New Cars

Honest John Back Room » Motoring discussion
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Tue 24 May 2011 10:56
New Cars - veryoldbear

Now here's an interesting question. Somebody must buy new cars. It certainly ain't me. I assume that a lot of new cars of the cooking variety go to fleets. There are a lot of company cars both obvious (fleet) and non-obvious (purchased by self-employed etc). What percentage of new cars actually get purchased by the man or the woman in the street ? Discuss ....

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Tue 24 May 2011 11:18
New Cars - ForumNeedsModerating

About 50% private, 50% fleet/business from latest figures. Not much to discuss & not very interesting!

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Tue 24 May 2011 11:35
New Cars - veryoldbear

I have a suspicion that many of the 50% private figures are actually disguised business purchases, doctors, solictors, accountants, "company directors" etc. Who are the people that really spend £20K, £30K, £40K, £50K on brand-new cars? Considering the levels of depreciation on spangly new cars, I am still amazed.

Edited by veryoldbear on 24/05/2011 at 11:36

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Tue 24 May 2011 11:49
New Cars - ForumNeedsModerating

Not sure what you mean by 'disguided business purchases' - there's no sly advantage there. You either buy from gross income via the business (and pay BIK etc) or you don't & don't pay BIK, i.e. you're a private buyer purchasing form taxed personal income.

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Tue 24 May 2011 12:40
New Cars - Craigdm

I've always been of the mind never to buy new cars. And my history streatched back to over 40 vehicles.

However, once I reached the dizzy age of 42, other priorities took over my life. If you choose correctly, pay the right price and get the right deal (3 years free servicing ?), then I believe a new car can be the right decision.

I think peace of mind given by the manufacturers warantee is invaluable, especially with the complexity of new cars. My last used car was a 2.2 Mondeo, but you only have to read the owners forums to realise that just one injector failure could cost you £1000's. Ford are not the only manufacture with problems in this respect.

If fact I've now gone new car mad and just ordered my 4th in 13 months...

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Tue 24 May 2011 13:02
New Cars - unthrottled

I understood your point about the financial uncertainty of expensive component failure-until you mentioned that you'd bought 4 new cars in little over a year!

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Tue 24 May 2011 13:05
New Cars - veryoldbear

He's only doing it to keep the statistics up ...

What about sole traders that buy from income and then charge themselves mileage? They wouldn't show as company purchases ... it's competitive with going BIK route.

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Tue 24 May 2011 13:57
New Cars - ForumNeedsModerating

If the car is bought from 'income' then the income is taxed via normal personal income tax. Charging mileage is standard for all cars used for company/business mileage.

if the 'income' used to buy the vehicle is gross business income, the vehicle belongs to the business entity (even though the registerered keeper may be the trader). If the vehicle is then used for personal mileage as well , BIK is charged for that.

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Tue 24 May 2011 13:39
New Cars - Craigdm

In my defense, one of those was a Renault Twingo for my daughter's 18th...

They were on special offer, only £5999 on the road.

P/X'ed her old Punto, then £75/month for 3 years with a £3000 Balloon. Cheap motoring which ever way you see it.

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Tue 24 May 2011 14:08
New Cars - veryoldbear

In my defense, one of those was a Renault Twingo for my daughter's 18th...

They were on special offer, only £5999 on the road.

P/X'ed her old Punto, then £75/month for 3 years with a £3000 Balloon. Cheap motoring which ever way you see it.

Yep, that was darned good buy. I've always liked the Twingo, even from it's first incarnation when you couldn't get a RHD one ....

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Thu 26 May 2011 11:01
New Cars - veryoldbear

Aha ... some figures:

http://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/2011/5/6/fleet-sales-dominate-april-new-car-registrations/39511/

This suggests the latest figures are 56% fleet sales (25 or more cars), 4.9% business sales (10 to 25 cars per order). This presumably doesn't include business sales under 10 at a time. As I suspected, fleet and business sales are the majority of nerw car sales in the UK ...

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Thu 26 May 2011 11:15
New Cars - dieseldogg

After 4 second hand cars , A Renault 5, a Polo, a Citrion BX and finally a short lived VW Vento, all self maintained, we purchased a new Ford Galaxy in 1998.

Reason it was virtually the exact same price as a fresh second hand one outta England, being an import.

we then more recently purchased an Octavia 1.6 Cr diesel / DSG, again new.

again the saving against a fresh one was absolutly minimal.

we had specific reasons for picking these two particular cars types.

Horses for courses.

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