prices rising

[gordonbennet]

Prices of well cared for shite seem to be rising sharply, as are prices for good middle aged semi modern shit especially if its Diesel pre DPF/electric parking brake etc bollocks.

 

Is this in any way linked to the growing acceptance by normal people (nobody here then)  that all news cars are shit or is it because of the shortage of newer used cars to bu y following most makers production cuts after the 2009ish financial crash.

 

Or are more and more people realising that some of these older cars if cared for can give them years of pleasure as well as reliable transport, without having their knickers pulled down every time a fuckin light pops up on the dash by shark like main dealers?

 

Or are we, as with house prices IMO, heading for another bust?

[Jim Bell]

It's probably because we buy so much shit that we're actually driving our own prices up.

[mercrocker]

Interesting and probably true to  an extent....However my opinion of most people who buy this crap is that they are pretty sheep-like in their acceptance of blue-loo loose-motion green OMGONLYAFIVAHTOTAX Chino-Hungarian tosh and I think we are seeing a periodic blip in appeal of all things "vintage" (although anyone that applies that term to a post 1930 car is WRONG).   I collect all manner of mid-century nonsense and we are having to pay more and more (and hence buy less and less) because people want to get on the bandwagon.   Can't be helped in the case of decent cars by all the crock on the  telly, recently, either.....

[Bren]

People hanging on to their cars longer means that good low/ average mileage stuff with history is hard to come by.

 

Apparently the trade are having to pay retail prices for good used stock.

 

I paid £3600 two years ago for my 07 plate vectra - it had 44 k on the clock. I would have thought traders and other private buyers would have been all over it, but this was'nt the case - at least I got a bargain.

[EssDeeWon]

The last few years has seen a surge in 'have a go dealers' buying tidy chod and marking it up and talking it up 5 fold.

 

If you dig under the surface of all this priced up chod non of it is that great. I just bought an old Scorpio for £450 as you have all seen, I dare say some johnny dealer from Essex would try and big it up and get a grand for it whilst using all the usual BS like "only 5 left on the road", "will only appreciate in value" etc etc its all bollox, its just an old granny worth £450 tops. Thats just one example..

 

If people want to try and sell a tidy MK2 Fiesta for £3k and some dik 'ed is prepared to pay it then good luck to em, there is still good value for money out there on late 90s early 00s stuff.

[purplebargeken]

Went to Enfield BCA at the weekend for a friend. We buy all her cars there and she has been uber happy. We bought a 09 plate Note in black, one owner, full MOT and a couple of months rent, decents spec for £3990 all in. I was happy, she was very happy. Should be a good car for her.

 

They had cheappo stuff there in the couple of hundred quid range still including a tidy Volvo V40 estate that went for £200.

[The Moog]

Yesterday i was chatting to some guys who run a car battery business and they are struggling to compete. They said people cam set up so easily and with things like ebay you can get to a massive viewing public. If you rely on it as your main source of income it is difficult but they were saying lots of people doing as second business.

 

That combined with ebay charging massive fees, euro car parts and no one wanting to pay real money for anything means they are struggling. Wonder if similar is happening with cars?

 

I heard of some dodgy Chester deal that only deals in finest grade chod..

[NorfolkNWeigh]

There's a definite shortage of 08-10 'executive' type stuff, this is, I think due to companies putting a freeze on spending immediately after September 08 crash. Can't be seen to be wasting money on a new car if you're using the recession as an excuse to lay people off.

In Jauary 09 I went with a client ,for whom I look after her cars,to pick up a Range Rover Sport. The dealer principal said to her 'That's the first one we've sold since October' . 'What a Supercharged HST ?' say's she,'No, any new car !' Replied the depressed looking Land Rover man.

[brickwall]

Ups and downs? There were three periods of massive oversupply of cars since  1980 and five periods since 1970. We live in a market economy that expect people to buy, buy, buy! Always the latest thing...

 

Some people like me couldn't give a toss.

Could it be down partly to this?

