8:55 am, December 24, 2022
The car dealer Christmas break is often a short one – with many showrooms reopening for business on Boxing Day.
But not all of them do, so it’s best to check carefully before heading out for a Boxing Day sale shopping trip.
Some car dealers have extended their Christmas breaks for staff this year with a large number of the big car dealer groups closed until at least December 27.
Are car dealerships open on Boxing Day?
Car Dealer took a sample of five large franchised dealer groups – Vertu, Hendy, Snows, Marshall Motor Group and Arnold Clark – and none of their car dealerships were open for business on Boxing Day.
These large franchised dealer groups operate more than 600 car dealerships between them across the UK and give a good cross section of brands.
All of them were remaining closed on Tuesday, December 27, too – an extra bank holiday is 2022 as Christmas falls at the weekend.
Most franchised car dealerships are reopening for business on Wednesday, December 28 with normal opening hours in the majority of cases.
Most car dealerships we checked have their Christmas opening times published on their websites, so check before visiting.
Are used car dealers open between Christmas and New Year?
Some of the large car supermarkets – like Big Motoring World – are open on Boxing Day with festive car sales.
The car supermarket group is open from 10am-6pm on Boxing Day.
Cargiant is also open on Boxing Day, giving its staff just Christmas Day off before coming back to work.
Other used car showrooms Car Dealer checked, including Carbase, are closed on Boxing Day. So more so than the franchised dealers, check before visiting.
Do car dealers have Boxing Day sales?
There are a lot of promotions at this time of year as car dealers look to capitalise on people having time to kill between Christmas and New Year.
On the majority of car dealer sites we visited, some form of Boxing Day style promotion were found even though many were not opening until Wednesday, December 28.
Snows Group, for example, has a dedicated section of discounted cars on its website.
Is Christmas and New Year a good time to buy a new car?
Search volumes for cars often rocket on Boxing Day as customers look for car replacements while watching terrible repeats on the television.
Auto Trader has previously reported huge traffic volumes on Boxing Day and this year will be launching a big marketing campaign to coincide with that.
Car dealers are often pushing towards their end of year targets with most of their financial years ending on December 31.
This can mean you can often find a bargain as they look to reach targets. As such, the period between Boxing Day and New Year is often a good time to buy a new or used car.
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