - When I bought my current VW, the dealer I bought it from pretty much matched the best of the Carwow or Drive the Deal price (can’t remember which was the cheaper of the two prices).

@Chuck Norris’s beard; to answer your question ‘are there any hidden extras or disadvantages of the Carwow quotes?’. No, pretty certain there aren’t. The Carwow price is a price quoted by the actual dealer - not Carwow - and if you decide to take up one of the quotes, you deal direct with the dealer; there’s no further involvement by Carwow.

I consider Carwow to be a bit like an aggregator / comparison website for insurance; you input your requirements to Carwow’s website and you’ll get quotes back from a selection of (five?) dealers who have subscribed to be on Carwow. Carwow’s remuneration probably takes the form of either a fee from each dealer providing a quote or a commission from successful dealers in the event of a sale.

The only potential disadvantage I can think of is a dealer quoting the cheapest price might not be particularly local to you, so you may need to travel to collect the car - and also if you’d prefer face to face discussions / meetings with the dealer prior to vehicle collection. Having said that, most dealers will offer a delivery service; driven delivery may be free (would depend upon the dealer‘s delivery policy and the distance involved), but trailered delivery is usually chargeable at so much per mile. I used Carwow’s website a few months ago just to get an idea of possible discounts available off a potential new car purchase in a few months time. The closest dealer to me who provided a quote was around 45-50 miles away from where I live and they were the second cheapest.

It’s also worth noting that Carwow provide a car buying service if you have an existing car to sell; they acquired Wizzle (car buying service) In 2021. My understanding is that it works in the same way as the Motorway car buying service; you provide details of the car you wish to sell with pictures and interested dealers will bid for it. Theres no obligation to accept any of the bids offered by the dealers if you subsequently decide not to sell or you’ve been able to get a better price elsewhere.

What I’m currently finding most frustrating, is that the cheapest Carwow quote so far, which is £4600 cheaper, is from the very same dealership that I visited in person two weeks ago and is 3 miles from where I live!

I will be very disappointed if they have seen me as an easy sale, because I am a return customer.

 

[Agnes.Surrey]

If you never asked for discount and came back couple of times to get new cars, then there was no need to offer you discount. Before CarWow, there was Drive the Deal, CarFile, Broadspeed, OrangeWheels and similar. You could negotiate with dealers using these websites or they had certain discount on offer.

Regarding CarWow buying service, I tried Motorway and CarWow recently. Motorway bids were rather low and I didn't accept any. With CarWow, my car went 3 times through auction. First offer was too low, so I declined it. Second time around got better offer and local trader commited to buy from me. As soon, as I removed private plate, he started coming up with excuses to negotiate price down and offered me £500 less. I know that trader and he always has high prices, so I told him to forget and cancelled sale. Third time around, dealer from 170 miles away offered me the same money as previously, arrived as agreed, was happy with the car, paid and left. He showed me how much he has to pay to CarWow, it was around 2% of purchase price.

 

[Andy.M]

I sold my last car and bought my formentor using Carwow.

 

[Chuck Norris’s beard]

I sold my last car and bought my formentor using Carwow.

What sort of discount did you get?

 

[Chuck Norris’s beard]

I’m going back to my local dealership tomorrow to speak to them about their original quote and I’ll ask them about price matching their own Carwow quote too.

 

[Andy.M]

TBH I cant remember what discount but as it happens it was the dealer closest to me offering the best price. At the time we were in the grip of post covid shortages and I was pleased to get a deal at all!. I had been waiting for a Tiguan for a whole year with no delivery date in sight and Cupra took three months to deliver the Formentor.
With selling through Carlow, I chose to accept their suggested buy it now price for my Evoque (Which was around £300 more than WBAC and it sold within the hour.

 

[Mine was taken already]

No one would quote me on a Cupra from Carwow. I tried them before but found deals came wrapped up with 'extras' like GAP which meant they weren't really any cheaper. I find it easier to look at auto trader and under age select 'new'. There's new V2 1.5 TSIs on there from under 30k.

 

[Chuck Norris’s beard]

TBH I cant remember what discount but as it happens it was the dealer closest to me offering the best price. At the time we were in the grip of post covid shortages and I was pleased to get a deal at all!. I had been waiting for a Tiguan for a whole year with no delivery date in sight and Cupra took three months to deliver the Formentor.
With selling through Carlow, I chose to accept their suggested buy it now price for my Evoque (Which was around £300 more than WBAC and it sold within the hour.

The dealer closest to me also offered the best price, which is £4600 less than they quoted me in branch when I went in!