Jump to content

Anyone having trouble shifting small cars lately?


RustyNuts

Recommended Posts

1 minute ago, Matty said:

Oh no, that's far too new 😁

They exist at every age/price point!  For every @sierraman there's another chap who will never buy new and always buys 3 years old.  Another that will always buy six months old because they've lost so much in such a short time..... but they'd never consider buying an ex rental car 😉

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Kiltox said:

They exist at every age/price point!  For every @sierraman there's another chap who will never buy new and always buys 3 years old.  Another that will always buy six months old because they've lost so much in such a short time..... but they'd never consider buying an ex rental car 😉

I'm half sierraman. Tight as a drum but can't bear to see anything cubed

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Kiltox said:

They exist at every age/price point!  For every @sierraman there's another chap who will never buy new and always buys 3 years old.  Another that will always buy six months old because they've lost so much in such a short time..... but they'd never consider buying an ex rental car 😉

If they buy at 6 months old it is almost certainly an ex rental. 

My mitsubishi was registered to some generic  company name, but a little googling soon reveals that they also trade as Thrifty car rental. 

I don't doubt that most of the others at the car supermarket were too. 

Who else would sell a six month old car? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Timewaster said:

If they buy at 6 months old it is almost certainly an ex rental. 

My mitsubishi was registered to some generic  company name, but a little googling soon reveals that they also trade as Thrifty car rental. 

I don't doubt that most of the others at the car supermarket were too. 

Who else would sell a six month old car? 

Shhh don't tell them!

You are of course correct.    I bought an ex rental 320d Touring a couple of years ago - it was less than a year old but had 12k on the clock.  Was absolutely spot on, properly clean and tidy too.

What really should keep you up at night is the rental I have parked outside at the moment.  It's a 2019 420i with 17,000 miles on the clock.  When Enterprise de-fleet it it'll look like any other second hand car with average mileage.  This worries me a lot more than the short term sub-12 months old stuff - the longer it spends on a fleet the more chance for abuse there is and it's clearly not being particularly well looked after (the seats and steering wheel look like far more miles than they've done because of the way they're being/not being cleaned)

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Our A4 was 6 months old and 6k or something on the clock. Apparently a managers car at an Audi dealer. It also has a tracker... So a pre-reg that became a courtesy car then. 🤣

Anyway 200k+ now and not out, with minimal repairs needed in that time. 🤷‍♂️

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Remember that with Consumer Protection from Unfair trading Regulations 2008 and Consumer Rights Act 2015, dealers have to proactively tell you if it was a taxi, learner car  or whatever but also if it was on their hire/lease fleet, not wait for you to ask.  The sales targets specials where dealers pretend it was a Managers car (ragged by everyone or a makeshift parts car or tow car)  sometimes have delivery miles only, but might be run out models too.

As I told everyone buying a nice second hand car from me, be grateful to those generous people who bought new and suffered that enormous depreciation to get you a car at the right price.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, colino said:

Remember that with Consumer Protection from Unfair trading Regulations 2008 and Consumer Rights Act 2015, dealers have to proactively tell you if it was a taxi, learner car  or whatever but also if it was on their hire/lease fleet, not wait for you to ask.  The sales targets specials where dealers pretend it was a Managers car (ragged by everyone or a makeshift parts car or tow car)  sometimes have delivery miles only, but might be run out models too.

As I told everyone buying a nice second hand car from me, be grateful to those generous people who bought new and suffered that enormous depreciation to get you a car at the right price.

No, they don’t. 

“This vehicle was originally registered to a business and therefore may have had multiple users” is all they need to say.  Buried deep in the small print on the advert. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 hours ago, R1152 said:

My commute on the A1 makes me encounter at least two transporters full of 17-plate onwards motors every day. Where do they all go...?

 

19 hours ago, mk2_craig said:

I would bet a good chunk of them dispersed out to less prosperous parts of the country, where buying something secondhand is much more the norm. 

 

17 hours ago, bangernomics said:

I’d say quite the opposite. People who have money don’t drip it away on fripperies such as borrowing cars.

No, a lot of them do end up in Northern Ireland - there are a huge number of cars over here running on GB plates.

Places like Wilson's Auctions in Mallusk do entire evenings which are billed as 'ex-fleet sales' - generally three to four year old Fords and Vauxhalls.