[Doctormop]

I think its still very much a case of being in the right place at the right time,

Last March my S reg Proton was approaching MOT time and I knew it needed a few minor jobs doing, a bloke I used to work with happened to mention he was starting a new job the week after, 12 miles from home, 4am start and needed a cheap car quick, I told him the Proton was his for 300, pointed out what I knew it needed and he almost bit my hand off, cash that day and pleading phonecall to SWMBO to pick me up from work as I had sold my car, predictable response from her was;

"Makes a change from you buying one I suppose" 

Anyway I'd been scanning Ebay and Autotrader harder than usual at the time debating whether or not to weight the Proton in and had an eye on a few possibles, looked at a Volvo S40 for a grand at a local garage, looked terrible, one or two other p/x bargains that looked like they shouldn't be on the road and finally trawling Autotrader one last time spotted an 03 Honda Civic 1.4, MOT to Feb 15, Tax October 14, £999, phoned straight away, and arranged to view, seller seemed very genuine, var had belnged to his Girlfriend for 6 years, she had got a new job and was commuting 60 miles a day so had bought a Diesel, all seemed well on t he test drive, I offered 900 and we shook hands at 950, 10 weeks on car seems fine, starts stops and goes as it should, even the aircon works. The interesting thing was the seller told me he had the car advertised for 4 weeks (which I know is true as I'd seen it listed) and hadn't had a sniff of interest, started at 1400, then 1200 than a grand, needless to say I'm very happy with it but why didn't someone looking for a cheap reliable motor snap it up within minutes?

Maybe the attitude of 'its old so it will go wrong' still applies but surely Honda's are still considered reliable by the 2.78% APR jockeys.

[EssDeeWon]

I still say check the postcards in your local sweetie shop window or local rag for some local chod bargains! The problem with Ebay is everyone and their brother is on there scanning bargains now, so they dont come up as often, where as Autotrader is more high end stuff and gumtree is just....a grim place to be whether buying or selling anything!

[Junkman]

One of the reasons for rising prices for old chod is certainly the impact the wonderful piece of social engineering commonly called "Scrappage Scheme" had.

Add to this a suddenly increasing interest for old more-door chod from the mainstream collectors, which we already discussed elsewhere on this forum.

[Luckythirteen]

You can also partly blame the fucking hipsters too. They want the retro look, with some fantasy assurance that it'll be reliable like a modern car*.

They bash the credit card, or lean on Bank of Parents, and so give these chancers a market to sell into.

[messerschmitt owner]

looking at new car prices there's all sorts of 10-12 year old stuff that should by rights be £500-800 and it's up at £1500-3000 and it's selling!

 

More people + fewer cars = higher prices. Just like houses.

 

The top end classic stuff has gone crazy as people use them for 'investment'!  It will all come crashing down again.

[mouseflakes]

There's probably rising demand for cars that are old enough to be serviced and repaired by the owner and new enough to be a practical option as a daily. Of course much older chod can be used daily but parts availability probably limits that a bit. So I think folks who're happy not to have the latest phone and who prefer to employ NDIS to avoid injury on the road are all now trying to grab a reasonable old snotter to run for the foreseeable future, before there are none left.

[Sloth in a bowl]

The 5 year old stuff may be having a price hike as there is not enough to go round now that the economy is wobbling back onto its feet but at the bottom of the market cheaper steel prices mean lower priced scrapyard dogders.

 

I have seen my first 100 quid working car with tax and test for some time today and if it had been advertised like this before shitefest I would have proudly turned up in a citreon AX.

[Justin Case]

In this part of the world, everyone and their dog seems to be buying a £99 a month VW Up, a £129 a month Peugeot 208, or a shiny new Cashcow £? per month. This means there are plenty of bargains like the tidy 02 Mondeo I saw up for sale recently at £595; you don't have to look far to find something cheap enough

[Junkman]

Different people have a different perception of "cheap". For one man, £595 for a clapped out Mongdeo commanding stiff OMGWEWILLALLDIEOFCO2 tax may be cheap, while another clearly remembers, that this princely sum once bought him a brand new Anglia.

[supermellowman]

Or are we, as with house prices IMO, heading for another bust?

 

 

The top end classic stuff has gone crazy as people use them for 'investment'!  It will all come crashing down again.

 

I guess ongoing historically low interest rates mean people with money are finding alternative avenues in which to invest and speculate.

 

Anyone old enough to remember the late 80s "Classic Car" bubble?

All the "Barn find etc. etc. " nonsense we're seeing now was trotted out then. Prices went skywards and came crashing down again, so maybe history will repeat itself. The only difference I can see is that the early 90s recession probably helped correct the situation back then. Unless we have another debt fuelled crash, haven't we already had our recession this time? Maybe the reality of living with old metal will be what drives them away again.

