I think some dealers are becoming too greedy. We were looking at trading in my wifes Suzuki. Forecourt prices for her car at main dealers were £4000/£4500 and we were offered £2000 in part ex for it. When i asked about the big mark up i was told the car would go to auction. Why when you've got the same vehicles on your forecourt ? The salesman said people can't be bothered selling privately and making an extra grand or so.
I regularly cycle near to Bruntingthorpe and you see truck load after truck load of 1-3 year old white SUV clones arriving for auction.
This was also reflected when car hunting for both myself and the outlaws, with the current sweet point seeming to be 1-3 year old SUVs, all from the multitude of car supermarkets. In fact the outlaws saved over 10k on list, for a fully loaded Korean SUV at 9 months old.
Great for the outlaws, but needing a small - medium sized petrol second car and a seven seater, again in petrol both used was near impossible to find.
Do wonder what will happen as these SUVs filter down the chain.
Do wonder what will happen as these SUVs filter down the chain.
given they're generally considered more desirable than traditional cars, they will retain a price premium and people who like them will be happy. This will continue until bangers are SUVs, at which point the 'premium' nature of them will drop, and premium new cars will be some other style (if ownership is still a prospect by then). This happened with MPVs, which were a bit of a status symbol in the 90s..
I think some dealers are becoming too greedy. We were looking at trading in my wifes Suzuki. Forecourt prices for her car at main dealers were £4000/£4500 and we were offered £2000 in part ex for it. When i asked about the big mark up i was told the car would go to auction. Why when you’ve got the same vehicles on your forecourt ? The salesman said people can’t be bothered selling privately and making an extra grand or so.
Very much this. The PX prices offered these days take the pee. I remember (2012?) being offered between £8.5 to £9k PX for a car I could sell privately for 10k which they would then put on the forecourt for £11.5k.
These days the PX would be around £6/7k from experience. I had a main dealer quote WBAC as a marker FFS. They are relying on people being lazy.
I think you now need to spend 8-12K on a newer low mileage car. I handed back my emissions screwed 64 plate Yeti that had 42k on it after 3.5 years and bought a 2.5 year old 2015 Seat Leon ST FR 184 with 17K on the clock still in warranty for £11k. The balloon payment to buy the Yeti was 11k. A newer non affected diesel with 25k less mileage and warranty. It was a no brainer.
My theory is that there are way fewer private sellers and the traders and dealers mark vehicles up in anticipation of people buying on finance and only caring about the size of monthly payments.
Even worse for vans.
Try an older Mercedes!
They go on for ever and if you get the right one it will go up in value not down...
Mine has cost me 10k over the last 28 months - purchase, repair and running costs (excluding fuel) and she's still fabulous at just over thirty years old...
I spent £900 on a SAAB estate a couple of months back. It's comfortable, gets me from A to B when I need it to, quickly too (250hp) and I can put all the things or people I want in it.
Not really sure what spending £5000 more would have got me?
Not really sure what spending £5000 more would have got me?
A considerably less horrid interior and some good handling I'd expect.
Not a lot!
My theory is that there are way fewer private sellers and the traders and dealers mark vehicles up in anticipation of people buying on finance and only caring about the size of monthly payments.
I think this is mostly it. You go to a car dealer now and the actual price on the windscreen is second to the monthly cost on a 24-36 month deal. People don't care what the car costs overall, just what the monthly payments are.
