Business and private customers can make big savings by buying pre-registered cars and commercials, or vehicles that are a few months old and have only covered a few thousand miles. To start what exactly is a pre-registered vehicle? In simple terms one that has been sold before it’s registered. Why would anyone do that? Dealers all have monthly and quarterly targets set by the manufacturers and achieving or even better exceeding those means they earn big bonuses. So if they are not meeting targets it pays them to register unsold units which are then sold at a loss, that loss being less than the bonus earned.

Manufacturers will often encourage dealers to pre register by offering extra discounts so their own sales figures look better. This can also be a way of moving slow selling stock.

Near new cars and commercials come mainly from the rental industry and dealer demonstrator and loan car fleets. These cars can be from 3 to 12 months old with mileages typically from 1000 to 10000 miles. Although manufacturers hate the big discounts they have to give rental companies few can resist the volumes these buyers offer.

Almost all manufacturers participate in pre registration and rental. These “sales” used to be restricted to volume players but now BMW for example are very active in both areas of business, and with high end models as well as the less expensive ones.

How much can you save? With pre registration around 30% is normal, but this can increase to over 40% especially on vans. Near new cars and vans should be on average over 30% below new, again often much more.

Locating the best deal in this area of the market can be difficult, stock and offers change constantly and a lot are sold “quietly” rather than being well advertised. We’ve linked up with a local specialist who source cars and commercial vehicles for trade and broker customers all over the UK. Working with dealer groups, rental and leasing companies and other fleets our specialist will normally have between 10000 and 15000 cars and commercials under a year old available covering almost all manufacturers. Finance Connect can then arrange the necessary funding with the big saving on the purchase price resulting in much lower monthly payments.

Just to give two examples our specialist are currently supplying a BMW 750 with a retail price of £88000, just over a year old, 8500 miles for £43500 and a Transit 17 seat minibus similar age and miles (unobtainable new until March 2019) at 40% off new price.