Hello,

With all the chaos caused by VW SA with the withdrawal of SEAT, I did an exercise to prove that that a certain SEAT manager was feeding me bull dust regarding current trade values offered by VW.

Two weeks ago I was shopping around for a new vehicle and got a trade value from Audi and Honda of R120k on my Seat Ibiza which was matched later that day by SEAT. Today, I got a value of R78k from SEAT.

Now according to the little white books that give used car values which every used car dealer uses, my car is worth R103k as a book value. SEAT SA is supposed to give us a trade subsidy of +/-R23K on my specific model and a further dealer subsidy of around 4% from the dealer’s profit margin.

I had put down R100k cash as a deposit on purchase of my Ibiza in 2006, and from the trade-in value SEAT gave me, I got back R300-00 from my deposit after 2 years. VW gave me R100k as trade value. Now the dealers were quick to point out that my car has 87K on the clock. But 2 weeks ago it also had 87k on the clock when I got R120K.

1) The values currently being offered on trade-in to me is my opinion, the book value minus the SEAT SA subsidy which gives me the +/-R78k. This should be the opposite way around. The SEAT subsidy should not come from the book value of my car (my pocket). Where SEAT SA should be paying in, the current situation is that I am being forced to pocket the difference. The dealers are working backwards from the original book value minus the subsidy and arriving at a new trade value and then I am told that I am getting a subsidy and VW SA is “helping me”. The book plus the subsidy takes the trade value to what I got 2 weeks ago.
2) Anybody of the street can get a 5% discount from VW so why offer a 4% dealer subsidy? No Logic to that!
3) VW SA is forcing us to purchase a new VW product which 98% of the time will be a polo or golf 5. But the shapes of both these vehicles are changing next year. So what are we supposed to do, take a huge knock now and then again when the shape changes in a year?
4) Then I was repeatedly told that I have 48 months or in my case 2 years to decide on the deal. But every week, the trade value on my car decreases more than normal because of the SEAT withdrawal. So how long do I wait?

What am I missing here?

I would like someone to explain to me why I keep coming up short because I discussed this with roughly 2600 other Seat drivers and they cant prove VW SA’s logic either..