I haven't been to one for a long while, but here's a pic from a few years back - a row of identical GB-plated dark blue Insignias, and plenty more round the corner just the same.

20180807_172219.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Do people not tend to NORTHERN-IRELAND-ise vehicles after arrival DC? By which I mean obtain number plates with an I or a Z in. Is there any stigma to not having a “local” mark on your car?

I have it in my mind that the above may well apply on the Isle of Wight. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, mk2_craig said:

Do people not tend to NORTHERN-IRELAND-ise vehicles after arrival DC? By which I mean obtain number plates with an I or a Z in. Is there any stigma to not having a “local” mark on your car?

I have it in my mind that the above may well apply on the Isle of Wight. 

No - maybe there was a stigma once, but not anymore.

Back when Northern Ireland had its own Vehicle Licensing authority (DVLNI), bringing a car over from GB required it to be re-registered with DVLNI - which in turn generated an export marker on the DVLA system.

You then had the choice of retaining the original GB plate, or getting a new-series plate from whatever NI office you were registering it to. When I brought my Cortina over from Glasgow in 2008, I was offered a then-current SEZ Belfast series plate when I went into the DVLNI office on the Ormeau Road to re-register it.

I turned them down, preferring to keep the original X-reg on Serck plates. I think that was a correct choice.

DSC_3050.JPG

The DVLNI was shut down in 2013, and now all NI cars are registered through DVLA in Swansea. While NI retains its own registration series (effectively a development of the pre-1963 GB system), there's now no need to re-register a car brought over to NI from GB - completing the usual change of owner details from the V5 or online is enough.

So while I think you could apply for a brand-new local registration, technically, I'm not even sure how you'd go about doing that anymore. I dunno, maybe you can't.

I've owned more cars over here that were GB plated than NI plated!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When I bought my 66reg Zafira in late 2019 as an ex Motability car, it came from a small semi retired trader in his seventies, who sold a  few late motors from his very nice home. We got chatting and he reckoned the Motability "fleet" is about 600,000 vehicles, mostly changed every 3 years, so about 200,000 new motors per annum. That's not far off 10% of the UK market. There's about 60 houses on our very ordinary suburban road, and at least 3 have got Motability cars. He also reckoned that if a lot of a particular vehicle were taken up in a short period by the service users, 3 years later the used market would be flooded with them, forcing the prices down. Regarding PCPs, at the end of 2016,my youngest daughter "bought" a Peugeot 208 on a "Just add fuel deal". It worked out well for her. At the time she was doing a long commute, and she was getting very high insurance quotes for very modest vehicles. When the three years was up, due to a career change she hadn't done the nominated mileage. She'd been happy with the car, it was still(just) a current model, the road tax was only £20,so I suggested she bought it for what seemed a very reasonable sum. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you're 19 and you get an insurance quote for a £400 micra and a 21 plate Fiat 500 the difference in premium could be a big chunk of your £99 a month PCP payment, insurance doesn't like 19 year olds driving £400 cars

The downside is if you decline the GAP insurance then write it off , one of the customers of my old mechanic did exactly that with a fiat panda which he put into a ditch in the snow

The difference between the insurance payout and what he owed was £1500 , which was £1500 he hadn't got

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, Dobloseven said:

When I bought my 66reg Zafira in late 2019 as an ex Motability car, it came from a small semi retired trader in his seventies, who sold a  few late motors from his very nice home. We got chatting and he reckoned the Motability "fleet" is about 600,000 vehicles, mostly changed every 3 years, so about 200,000 new motors per annum. That's not far off 10% of the UK market. There's about 60 houses on our very ordinary suburban road, and at least 3 have got Motability cars.

They hand motability cars out like confetti , my sister got one for her autistic son for his personal independence , I was however quite surprised when the council also paid for a taxi to take him to school and back daily, a 28 mile round trip, during covid the brand new 'they pay everything but fuel' motability car just sat on the drive as she waved him off in the taxi every day :D 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Honestly, my experience has been to the contrary.

We advertised Mrs Knott's 2007 C1 with 100k for £895 five weeks ago and it was gone for full asking price within two hours. Last night my brother advertised his 2014 Corsa on 56k for £2800, he's just sold it at lunchtime today for £2650.

