Price my car - Helping you save a few dollars
I started my life in automotive in 1999 when I co-founded Private Fleet which over 20 years has now grown to be Australia’s largest car broker.
In a nutshell, Private Fleet offers a concierge-style new car buying service where Australians can take advantage of a team of experts and considerable buying power to save time, money and hassle with the purchase of new cars. Since then, Private Fleet has assisted with over half a million new car enquiries helping deliver around 35,000 new cars across the country.
However it became apparent that many of the people enquiring with Private Fleet weren’t actually ready to jump right in boots and all and start a tender process to get formal quotes. They just wanted an idea of what someone would pay for a new car. And why not? No one pays full RRP, that’s a given. But try as you might, Australians were unable to find anything other than full retail pricing advertised online. You could ring around the dealers and you might start to get an idea but you’ll also start, whether you like it or not, engaging in cat-and-mouse games as salespeople try to lure you into the dealership with the promise of a better deal.
You see, car dealers are prohibited from advertising anything but RRPs and manufacturer specials online or they can risk losing their franchise. Some get around this by registering new cars as demos which gives them the flexibility to better meet the market in terms of a price-point. But for the vast majority of buyers it’s a murky world and, at the outset, impossible to know whether one should aim for a $1,000 discount or a $8,000 discount. Until now, the lack of transparency means you’ve got to play the game.
So PriceMyCar.com.au was born. Price My Car uses 350,000+ recent quotes prices and invoices from the last 6 months to provide potential buyers (or just curious browsers) and idea of what sort of deal they might be able to aim for. Choose a make, model and variant and anyone can instantly access the data and see what an average, a good and an excellent price actually looks like. And that’s before even picking up the phone to talk to a dealer.
As well as addressing the need for those who aren’t quite ready to go out and get formal quotes, it also means that those who are ready to take action are in a position of relative power… sure there’ll be some negotiation to be done but rather than starting from RRP and tortuously moving towards a reasonable market value over days and weeks, both parties are able to cut to the chase.
Almost any other product’s fair market value can be quickly ascertained online through a variety of avenues such as Google Shopping, Amazon, eBay etc. Automotive is probably the last bastion of such an opaque shopping model.
However it became apparent that many of the people enquiring with Private Fleet weren’t actually ready to jump right in boots and all and start a tender process to get formal quotes. They just wanted an idea of what someone would pay for a new car. And why not? No one pays full RRP, that’s a given. But try as you might, Australians were unable to find anything other than full retail pricing advertised online. You could ring around the dealers and you might start to get an idea but you’ll also start, whether you like it or not, engaging in cat-and-mouse games as salespeople try to lure you into the dealership with the promise of a better deal.
You see, car dealers are prohibited from advertising anything but RRPs and manufacturer specials online or they can risk losing their franchise. Some get around this by registering new cars as demos which gives them the flexibility to better meet the market in terms of a price-point. But for the vast majority of buyers it’s a murky world and, at the outset, impossible to know whether one should aim for a $1,000 discount or a $8,000 discount. Until now, the lack of transparency means you’ve got to play the game.
So PriceMyCar.com.au was born. Price My Car uses 350,000+ recent quotes prices and invoices from the last 6 months to provide potential buyers (or just curious browsers) and idea of what sort of deal they might be able to aim for. Choose a make, model and variant and anyone can instantly access the data and see what an average, a good and an excellent price actually looks like. And that’s before even picking up the phone to talk to a dealer.
As well as addressing the need for those who aren’t quite ready to go out and get formal quotes, it also means that those who are ready to take action are in a position of relative power… sure there’ll be some negotiation to be done but rather than starting from RRP and tortuously moving towards a reasonable market value over days and weeks, both parties are able to cut to the chase.
Almost any other product’s fair market value can be quickly ascertained online through a variety of avenues such as Google Shopping, Amazon, eBay etc. Automotive is probably the last bastion of such an opaque shopping model.
It's easy to make the right decision when you have the best information to hand
We all know you shouldn’t pay the ‘ticket price’ in the dealership for your new car, but do you know how much you could really be saving? If you don’t want to play games with the sales manager and be given the run around when it comes to pricing, then we have the answer.
