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Anyone having trouble shifting small cars lately?


RustyNuts

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The ex let me have her micra for scrap value. I've done whats needed to it and got a new MOT on it.

Advertised for £850 on facebook marketplace knowing full well i'll get beaten down on the price and figured if i can get £650 i'd be happy.

So far just 3 enquiries, one said he'd take it and never showed. Then i realised.. with the lack of newly qualified drivers these days there's probably a surplus.

My old (and completely shot) Honda CRV shifted in 18 hours - for double what i thought i'd get but that was in October last year.

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Said it in another threat (I think it was Ghosty's in fact), but i've noticed that things right now, especially in the cheaper end of the market, are hanging around a lot longer than they were 5-6 months back.

Back then, things were consistently selling mega quick (Within a couple of hours pretty often near me, even within minutes on occasion) even when it was wildly overpriced.

Seemingly because of all the Covid restrictions etc, people were willing to pay a premium to get things local and supply was outstripping demand.

It's only since restrictions started easing that it's changed. Now cars, of all sorts, even ones that are very well priced, aren't selling like they were. They're still up weeks later. My only guess is that people, now they are willing to travel have ample choice to go and look at ones 150+ miles away because they are £200 cheaper, even though they're £500 worse. There's also probably a factor of more shops, hospitality etc being open again so folk suddenly have other things to spend money on.

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That is probably true about the new drivers. 

I think driving is going out of fashion a bit for today's youth anyway.  Lessons and insurance are so costly. 

Plus there are so many new car for £99 a month deals about, witling parents dont want their precious driving around in any old rubbish. 

No offence to the micra. 

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Those people with jobs, can spend £114 a month. Call that £4 A day.  Same price as a meal deal at lunch time. 

Why would you piss around hoping your end of life Micra would last 7 months (The break even point) when you can have a new car with a warranty. ? 

Those people without jobs, can't afford the tax, the insurance or the petrol. 

Screenshot_20210427-175527_Chrome.jpg

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Not really topic  related, but I heard an interview recently with Len Goodman ("Seven!!) who's family had several green grocery shops all over London. 

He was the only child and when he was 18 and wanted to learn to drive his mother bought him a car. 

A brand new S type Jag. 

Which he pranged in a car park, damaging the wing. 

On hearing this, his mother promptly........ 

 

Bought him another new one!!! 

 

How the other half live eh? 

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Early January we put a 54reg 1.2 3 door 100k mile Micra on Facebook Market place for £650 at 10pm on a Saturday night. Got interested messages almost immediately and sold it by 11 am next day for the £600 we actually wanted. Was a nice little motor though, with over 12 months Mot, certainly compared to some on Ebay and AT. Buyers PT Cruiser had expired and he needed a cheap car to get to work ASAP. He was about 60 and paid straight away and collected it later in the day. I was getting messages and calls while he was giving it the once over, which helped things along. I'd also taken some flattering photos and bought it a set of cheap wheel trims and some Aldi rubber mats he seemed impressed with. 

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1 hour ago, New POD said:

Those people with jobs, can spend £114 a month. Call that £4 A day.  Same price as a meal deal at lunch time. 

Why would you piss around hoping your end of life Micra would last 7 months (The break even point) when you can have a new car with a warranty. ? 

Those people without jobs, can't afford the tax, the insurance or the petrol. 

Screenshot_20210427-175527_Chrome.jpg

The work car park is an interesting place. There's a lot of truth in what you said.  Even my Paramedic student with a part time job is driving a 20 plate Ka on PCP.  Fucks sake I was driving a £400 Starlet at 21 years old. 

There's 3 of us who appreciate cars. I've the old Audi and the newer Primera and they've a mix of Celicas and a very nice classic M3. There's one or two Defenders in various stages of rot falling off them. 

The rest of them aren't car people. Some want some bling and have a new leased Merc/BMW/Audi or some other naff looking £300pm car. The rest just want "an car" and there's loads of new small cars what are going on a PCP deal. 

 

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1 hour ago, Timewaster said:

I think driving is going out of fashion a bit for today's youth anyway.

For yoofs, probably true. For young couples, the opposite. Every single new build estate is focussed around car ownership - in a non-walkable location, not connected to public transport yet easily linked to major road networks (and marketed as such). Tiny gardens yet ample parking for the two-SUV household. Mortgage incentives to buy a new build as opposed to a traditional location and record low fuel prices as a proportion of incomes. Record low interest rate means the economy is awash with credit to fund bargain new car deals. This sort of means that depreciation is huge from the showroom, but as families are asset-light these days, it doesn't really matter.

On the plus side the market for the topic of this messageboard is pretty strong however as more people look for something less bland.

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1 hour ago, willswitchengage said:

For yoofs, probably true. For young couples, the opposite. Every single new build estate is focussed around car ownership - in a non-walkable location, not connected to public transport yet easily linked to major road networks (and marketed as such). Tiny gardens yet ample parking for the two-SUV household. 

