I have been looking at buying Renault Clio 1.6 hybrid Techno , My Budget was £10,000 plus my own car which i bought in March 2017 as a Pre Reg 1.5 Diesel Clio for £11,000 and i have recently been offered £5000 by a company in Gates head call rubber duck car sales, So over the last 8.5 years, I have lost £6000 and this gave me £15,000 to spend on another Clio

I soon found out that i had to increase my budget to buy a decent car and i found a Renault Clio 1.6 hybrid Techno at £17.500 which was around a year old with 6000 on the clock. I decided to do a check on We buy any car would offer me if i had to sell the car and there offer was £14800 , So that's a drop of £2700 just leaving the forecourt and then over the next 12 months, The car would drop a further 10% at least , So the car will be worth £13300 with a total loss of over £4000 at least in a 12 month period.

I understand that with inflation the cost of buying cars have gone up, plus of course the price of older second hand cars are now worth more since covid but for me it doesn't make sense in changing cars since the amount of money you loose in such a short time doesn't make financial sense.

Its been a interesting journey looking into the second hand car market over the last few weeks, I have to say, i was very close to buying a fresh car until i looked at the depreciation

Edited by malct on 29/09/2025 at 16:05