pre registering cars

[acebanx]

How does a garage pre registering a car work? I know it then makes the car cheaper to buy but what do they gain out of it? and what are the pitfalls for buyers?

[skinnycow]

I worked in a dealership for a couple of years but we would only register a car in the garages name when it was bought for demo purposes, they were then only kept for 6 months and sold on, sometimes with very few miles. I have not heard of a garage registering a car with the intention of selling it straight away as there is nothing to gain from this.

[kjn2]

The more cars a dealer sells the cheaper they get them for, by registering the cars and selling them no lower than their purchase price they get their next months quota still at lower prices IF the sales start to go down then the higher they pay for their cars.Therefore it pays them to sell the cars not at a loss but no lower than what they paid for them in order that they still get their big discounts.and get a higher profit when they sell them . Pitfulls -not too many as long as the car has very low mileage, some people may think as the car having two owners and not one but these days I do not think this matters too much. Trust this helps.

[antiguru]

I believe it�s to do with achieving sales targets. A sale is a sale, even if it looks like an own-goal to everyone else.

[Markandshez]

Many moons ago when I worked with Ford, the dealerships were encouraged to pre-register some cars to move the car up the "best seller chartts" - They did it for months with the old Sierra (the one that replaced the Cortina - how old do I feel ? ) Ford could then, rightly, claim that the Sierra was "selling" well and outsripping the Cavalier - it's main rival at the time. It was pure marketing guff. Ford are paranoid about being in the Top Ten Sales list and if the Sierra had not been No 1 the PR would have been hell..

Ford paid the dealer a "bonus" for sales that, purely by coincidence I am sure, also covered any losses that may be made by the dealer for having loads of "demo" cars