I worked as a car sales executive for Dixon motors and I was based at Dixon Renault in York from February 2004 to April 2005.
All car sales staff at Dixons are firstly sent on a 7 day course to teach them how to sell cars.
This course teaches what is called the road to a sale.
When you first enter a Dixons site a member of the sales team will introduce themselves to you and try to find out your basic info. This is things like your name, age, what car you are looking for (model or size of car), whether you are looking at new or used and if you have a part exchange. If they haven't got the car you want on site they look on their computer system to see if another site has one and try to sell that car to you subject to a test drive (usually take 2 - 3 days to get the car to them), but they will want a deposit before they do this.
When they get you into the showroom they will enter your details on a computer system called S2 and start asking you more questions about the car you want, they tell you this is to find you the perfect car for your needs but it is actually to find out what is the most you are willing to spend. They will ask you what your monthly budget is and what kind of deposit you are willing to put down on a car. This is so they know if you are a cash or finance customer and if you are finance they try to get other products into your maximum monthly payments, ie protected payments and gap and paint protection treatment ect. They will also ask for details about your current car (if you wish to part exchange) and will then print off a form and look around your car and have a drive in it with you.
They then take you back into the showroom to add the details of your part ex onto the S2 so that the sales manager can value it. At this point they suggest that you take the car you are looking at out for a test drive, they will do anything to get you out for a drive, often saying that you might as well because it will take the manager 15 minutes to value your part ex (it actually just takes 2 minutes looking in the cap guide to value the car). The reason they do this is to pull at your heart strings and not the purse strings, ie to get you to love the car so you will be happy to pay more for it. When you get back from the test drive the sales manager will have put the deal onto the S2 for the sales exec to show you. You will notice that if you are a cash customer this is where they try to get you into finance, and the first offer always incudes extras like gap, life accident and unenployment cover and paint protection treatment and they never offer you the best price for your part ex.
My advice for getting the best price is to insist on looking at the figures before going on the test drive and to never accept the first offer, always ask for the offer to be shown without the extras unless you really want them and don't just haggle on the price of the car but haggle for more money for your part ex and for discount on the extras if you want them. If you are happy with the deal then go for a test drive. Before you shake on a deal always be sure to get them to agree to a full tank of fuel and a set of car matts for free. They will also try to sell to you their and then and say things like "this deal is only for today, if you come back tommorow it won't stand" and "the car you are looking at today may have sold tommorow". Don't wory about that and if you need time to think then sleep on it they only say it to try and push the sale. Also if you sign on the dotted line and leave a deposit but change your mind later then tell them you want to cancel the order and you want your deposit back because by law all deposits are 100% refundable. Also if they say that they will give a lower screen price for finance over cash just remind them that it is illegal to discriminate on price between cash and finance.
The good thing about Dixons is that they always make you feel welcome and look after you when buying a car, the only really bad thing is the after sales service, once they sell you the car they seem to loose interest in making you happy if you need to go back with the car for any reason.