I apologise if this is in the wrong forum  .. anyway, here goes. I have always purchased second hand Fords from the main dealers i recently retired and decided I would go for a new Ford so I'm visited my local dealership where I purchased my last 5 Fords from .. so to cut a long story short, I decided on a model that I wanted and picked a few extras the dealer managed to find me one but I did not like the colour so to my point, he told me for the model I want with the extras and the colour of my choice would take 4 to 5 months so I said no problem and was just about to Sign up for what we agreed and then he said, bear in mind you will be losing £500 a month off the value of your exchange i told him forget it and left yes, I know they are in a business to make money but why should I have to lose money through basically no fault of my own .. am I right or wrong thank you

The value of your used car is dropping every month you own it.  The dealership need to at least break even on the PX so I don't see anything wrong here.  (Although how they can predict £500 a month I don't know, probably worst case scenario).

Unfortunately brand new cars do take ages to arrive.  I was also surprised about the wait.  I've bought and sold multiple cars in the time it takes one brand new one to arrive!

Ultimately it's not wrong for you to decide this isn't the best option for your circumstances.  But I also don't think it's wrong for a PX price to decline on a depreciating asset.  Perhaps buying used is the way to go if you want to lock in the PX price today.

I've generally found dealers make an estimate and give a trade in offer based on where they see the value at the expected time of delivery. This is normally pretty conservative, of course, but as Tom suggests they're not in business to lose money.

Otherwise you could:

- Do a deal on a car that's already in stock/in the pipeline for imminent delivery if you're willing to compromise on spec

- If you can cope without your existing car for a few weeks, sell it - to WBAC, Motorway, trawl local used car dealers, etc or privately. On a couple of occasions I've actually had very good "buy it now" offers from the dealer I'm proposing to buy the new one from.

Guys, thank you very much for your replies I really appreciate it .. yes they are in business not to lose money I totally agree. but so am I  .. I'm not prepared to lose over a £1500 because they can't get the car i want for 4 months I'm 70 and retired and this will be my first brand new car and my last that's why I wanted the extras

To be honest 4 to 5 Months delivery time for a brand new car is not that bad. I know people who in the past waited over 12 Months for a new Ford Focus. The most popular cars do usually have the longest delivery times.

The delivery time depends on a number of factors like:

- Production capacity.
- Actual orderbook.
- Availability of parts.
- Transport capacity.

Especially the transport can take a considerate part of the delivery time. After production the vehicle is stored at the factory parking lot before it is shipped. From European production facilities the car is usually transported by train to the port of Antwerp (Belgium) or Flushing (Netherlands). These ports have special vehicle handling terminals with large parking lots for new vehicles. From there the vehicle is loaded onto a vessel and transported to a port in the UK. Once unloaded in the UK the vehicle is again stored on a parking lot and eventuelly further transported by train or truck (depending on the final destination).

The different types of transport (and storage in between) can hugely affect delivery time. The time between ordering and delivery can easily be 2 Months longer in the UK than for example Germany due to the different transport methods.


In my opinion loosing £500 a month off the value of the exchange car sounds really strange. I always received a binding offer for the exchange car regardless of the delivery time of the new car.

Yes, like Wilco trade in offers I've had - good or bad - have normally been fixed based on the lead time. But it's only one factor in the deal, of course.

I've joked with dealers they can have my old car for £5 if they offer £20k off the new one. Some dealers may even overvalue trade-ins (and compensate elsewhere) if they sense the customer doesn't want to hear how much money they've lost on it. Concentrate on the "cost to change", including interest rates if buying on finance..

And of course, shop around as much as possible to find the best deal for you.

(Incidentally, it'd be interesting to know what car you're buying seeing that Ford hardly make any (other than EVs) these days.😀

35 minutes ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

Concentrate on the "cost to change", including interest rates if buying on finance.

That is a very good point.  The cost of new cars seems to increase on January 1st each year so if the OP does want to order new, it might be best to do that before the end of Dec, and use another avenue for disposing of the old one.

2 hours ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

Concentrate on the "cost to change", including interest rates if buying on finance..

Yes indeed, that is what is important. 👍