This is all very true and makes the government's efforts to reduce carbon emissions look like the token they are.  The real priorities are apparent in the support for house prices and house builders because that's where the votes are.  Fuel duty has been frozen for years because it's a vote killer on these estates. 

As mentioned, I read recently that it is true that teenagers aren't interested in driving but once they reach their early twenties it becomes a necessity and driving rates are about the same as they have ever been.

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It may well depend upon how old the car is and where it is being sold. The new ULEZ zone in London is being introduced in October this year extending the zone out to the north and south circular roads and a number of other UK cities also have plans to introduce ULEZ zones. This means that many petrol cars registered before 2006 and diesel cars registered before 2016 will have to pay a daily charge of £12.50 or £15 every time they drive within the ULEZ zone. Who want? to pay £15 a day just to set off in a car?

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Several reasons - as @Timewaster says, PCP deals are so cheap, that for many it's understandably the most stress free ownership model. From my personal experience, fewer young people have any interest or inclination in learning how to maintain cars, and manufacturers have huge marketing budgets to tempt people with the latest new shiny piece of metal.  Many also rely on a car -  conversely a broken one is actually a luxury that many can't afford.   

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Car ownership in the UK especially is bound up in the idea that a car is a status indicator, so an old cheap car means that you aren't doing very well for yourself and a new or expensive car means that you are. Our model year based registration plates tend to emphasise this, you'll occasionally meet people who simply couldn't bear to have a 17plate on the driveway. You get this concept that cars need to be kept for no longer than three years then part exchanged for a new one. You also get this preoccupation with owning a car in mint condition, so people will often not consider a car if it has panel damage (however minor) or signs of corrosion. 

Older small cars tended to be quite spartan, which modern car buyers often don't like, people have to have touch screen audio, air con, leccy windows even, so it reduces your potential market still further. 

 

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7 minutes ago, warch said:

You also get this preoccupation with owning a car in mint condition

True. Having just sold a car, the buyer didn't even look at receipts for all the work I'd done, but was more concerned with the minor dents and scrapes. The car that replaced it is a lot worse cosmetically. 

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20 minutes ago, warch said:

Car ownership in the UK especially is bound up in the idea that a car is a status indicator, so an old cheap car means that you aren't doing very well for yourself and a new or expensive car means that you are. Our model year based registration plates tend to emphasise this, you'll occasionally meet people who simply couldn't bear to have a 17plate on the driveway. You get this concept that cars need to be kept for no longer than three years then part exchanged for a new one. You also get this preoccupation with owning a car in mint condition, so people will often not consider a car if it has panel damage (however minor) or signs of corrosion. 

Older small cars tended to be quite spartan, which modern car buyers often don't like, people have to have touch screen audio, air con, leccy windows even, so it reduces your potential market still further. 

 

Things certainly have changed since the 1970s. Galloping rot, roadside repairs, home brewed paintjobs and minimal equipment used to be wholly accepted.

Several of the younger teachers where I worked run nearly new leased 3 pot Frenchies as 'it's cheaper and more reliable to do that'.

Personally, I hate debt and like to avoid it at all costs. Apart from mortgage obviously. That's a lifetime noose.

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2 hours ago, sutty2006 said:

And the garages are even smaller! 


https://maps.app.goo.gl/U23sAAoFcacngAjQ6

There's some new builds near me. They didn't bother to pretend to make them garages. Which is actually a more honest way of building. 

Screenshot_20210428-095626_Maps.thumb.jpg.323dfcc7e739509f1a9f01d993903fe1.jpg

 

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3 hours ago, barefoot said:

Is this true?

Not as government policy or anything, but with so many PCP deals around and so many 3 year old cars for cheap in car supermarkets, the older ones do often get exported by Eastern European dealers and to Africa and the like...

Which is what I was aiming at.

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17 hours ago, Bren said:

I think as things get back to normal the demand for cheap cars will fall away. Prices are'nt helping - who would pay near £2k for a 14 year old mondeo or vectra when you can have something new for £99 a month?

Not really, £99 a month gets you into some tin box, never mind about the couple of grand down payment. 

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2 hours ago, Dick Longbridge said:

Things certainly have changed since the 1970s. Galloping rot, roadside repairs, home brewed paintjobs and minimal equipment used to be wholly accepted.

Several of the younger teachers where I worked run nearly new leased 3 pot Frenchies as 'it's cheaper and more reliable to do that'.

Personally, I hate debt and like to avoid it at all costs. Apart from mortgage obviously. That's a lifetime noose.

But years ago people weren’t seriously in the shit with the credit cards living in a house they fundamentally couldn’t afford, whose idea of a night out is chalking a line out at home off an Ikea coffee table.

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