For as long as I can remember (40 years behind the wheel) new cars have always depreciated a significant amount the moment you drive 'em off the dealer’s forecourt.
In fact the appearance of the car 'supermarket' 20 years ago was born on the back of greatly reduced prices for nearly new vehicles.
Something seems to have changed in recent years, the bargain 'nearly new' vehicle does not seem to be as common as you might think. Yes there are headline grabbing deals and many deals appear to be good but they use some dubious sales tactics. Could I get away with advertising my own 6 year old Jazz as "ONLY £3500 SAVE £9000"?
I'm currently looking to change and looking around there are some very poor deals. The wife was attracted to a 6000mile 9 month old GolfSE this last weekend, on sale at our local VW dealer. We had a test drive and I must say it was quite nice. However at £19000 and just £3600 for our Jazz I wasn't getting the cheque book out.
Sunday evening I had a look around on the VW website, £19000 seems to be the going rate for such a vehicle, even the 'supermarkets' want the same. The new list price last month was about £21000, so 9 months old and only £2000 lower, no thanks.
In my web search I found that the GolfSE has been dropped by VW and in comes a Match at the same price with loads more spec, the brokers are giving around 10%, so for just a few hundred more she can have a new vehicle.
Dealer rang me with an 'improved' deal, £4200 for my Jazz, I put my findings to him and he agreed, I'd be better with a new one. He's going to look at matching the broker’s price. We'll see.
It's not just used VW's that are fetching nearly new money, it seems to be all dealers, even my Kia agent wants new money for a used Ceed!
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