New car S5/A5 best purchase options & websites

Vegeta · 16 May 2018 at 01:00

Hi guys.

I bought an lci BMW 118i back in 2015 and have just come to sell it. When making the purchase I didn’t really shop around and went with my local dealer.

Three years on i’m looking to get an S5 depending on price or a highly specced A5. I’ll be wanting to pay monthly payments therefore pcp or lease.

I was wondering if I could get some recommendations for websites or any good deals knocking about? Want to try and shop around get the best possible deal. Not bothered it used approved considering how new the car is and if it can shave a few quid off the monthly payments.

Thanks

xs2man · 16 May 2018 at 02:42

There is unlikely to be much savings if you decide to go second hand. For a start, second hand cars, on dealership PCP deals, will most likely have a much higher APR than a new car. Moreover, according to Broadspeed, there is a £8500 saving to be had on a new car. A figure unlikely to be beaten by much on a 4-6 month old dealership car. Certainly not by enough to offset the used car APR rate, never mind beat it.

If you can find a good lease, it might be an option, but you won't get a high specced anything with a "good" lease. A "good" lease, if it even exists on the car you want, can only be found on a poverty spec example. Any extra added to a lease car is paid off, in full, within the term of the lease. At least on a PCP, some of the options may give you an added residual value, meaning it's full cost isn't repaid over the term. Thus meaning a PCP is usually the better option if you are adding ANY spec to the car at all. It is usually the better option anyway, except in some isolated cases. Or if you are going to properly buy the whole car with a loan / cash, which is almost always the cheapest way to buy a car.

There are a few different places to try for PCP cars. Broadspeed, carwow, drivethedeal, orange wheels, and more. I'm not so sure about the leasing option. There is a thread on here for good lease deals, that will no doubt have links, or mentions at least, of the regular lease companies who do good lease deals. There is also a massive thread on pistonheads about it. But they might not have good deals on an A5 or S5 at the moment, so that may not be an option. Leases generally only work for a particular car / model, and the best deals will sell out very quickly, so there would be zero time for thinking about it. You have to be ready to jump. And not terribly fussy about what car it is, in order to get the best deal.

glenimp617 · 16 May 2018 at 19:34

There's a few folks on the audi owners forums who post their PCP deals. I know a few S4s are around £500 a month on PCP

kidloco · 16 May 2018 at 19:50

Got my S5 through CarWow. Was initially looking at Quattro A5 but the better deals were all against the S5 due to the higher residuals.

As said above, I don’t think you will find any highly specced lease deals. There mainly quite low spec or maybe a tech pack or so if your lucky.

Vegeta · 16 May 2018 at 23:24

Am I being optimistic thinking I can nab one for £450 a month? Currently talking to a few dealers and my friend conveniently is a salesman for Audi so will go see him tomorrow. I’m thinking a £4-5k deposit is possibly needed to get to that figure of £450 a month. Nice upgrade from previous car.

xs2man · 17 May 2018 at 02:39

Vegeta said:
Am I being optimistic thinking I can nab one for £450 a month? Currently talking to a few dealers and my friend conveniently is a salesman for Audi so will go see him tomorrow. I’m thinking a £4-5k deposit is possibly needed to get to that figure of £450 a month. Nice upgrade from previous car.

I think you will be close at £450 a month with that deposit, over 48 months at 10k per year.

Looking at the Audi website, it does give a PCP example for a poverty spec S5. They are showing an Audi deposit contribution of £4500. Broadspeed say ~£8.5k off it. So if you take your £5k deposit, and add the £4k difference between Audi contribution and total broadspeed discount, that gives a total deposit of £13500. Which makes it £464 per month, according to Audi website. An extra £500 deposit will have it sitting pretty much bang on £450, give or take a couple quid.

Bearing in mind this is for a poverty spec machine. Any options added will increase the monthly cost. Roughly speaking, for every £1k on options, you are looking at £35 per month. I would personally want the comfort and sound pack, virtual cockpit and the LED matrix headlights at a minimum, but that will add roughly £70-80 per month. Which is not insignificant. I'd probably pay the extra £100 for the flat bottom steering wheel too, but thats probably just me. Although these options may well increase residual value, so might not be quite as bad as that (maybe looking at ~£500 a month, give or take). Oh yeah, and add near £700 for paint too.

House · 17 May 2018 at 12:30

Firstly I'd say that "poverty spec" on an S5 isnt really a thing, even without any options it comes with a hell of a lot of kit, but it is Audi so you can always add more.

Secondly use Carwow or another place AS A STARTING POINT, don't think that is your deal use it as a place to start the negotiations, the numbers through those places include some of the dealer contributions so they aren't going to give you both without a fight and they will try to run you in knots with adders and extras and then insurances and everything else.