Our state-of-the-art system automatically predicts the accuracy and variances of new car pricing – meaning you’ll know exactly what you should be paying for your car. It’ll help you recognise a good deal, and steer clear of inflated prices.
New car delivery dates for 2022
New car delivery dates are stretching out longer and longer in Australia due to a multitude of factors that have conspired to come together at the same time and create a huge supply/demand imbalance. The main factors at play:
Supply
The big issue is lack of microprocessor chips. This well documented and is affecting all sorts of industries but none more so than the car industry where each car will typically have between 2,000 and 3,000. Factory closures related to COVID. Are still going on even as we head into mid-2022, particularly in China where increasingly cars bound for Australia are made.
Logistics
Again, affecting all industries, delays on parts, logjams on shipping are all hurting production of new vehicles. Unrest in Europe. The conflict in Ukraine has created uncertainties affecting productions and investment in car manufacturing as OEMs wait it out before committing to full production.
Demand
COVID far from dampening local demand has actually increased it. Money saved from having a ‘quiet’ couple of years mean Aussies may well have saved a little more than usual and are splashing out on their second biggest investment. Some have had second thoughts about the safety of public transport so shifted to car ownership as an option. Others have realised with overseas travel off the cards, traveling within Australia is a great option and this may well require a new set of wheels or a truck to pull the caravan.
So long story short, demand is up, supply is down leading to unprecedented delays for new cars. At the time of writing (May 2022) this has blown out to a record 140 days.
Contact: David Lye, Manager/CEO for more information on 02 8330 6625 during business hours.
New car delivery date estimator: https://pricemycar.com.au/delivery-dates
Web: https://pricemycar.com.au
AFR: Digital disrupter injects transparency into new car pricing
AFR: www.afr.com/street-talk/carexpert-raising-10m-to-buy-price-my-car-ipo
Source: Photos and content provided by Price My Car in June 2019.
We all know you shouldn’t pay the ‘ticket price’ in the dealership for your new car, but do you know how much you could really be saving? If you don’t want to play games with the sales manager and be given the run around when it comes to pricing, then we have the answer.
Our state-of-the-art system automatically predicts the accuracy and variances of new car pricing – meaning you’ll know exactly what you should be paying for your car. It’ll help you recognise a good deal, and steer clear of inflated prices.
New car delivery dates for 2022
New car delivery dates are stretching out longer and longer in Australia due to a multitude of factors that have conspired to come together at the same time and create a huge supply/demand imbalance. The main factors at play:
Supply
The big issue is lack of microprocessor chips. This well documented and is affecting all sorts of industries but none more so than the car industry where each car will typically have between 2,000 and 3,000. Factory closures related to COVID. Are still going on even as we head into mid-2022, particularly in China where increasingly cars bound for Australia are made.
Logistics
Again, affecting all industries, delays on parts, logjams on shipping are all hurting production of new vehicles. Unrest in Europe. The conflict in Ukraine has created uncertainties affecting productions and investment in car manufacturing as OEMs wait it out before committing to full production.
Demand
COVID far from dampening local demand has actually increased it. Money saved from having a ‘quiet’ couple of years mean Aussies may well have saved a little more than usual and are splashing out on their second biggest investment. Some have had second thoughts about the safety of public transport so shifted to car ownership as an option. Others have realised with overseas travel off the cards, traveling within Australia is a great option and this may well require a new set of wheels or a truck to pull the caravan.
So long story short, demand is up, supply is down leading to unprecedented delays for new cars. At the time of writing (May 2022) this has blown out to a record 140 days.
Contact: David Lye, Manager/CEO for more information on 02 8330 6625 during business hours.
New car delivery date estimator: https://pricemycar.com.au/delivery-dates
Web: https://pricemycar.com.au
AFR: Digital disrupter injects transparency into new car pricing
AFR: www.afr.com/street-talk/carexpert-raising-10m-to-buy-price-my-car-ipo
Source: Photos and content provided by Price My Car in June 2019.
