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Luxury brands open to new car deals as much as mainstream | comment

Audi, BMW and Mercedes get closer to the Top 10, they are starting to behave more like mainstream players in the showroom.

Luxury car brands are loath to publish discounted prices — it hurts their image to be seen hawking their wares.

But as Audi, BMW and Mercedes get closer to the Top 10, they are starting to behave more like mainstream players.

They tend not to have hessian wraps, inflatable signs and balloons outside their showrooms but they know how to rip up money when they want to move metal. As the prices — and the stakes — are higher, the discounts are greater.

If you're in the market for a luxury sedan, be sure to haggle hard because you just never know what deals can be had.

An example: a dealer for a well known German brand recently had three identical mid-size sedan versions to shift.

Equipped with an extras pack that gives the car a sporty appearance, its brand-new price was $88,000 drive-away.

The cars were declared as sold in March, when there was a big factory bonus on them.

But the cars didn't sell and they ended up on the dealership's used-car lot — each with fewer than 12km on them. Not 12,000km. Just 000012km on the odometer. However, the cars were still costing the dealer money even though they were just sitting there.

To clear them, the price was butchered to $68,000 drive-away, a mighty $20,000 off. All were snapped up before lunch.

The moral to the story is simple: if you're in the market for a luxury sedan, be sure to haggle hard because you just never know what deals can be had, especially in June when every brand is chasing a big sales target.

Because of the swing to SUVs, sedans are harder to sell. This hard market reality puts luxury badges within reach of more buyers than ever before.

Will you be taking advantage of potential deals in the luxury segment? Let us know in the comments below.