Re: Used Car Prices.

It's a top spec Kuga, double panoramic roof, self park etc etc, I am aware of the initial depreciation, but have been in and watched the market for years and something different is going on. There used to be a graph where monthly payments against residual value was plotted and where the figure became balanced used to be at around 14 months into the finance agreement, I.E the amount made in payments eventually is greater than the monthly depreciation, it looks to me like the payments (all be it interest free) will never match the residual value during the finance term, this has never happened before, and is the reason, this is the last new one we will own.

Re: Used Car Prices.

I bought a new VW Golf and had similar results when getting a valuation when it was about three years' old. The trade-in price against another new VW Golf equated to losing £50+ a week. The existing car had only covered 7,000 miles and was completely unmarked, like a new car in fact. I queried that trade-in price and the comment was "well, you cannot expect to make a profit on a car!" My comment was "no, but I don't expect to lose a small fortune either!"

Needless to say four years' on and I still have the car which has now covered about 27,000 miles. All I have replaced are two front tyres so no point in trading it in now, I will run it into the ground.

On car prices today I saw an advertisement on the TV for the new Audi e-tron GT, being an electric car I just wondered what the cost was. On checking I couldn't believe the price, it starts at a mind-boggling £80,850! The top-spec Vorsprung models from £106,950 and the really top models will set you back from £134,290!

Imagine the depreciation on those cars and we should all be pleased we only own mostly 'run-of-the-mill' cars!

https://www.carwow.co.uk/audi/news/3...s-release-date

Re: Used Car Prices.

Hi

My plans have changed, unless and until I get my driving licence renewed at the end of the year unconditionally, I will keep my existing car.

It is boring but practical, I was intending to get a newer self parking estate.

Re: Used Car Prices.

There are many different reasons for it but, besides mileage and year of manufacture, the main reasons for depreciation are the constant manufacturing of new cars (technical innovation), OTOH, and the fact that a technical product does lose in value when it is used, OTOH. Only the buyer of a new car can configure a car according to their own needs, a kind of fingerprint, if you like. The buyer of a second-hand car has to compromise way more than the first buyer and gets a compensation for that in the form of a reduced price. The loss in value can be restrained to some extent if the car is well-equipped and comes with a widely acceptable colour.
Over here, there's no guarantee either that road tax is not occasionally and temporarily used to fix some fiscal holes but eventually it is used to fix roads.

Re: Used Car Prices.

Thank you so much, Dachs, I really appreciate that

Re: Used Car Prices.

My pleasure.

Re: Used Car Prices.

When the ved changes happened in 2017 we were promised that it would be spent on the road network from 2020, I doubt very much this has happened, I can’t find any mention of it, we had the situation where, if you bought a car on the 31st of March ( 2017) the ved was , depending on car, 0, to 30 pounds
If you bought the exact same car, on the 1st of April the same year, then it went up to £140, , ridiculous...

Re: Used Car Prices.

We are in a "New Normal" for car residual values, a process that started 20 years ago when the prestige of New Car ownership was removed in an attempt to spread new car registration across the whole year (not just in August), the addition of so called "Technology" to the dashboard has had the desired effect in that, Folks are Prepared to pay say £30,000.00 for a new model (against the backdrop of catastrophic depreciation) instead of paying half that for a two year old model with nominal mileage, but older technology in the info centre.

Re: Used Car Prices.

Our new car was, give or take a day or two, one year old when we bought it in January. It cost us £16k and had 8k miles on the clock. The same model, same spec, brand new would have cost £27k.

Re: Used Car Prices.

I read somewhere that used car prices were up 25% late last year because people were avoiding public transport. Whether that is still the case I don't know.