Discounts for all

Remember all that hoo-ha back in 2000 about new-car discounts? As the press saw it, us wily fleet managers were turning the screw on manufacturers, who recouped all their money by gleefully charging over the odds down the dealers. If you thought it had all been resolved, and that a great big Government JCB had flattened the playing field, let me tell you now: it hasn’t.

Back then trade and industry secretary Stephen Byers was playing the consumer champion – with his square-framed accountant specs and his square-minded accountant demeanour he chivvied manufacturers into offering fleet-sized discounts to the general public.

What a tremendous victory it was for the little man. The big manufacturers were humbled into cutting prices, starting with the previously intractable Mercedes, and the second-hand car market went into meltdown. Bad for us, but great for the punter with just the one car to buy.

If the story ended how these stories are supposed to end, ie happily ever after for all concerned, the situation should still be the same today. Yet it’s not. Not because we’re all paying a fair list price, because we aren’t; that was never going to happen. The reason why there hasn’t been a happy ending is because buying cars should be just as transparent for the private buyer as it is for the fleet guy, and that’s absolutely not the case.

I know because I’ve been both. I get the fleet salesmen coming by, but I’ve also recently had to hoof it off to a dealer and buy a car for a director who wanted something a bit different. From a company without a special fleet representative in their dealership. I tell you, it’s scary.

Fleet salesman are actually pretty easy to deal with. They’re straight, tell you up front what their discounts are, and what models you’ll get them on. The phone sales types can get tricksy, but the guys who come round for a chat aren’t patronising or pushy. Mostly.

But life as a private punter is something else. I was sitting there in this one dealer listening to a pumped up 21-year-old with a pinecone for a haircut telling me he couldn’t budge from the list price. Ten minutes into a spiel about how he has to make a living from commission, he accused me of stealing beer from his table. I sighed and explained who I was and what I was doing there, but that didn’t halt him. I got the hard sell on some unnecessary insurance (£400), a special seat coating that repels everything up to and including nuclear waste (£340) and the opportunity to pay off my loan in five years’ time.

In the end I cracked. I stood up and gave him my best old giffer speech: “Listen sonny, I’ve bought more cars than you’ve drunk alcopops. This is what I want to pay. Tell your manager and don’t come back until you’ve got that price.” He did, and I got a fair deal, but if you only do that eight or nine times in your whole life, how are you going to know what to do? When I’m through with this, I’m setting up a car-buying boot camp to teach people how to apply fleet manager camo. Discounts guaranteed.