I bought my Jazz 6 months old, 300 miles (owner dying) for 25% off list.It included the balance of 5 years free servcing...

Mine was 3 months old with 25 (delivery miles) & 32% off ...

When the Vectra was running out I was offered a brand new1.9 CDTi Elite estate for 56% off (still didn't buy it)!

Edited by Heidfirst on 12/08/2019 at 16:10

Who would ever buy new, or even lease a new car unless you had to.

I find as time goes on I think more about family members who just saw a car for what it should be - a reliable method of getting you from A to B with whatever stuff you needed to bring with you, and bought cars on that basis i.e. 15 year old cars that had been looked after well for a pittance compared to a newer car.

Buying and leasing are two different animals altogether. With buying you can negotiate the best discount but depending on how long you keep the vehicle there will be considerable depreciation. If you keep it 10 years or so it owes you nothing. Buying second hand can help, especially with the dreaded VAT, but again depending on make, model and condition depreciation is the killer. You have to approach it with using your head not your heart. Bells and whistles etc etc cost a lot in depreciation terms. leasing does give you the opportunity to fix the figures before the contract starts, and you can lease second hand too. If you are VAT registered then VAT is reclaimed. I lease my present vehicle. I did this for several reasons. The full cost over three years is less than £11K on a vehicle listed at £34K new and little discount on a popular make. Had I bought it the depreciation would have exceeded that £11K, ergo I am better off. I also wanted the vehicle for only three years, not as a keeper. I am now considering the change and may well buy a vehicle, new or second hand. It will all depend on the deal I can secure that will suit me. Nothing ruled in or out. If you pick through the bones of it you can come up with a satisfactory plan.

Cheers Concrete

Out of interest, Craig, what sort of car is it?

I'm sure we'd never get that sort of saving on a nearly-new Audi, which is one reason why we bought ours new. But for models that depreciate fast, what your son has done makes perfect sense. On Fords and Vauxhalls, for example, although you can get big discounts on new ones, PCP and leasing contracts aren't usually a good bargain because of the cars' loss of value.

420i Gran Coupe. He's very proud of it (and I'm rather envious, it must be said).

In 2001 I bought a Honda Civic estate for £10,500 instead of £16,000 - zero miles, I was 1st owner

2007 I bought an Xtrail - £15.5K instead of £22K - mine was an outgoing model

2012 I bought CRV EX Auto £20,330 instead of £32K - last of the old model

Compare list price to brokers prices - that's evidence of depreciation before a car is even registered!

Indeed - when I bought my Mazda3 (only del miles on the clock) from Motorpoint back in early 2006, the price was so low that it was still below that of the price of some 1-2yo cars offered at the dealerships.

Even the brokers (at the time) couldn't match the price I paid (£10.3k) - they wanted £11.4k for the model below mine (well half below, as mine was a Euro-spec car in-between the two UK's mid-spec levels. My saving was between 25-30% on the list price (the variance in spec meant I couldn't be accurate on that number - a guestimate).

When I was looking for a replacement for that car a couple of years ago (I didn't change it in the end), they were also flogging new (RHD Euro imports with del miles and better spec than the UK versions) VW Golf GT 5dr 1.4TSi 150s for £17k against a list price around the £24.5 mark, a saving of around 30%, even more if you took into account they had full climate control instead of manual A/C (UK spec versions).

They almost matched the broker prices of the sister car - the Seat Leon FR 1.4TSI 150, which was around £16k - £16.5k at the time. Essentially the car same underneath - just shows where the profit comes from - badge snobbery and fancier interior trim.

Depreciation is a funny thing, isn't it:

Most of it can be described as Fashion, which amounts to the general publicly-perceived desirability of anything. When everyone who wants product A has one, it must either stop being produced, or the price must drop to make it more desirable.

The recent phenomenon which I have seen because I keep an eye, is the price of Peugeot 205 GTi's or CTi's. Three or more years ago they didn't fetch very much, but now the most desirable ones are asking £15K or more, and they must be trickling onto the market from those alleged 'barns' where they have been SORNed for years. Negative depreciation, if you are able or willing to wait for it.

Depreciation is a funny thing, isn't it: if one was buying a 3-y-o car, a Volvo or a Toyota would surely be a better bet than an Audi, but Audis hold their value better than either. I suppose that once again it's the First and Only Law of Economics applying - the right price is what some other poor sap is willing to pay. And Arthur Punter will pay more for what he thinks he wants rather than what would be sensible.