I recon if the price is right, it'll sell, but that's admittedly from a sample of two. Maybe there's a North South divide at work, or things vary by region, who knows?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/28/2021 at 7:03 PM, R1152 said:

I inherited that same mindset from my parents and it has served me well.

Someone on another forum suggested that I should do an Angel Dust PCP; my response of "and who'll touch someone who does 30,000 miles a year though?" was met with - I kid you not - "clock it". Criminality aside, being a member of the so-called "gig economy" - read, "mostly unemployed" - means I'd not want any more money leaving this household than is absolutely necessary. Knowing I'm saddled with a Rishi Loan is bad enough: hence my driving a nearly-eighteen year old BMW and forking out for a gearbox repair rather than spend the money that'll cost on what could be someone else's world of hurt.

My commute on the A1 makes me encounter at least two transporters full of 17-plate onwards motors every day. Where do they all go...?

I am honestly amazed by this. When I started driving 13 years ago clocking was something my dad warned me about and basically NEVER happened. Because having a car with a slightly higher mileage really wasn't a big deal as cars got more reliable for longer periods. The fact that the PCP culture has brought this problem back is both funny and soul crushingly depressing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Poweredbyhopealone said:

I am honestly amazed by this. When I started driving 13 years ago clocking was something my dad warned me about and basically NEVER happened. Because having a car with a slightly higher mileage really wasn't a big deal as cars got more reliable for longer periods. The fact that the PCP culture has brought this problem back is both funny and soul crushingly depressing.

The person who suggested that is a twat of the first water and full of shit, so may not be true. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Clocking??.... Step this way :)

I worked in the stockroom of a Photocopier dealer.... They had an enquiry on a quite small/low output copier that was, frankly, 'unsaleable'.

I think they had to take the 'baby' as it was making the full 'demo' range....

It was out on trial/loan at a community centre, for quite a while >> off I go in the van >> back to the workshop & cleaned out.... to within an inch of its life! .... Manager 'jumped' the main board (with a paperclip) to reset core cycle count to ZERO.

Sold/shipped in box @top dollari ;)

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, Wack said:

If you're 19 and you get an insurance quote for a £400 micra and a 21 plate Fiat 500 the difference in premium could be a big chunk of your £99 a month PCP payment, insurance doesn't like 19 year olds driving £400 cars

The downside is if you decline the GAP insurance then write it off , one of the customers of my old mechanic did exactly that with a fiat panda which he put into a ditch in the snow

The difference between the insurance payout and what he owed was £1500 , which was £1500 he hadn't got

There’s quite a case to be made for not getting yourself up to the bollocks in finance at that age. At 19 you want to be spending your time going out with your mates and taking lads/lasses holidays with your mates. Carefree. 

You don’t want to get to 30 and end up all bitter and depressed that you never had a youth and experienced life. I’ve seen so many people that were busting at that age for maturity like buying houses and spending all their money on a car. Most of them now are either social recluses or ended up doing something insane, they’ve got to 35 and realised they’ve wasted 90% of their life sat watching Love Island. Watching a program about other people living a life instead of living one yourself. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, sierraman said:

There’s quite a case to be made for not getting yourself up to the bollocks in finance at that age. At 19 you want to be spending your time going out with your mates and taking lads/lasses holidays with your mates. Carefree. 

You don’t want to get to 30 and end up all bitter and depressed that you never had a youth and experienced life. I’ve seen so many people that were busting at that age for maturity like buying houses and spending all their money on a car. Most of them now are either social recluses or ended up doing something insane, they’ve got to 35 and realised they’ve wasted 90% of their life sat watching Love Island. Watching a program about other people living a life instead of living one yourself. 

I did all that: good job at 19, detached house, mortgage and married at 22. 

Now in my fifties, a childless widower, Uncle Vanya made real. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Poweredbyhopealone said:

I am honestly amazed by this. When I started driving 13 years ago clocking was something my dad warned me about and basically NEVER happened. Because having a car with a slightly higher mileage really wasn't a big deal as cars got more reliable for longer periods. The fact that the PCP culture has brought this problem back is both funny and soul crushingly depressing.

Clocking very much did happen an awful lot 13 years ago, and I know 2 people with cars on PCP at the minute that have mileage blockers on them, its rife, and to be honest I was tempted to do the same myself when the wife needed a car for 30k/year but fortunately she moved offices back nearer home.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...