[Justin Case]

Different people have a different perception of "cheap". For one man, £595 for a clapped out Mongdeo commanding stiff OMGWEWILLALLDIEOFCO2 tax may be cheap, while another clearly remembers, that this princely sum once bought him a brand new Anglia.

For anyone around in 1935, £595 for a Ford Anglia would have seemed outrageous:

 

http://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2013/apr/19/1930s-house-building-economic-recovery

 

[forddeliveryboy]

Perhaps one factor is that today you can buy a shed for a few hundred which can look almost as good as new. Which is something females decide is directly proportional to how good a car is. They also decide what some men can and can't buy for family transport.

 

Ten or fifteen years ago the economy was bullish and possibly new was perceived as better than it is today - cars had evolved in a way which benefitted the consumer, or so it was thought. The last few years of 'advancement' is being realised to have been backwards, so with cars from a few hundred upwards being virtually as good to drive and look at as well as a lot cheaper to repair and service, that's what's being bought. Word has got round to many about DMFs and other nightmares, you wait - simplicity will be the next biggest desire in the car-buying public's mind - which is where the EV may score.

[anonymous user]

There is a car-sales place down the road from work which specialises in cheap cars, well I say cheap, but they are well overpriced not very special cars; their sales model is to stick stuff on the forecourt under the bunting and have a huge sign telling you that you can drive away for £50 down and £30 per week.

Current stock includes such things as a P reg Rav4 for £2k. They seem to stay in business.

[oman5]

Make sure you all keep quiet about what huge bargains old volvos are.  I would like them to stay that way.

[gordonbennet]

Some interesting and amusing amusing stuff there chaps, as expected.

 

Round where we live we run about the oldest shiters going, but probably the best maintained, what stands out more than  anything is that in my immediate surrounds i never see a bonnet up or a car jacked up and some old, or even young old, fart like me underneath sorting the bloody thing out.

 

Luckily we live a bit tucked out of sight so its not general knowledge that there's some idiot in the bungalow at the end that has trolley jacks and spanners etc, otherwise there'd be the usual queue of piss takers which i gained where i lived before....but not as bad as me mate Dave who used to do the welding for us shiters, i always paid him fair and above square so always welcome, and unbelievably he still had wankers who when he said give us a drink for that would sya they'd buy him a pint next time they saw him in the pub, unfuckinbelievable twats.

 

I started typing this at about 4 o'clock and had to shoot off about 70 miles to check out a Legacy estate for me lad, he won't be having it.

 

Me sons case is typical, he's got an S60 Ovlov, nice one a 185hp Diesel manual on an 07 plate, thing is cos they have the tiddler and another planned, they really need the estate, (and i'm shocked at just how cramped the S60 is in the rear), trouble is the estate costs about twice as much as the saloon...what i'm also shocked about is the pulling power of that soddin Ovlov, shit off a shovel.

 

Anyway, i'll sod off for a while and catch up on stuff, keep 'em coming lads.

[rml2345]

Make sure you all keep quiet about what huge bargains old volvos are. I would like them to stay that way.

For some reason old Volvos don't see a rise in values until they're about 30. Probably due to them being plentiful long after their contemporaries. It's arse if you're selling to anywhere but Scotland.

[eddyramrod]

I'm perfectly happy to sell to Scotland.  It's not like it's a whole different country requiring some long-winded and expensive re-registration procedure, which would surely depress the market.  Anyway they always make their collections mob-handed, so you have to be happy to sell, don't you!

[Junkman]

[EssDeeWon]

Im finding stuff around the grand mark has not moved much at all in the last couple of years. I sold my 1999 MK4 Golf GTi for £900 2 years ago, browsing these cars today I would struggle to get one back of the same age for that same money. A couple of years ago it seemed that £800 would get you excellent VFM but not now from browsing ebay and Autotrader!

 

Seems all the bargains are on here...

[dollywobbler]

I'm not sure prices are rising at all. Some stuff remains hugely undesirable it seems. Rover 600s, Volvo 740 saloons and other bargey things are struggling big time. Which is nice, as I fancy a barge again. Guess the obsession with OMG MPG is to blame.

[rml2345]

^ This. Anything incapable of a regular 30+ mpg seems to have the value of an old sock. Good, as it means cheap luxury.