We all know brand perception is created by marketing, be that expensive adverts in magazines, or product placement in films and TV. And for reasons I do not understand, people believe adverts. Then again, big lies work, as Adolf Hitler said.

Pre reg - under 100 miles, Series 4 Gran Coupe for around £25k to £27K depending on whether it is RWD or 4WD

tinyurl.com/y62ffnp3

If I recall, someone on these pages mentioned that the 2 Series Active Tourer is absoluetly hated by main dealers, not because its unrelaible or drives really badly, but because its a front-wheel driven car that isn't a looker that doesn't represent the 'ethos' of the BMW brand, so they try and offload them. Maybe come the end of the month/year or around reg change time and, for once, real bargains can be had for one, if you like that sort of thing...

I'm personally not a fan of the styling of BMWs of the last 10 years or so, other than the current 4-Series coupe (not the Grand Coupes).

It’s also cramped inside which makes it useless as a family car

I can assure you it isn't. I'm 6 foot tall with a 33" inside leg, and with the driver's seat set for me, I can sit behind myself in the rear with plenty of leg and knee room. Yes, you sit lower in the car than in a 3-series, but cramped it ain't.

... In less than a year, the car had depreciated by 41%. I found that quite staggering.

Choose new or nearly new cars carefully if you want to avoid depreciation. In 1981 I bought a nine month old Ziebarted Triumph TR7 DHC to go about my business. It cost £4250 - the £250 was for the state of the art radio cassette player. Both car and player still work fine, but sadly the player has depreciated somewhat.

... In less than a year, the car had depreciated by 41%. I found that quite staggering.

A 420i can be had new from a broker at about 17% off. Its a bit of a niche car, so I can imagine them sitting around the showroom unless priced to sell.

Just saw a couple of 1yo 4-series coupes (420i Sport petrols, one manual 3k miles, one auto 12k miles) on Motorpoint for £20k and £19k respectively - that's a whopping 40% and 50% off their list prices if the blurb is correct. For 1yo cars. Wow. Now that's depreciation, and for Beemers!

There are a number of reasons why cars can be very heavily discounted:

• run out models where a new or upgraded version is coming
• registration changes where old and pre-reg stock needs to be moved on
• ex-rental fleets where cars are replaced often at a low mileage. They routinely negotiate very low prices to buy several hundred vehicles at a time.
• over stocked models - either through poor forecasting or producing to keep factory running

Looking at the weeks best deals often shows discounts of 25-30% for some models. These deals do not last for ever - in a months time there will be a new range of high discounts.

The hire fleets will have taken a 20-40% discount from list when first purchased. Bear in mind for a car manufacturer the variable cost of manufacture may be 50% of the list price, the balance being largely fixed costs of R&D, dealer network, admin, infrastructure and profit.

Personally I'm really shocked that cars are a waste of money, who knew?

Post of the week.. (so far)

We run cars for 10-15 + years so I know how valueless they can become..

,,

Personally I'm really shocked that cars are a waste of money, who knew?

I suspect the HJ motoring forum isn't the place for, kind sir.

I hate buying cars from dealers, having been one I know the trucks ...

I don't think this is what you meant, SLO, but I suppose it just might be ... :-)

List prices today are utter nonsense, a pie in the sky figure plucked from nowhere to make you believe you’re getting a good deal on the expensive PCP or contract lease they’re trying to get you to sign up to. Anyone that pays close to list will suffer catastrophic depreciation. Examples I’ve seen recently while shopping to replace ageing Polo include a fairly basic 1.4 Vauxhall Corsa 1.4 5dr at just over £15,500, a Honda Jazz auto at £19,700, a posh Fiesta 5dr at over £20k and a Pug 508 at an insane £29,995!!! These figures mean nothing. The Corsa was immediately offered to me at £10,500 with suggestions that more could be had off which is in reality it’s true retail value and not the original daft list price. I hate buying cars from dealers, having been one I know the trucks and it kills me to have to listen to all the nonsense. Usually I’ll tell them I was a salesman upfront which stops the hard sell and bull in it’s tracks in most cases but I’d still rather buy used and privately.

Just been going through some old financial detritus as we have recently moved home.

Found a bill for a brand new, unregistered Vauxhall Corsa 1.2 SRI from May 2003 for £5,731. Delivered all the way from Yorkshire on a trailer to the South Coast.

The price in the dealer was £12,000 ish. (Got it from a lease company owned by my employer at the time. The best the local dealer could do was about £9,000 I recall.)