Find two dealers and play them off each other, I was lucky that the local dealer is one chain and the next nearest place is another so as the say "let them fight!"

They are often very keen to shift cars in stock i knabed over 3k off them by taking a car the spec i wanted but Black instead of Nisso Red, when im washing it every 5 mins i sometimes wish id got the red but its not like its ugly 3k is a lot of money. Remember to be flexible if you are buying a stock car and the discount is worth it. Also build times are pretty long right now on new cars from what i've read.

Kidloco is right high spec A5s vs the S5 you get better deals on the S5, i wasn't going S5 to start with but it just made more sense once i had the figures.

Virtual Cockpit is ace, ive got the B&O stereo which is also good, i got some other stuff with it being a stock car, but got the price for them discounted cause i didn't want them (£300 for red painted brake calipers! nope i'll take em but im not paying for them) and some other bits, the one thing i wish i had but don't is the parking camera, with the roof up the visibility parking isn't great (much worse than the coupe) so i would have liked that, its a £300 option but a £800 retrofit so its going to have to wait.

xs2man · 17 May 2018 at 12:50

House said:
Firstly I'd say that "poverty spec" on an S5 isnt really a thing, even without any options it comes with a hell of a lot of kit, but it is Audi so you can always add more.

Ha ha. I know it will be generously equipped as standard, but there are things you would want to add. Like you say, the B&O, which is a £750 option or £1295 for the comfort and sound pack, which adds the rear camera, hill hold, and advanced key and handsfree boot. The virtual cockpit is a no brainer at £300 too. The LED Matrix lights aren't a fortune either, and are no doubt excellent, so I wouldn't NOT spec that personally. But obviously all these add up.

Yeah, maybe better deals to be had on a stock car though, so you have to not be too fussy. But if I was paying that much for an S5, above is the spec I'd really want to have. Anything beyond that would be a nice to have extra, but wouldn't necessarily want to pay for it (HUD for example).

2 dealers fighting for your money is nice. But you can spec a car with carwow or broadspeed or similar, and get your local dealer to fight that. I did that when speccing up an A6 before getting my 5 series. And had BMW fight with Audi to get the 5 series down.

House · 17 May 2018 at 16:30

xs2man said:
Ha ha. I know it will be generously equipped as standard, but there are things you would want to add. Like you say, the B&O, which is a £750 option or £1295 for the comfort and sound pack, which adds the rear camera, hill hold, and advanced key and handsfree boot. The virtual cockpit is a no brainer at £300 too. The LED Matrix lights aren't a fortune either, and are no doubt excellent, so I wouldn't NOT spec that personally. But obviously all these add up.

I would have gone with what you listed but as it was a stock car my choices were limited,
the things I got that i didn't want (ie wouldnt have paid for) were:
Red Brake calipers (look nice really but £300 no chance ill get the hamerite out if i cared that much)
Carbon Inlays (again look nice but i wouldnt have picked them and £450!)
Folding door mirrors (again nice but wouldnt have paid, save the silver mirror caps getting scuffed by some scrote)
Speed sign recognition (cant even see that as an option its part of one of the safety packs it works but is abit of a meh)
Rings puddle lights (they fitted them to the wrong car and left them with me and the normal ones in case i wanted to swap them back i like them better)

Things i did want i got:
Red leather seats (this was the wifes show stopper she really wanted them, they are better than i originally thought)
Flat bottomed wheel (stupid you have to pay £100 for that)
Virtual Cockpit (amazed thats not standard and dont know why anyone would buy one without it)
B&O sound system.

I wanted but didnt get:
Misano Red (old A4 was this colour and i loved it, i ended up with Mytho Black this time not bad but always looks dirty)
Parking Camera (like i said with the roof up its hard to see)
Matrix LED, nice to have but the normal ones are auto dipping and are fine.
Adjustable dampeners, this is a weird one i wanted these after coming from a S-line A4 and knowing how hard it could feel on long runs but after a couple of months i now, i know it would have been a waste as the shocks are fine as std. stiff but not too stiff.

Biggest thing was I wanted a Coupe and the wife pushed me into a cabriolet, I have to admit I'm loving the soft top and everyone should own one at some point in there life if they can. Sunny days with the roof down are great. Hairdresser comments be dammed I like it.

Vegeta · 19 May 2018 at 00:53

I’ve been quoted some stupid figures and when speccing it new it’s hard not to go mad with the options. My brother owns a second hand car dealership so can do the finance at a much lower rate than Audi on a used approved and on a model that just got sold I was quoted £495 with zero deposit. If I could keep the payments under £500 and not put down a deposit i’d be happy (rather have the money in the bank). I’ll post on this thread if the right car comes along and i’m able to get there first.