[fordomatic]

Depends how you play it really, when selling my FG XR6T. It was immaculate with low kms, I had 20k on it, most were priced around 16-18k. Every day I had offers of 12-15k, to which i replied to come and look at it and then i'll talk $, none of those people actually came to look. First person to call me and then look at it bought it for asking price.

Then you look at when i bought that car, it was fully optioned and a year old with 30,000km on it. It was put up for 31k that morning, similar were selling for around 32-35k with no options. I went and looked at it, had a really good chat to the owner as he was a nice bloke. He said I could have it for the payout figure of 26500 for the loan he had on it as he wanted a quick sale to buy a car that weekend and the dealer only offered him 23k and he needed enough to pay out the loan.

Our Outlander we have now was advertised for 18k at the time, was priced about right at that amount. Went and looked at it, exactly the same as the XR6T, they just wanted to pay out their loan as dealer offered bugger all. I got it for $10500 and even 5 years on it's still insured for $14,000.

It all depends on circumstance. I've found if you actually go and see the car in person and be nice you can get a feel of how negotiable they are, by calling the owner first you can also get a feel for what type of person they are. I've not bought heaps of cars simply because of the way the owners talked on the phone. I'm also very patient, i'm happy to look for as long as it takes to find a good deal. Generally low balling wont work if you simply "low ball", negotiating works far more often.

EDIT, this xxxxx cash today crap, how else are you going to pay for it? Get the same with parts and it drives me crazy, "ï'll give you $1000 cash right now". I've only been offered crack as payment once, and that was for an AU part. Of course you are paying with cash, you are not going to pay with a gold bar.