Many of our customers this year have asked us our opinion on the state of the new and used market in the UK, so we knocked our heads togther to give some general advice.
New Cars - The Government can be congratulated on introducing the Scrappage Scheme, which has seen many people purchase new cars for the first time in their lives.Unfortunatley many of these cars will have no UK or European benefit to our employment,economy and manufacturing base as many of the vehicles suppliers are outside of Europe and will in effect damage our balance of payments.However, this succes has to be set against a majority of car manufacturers raising prices at rates unseen since the days of mass inflation in the seventies and eighties.This has mostly been due to the continiuing weekness of the Pound against other major currencies.This has allowed some UK manufacturers to benefit especially in their exports although most have been caught up in the spiral of increases.The only exception we are aware of is the Birmingham based sports car maker MG (we represent this compnay at our Rayne dealership) who have held prices all year, allowing them to offer fabulous value for money.
All this means that most people looking to purchase a New vehicle will have seen large price increases in the last 12 months ,with the finished transaction price considerably higher than it was even 6 months ago.With the VAT increase back to 17.5% in January 2010, costs have further risen and the lead times of the most popular models has increased from 12 to 20 weeks, customers have been unable to get dealers tied down to an accurate part exchange price.This in turn has created additional expenditure in maintaing their current vehicle while waiting for the new car to be delivered.The Scrappage scheme has complex rules and because of the 16 week window that the Govenment has laid down, some customers have had to pay for the price rises as their new cars are not being delivered within the time frame.
USED CARS- The used car market has a very intersting year with stable prices due to the ever increasing cost of the New product.The result of this has been a benefit to the retail customer with their own Part Exchanges often being worth more than expected when they come to sell.This has been the case with most cars but especially at the lower end of the market as one of the effects of the Scrappage Scheme is to remove 400 000 vehicles from the market and many of the vehicles sent for scrap (according to the numbers compiled) have still had 3 years of life on the roads left.
Even with the strength of the market the value for money proposition in 2009 of the Late Used Car has never been more acute.This allows you to purchase a higher specification model with potential saving running into many thousands of pounds over the new list price.You also get to see the cars you will own, you get to drive it and have the deal done and dusted within days NOT weeks or even months when the new car is involved.
Perkins aims to use our knowledge and experience to source over 120 late high specification vehicles ready to drive away today at any one time and we also have access to unlimited low rate finance packages tailored to suit you and your own needs.We can quote immediately and give instant finance decisions that even your Bank may well struggle to match.
We thank you for your time in this rather extended article but so many customers this year have been more confused than confident to buy this year and we hope these words have helped you to understand about how the car market has changed so much this year.If we don’t see you at either Dunmow or Rayne this year, thankyou for the business and have a brilliant Christmas and a Happy New year. - Piers Terry and Andrew Paine - Directors (article was prepared by Kevin Wiseman at our Rayne dealership)
