Values of cars (not just currently...)

[mk1_4dr]

18 hours ago, Dick Longbridge said:

Cube? For reasons beyond my comprehension, I really like the look of the mk1s. Thread on here?

This is a mk2/Z11, I do like the more conventional Z10 though. No thread on here (or anywhere) yet, I'll get into that when I get into working on it this summer.

[dozeydustman]

I’m currently looking at the prices of estate cars because as our only car the C2 is impractical. Up the road there’s an 850 estate for sale on a P plate. Guy selling it wants £2500 but it’s an absolute heap, has short MoT and has no record of servicing or work done to it. The engine sounded sad and stuttery. It’s battered, dented, pogweaseled and has rust in places and looks generally uncared for. I’ve never seen rust on a 90s Volvo. It is low miles (85k) but for the same price (and indeed lower) there are some really tidy examples about.

I predict there will be a lot of overpriced tat like this flooding the market.

[2flags]

4 hours ago, dozeydustman said:

I’m currently looking at the prices of estate cars because as our only car the C2 is impractical. Up the road there’s an 850 estate for sale on a P plate. Guy selling it wants £2500 but it’s an absolute heap, has short MoT and has no record of servicing or work done to it. The engine sounded sad and stuttery. It’s battered, dented, pogweaseled and has rust in places and looks generally uncared for. I’ve never seen rust on a 90s Volvo. It is low miles (85k) but for the same price (and indeed lower) there are some really tidy examples about.

I predict there will be a lot of overpriced tat like this flooding the market.

I wonder if this is a result of people thinking their car is worth far more than it really is. It's the same in the classic car world the prices have gone through the roof. I mean £4000 for a Mk1 Cortina needing a total rebuild? It's a cooking one, not a Lotus. £17,000 for a XR2? Just had a quick look on E-Bay and there do seem to be some cheapies about. Some you can see are absolute rubbish, a couple of weeks MoT or none at all, but some seem like a good deal.

[Dick Longbridge]

8 hours ago, mk1_4dr said:

This is a mk2/Z11, I do like the more conventional Z10 though. No thread on here (or anywhere) yet, I'll get into that when I get into working on it this summer.

Ah, it's the Z10 I like. 

[dozeydustman]

1 hour ago, 2flags said:

I wonder if this is a result of people thinking their car is worth far more than it really is. It's the same in the classic car world the prices have gone through the roof. I mean £4000 for a Mk1 Cortina needing a total rebuild? It's a cooking one, not a Lotus. £17,000 for a XR2? Just had a quick look on E-Bay and there do seem to be some cheapies about. Some you can see are absolute rubbish, a couple of weeks MoT or none at all, but some seem like a good deal.

To be honest most Fords and VWs are and always have been overvalued. By and large they’re everyday cars for the everyday person. Nothing special, some are absolute crackers and some are absolute dogshit.

An older car in good order with a good amount of MoT (6 months+) and provenance will always be £500 or more irrespective of make, mileage and condition - the better the condition and the more the history included the better as many cars from the 1990s onwards hide neglect well.

Mileage can be a bone of contention because low miles ≠ low trouble - I’ve had more aggro from lower mileage cars through lack of use than those with average or high miles.
 

At the lower end of the car market sorting the wheat from the chaff can be a nightmare and what looks good may not always be so; while there is demand for affordable decent cars the crap will also go up in value and people will be stung.

[catsinthewelder]

8 hours ago, dozeydustman said:

 

An older car in good order with a good amount of MoT (6 months+) and provenance will always be £500 or more irrespective of make, mileage and condition - 

Not always the case though, before all this kicked off really undesirable stuff like Protons, Peroduas and K series Rovers could be £150 in good condition.

[dozeydustman]

55 minutes ago, catsinthewelder said:

Not always the case though, before all this kicked off really undesirable stuff like Protons, Peroduas and K series Rovers could be £150 in good condition.

I would say this is based on where you live than the car for sale. Living all my life in the south & south east, Protons, Peroduas and K-series Rovers I’ve not seen one priced as low as £150 and breakers were full of them a few years back with better roadworthy examples £350-500. Last time I recall seeing a car as low as £150 with some ticket on it must be 15 years ago (outside of car auctions). Fiat Uno IIRC

 

[cobblers]

In 2004 I bought a genuine, decent, 60k mile 1999 Saxo VTR for £2100.

So a 5 year old "hot hatch" with FSH and all the rest, for just over a couple of grand.

Closest equivalent I can find now is a 6 year old 208 GTi for about 7-10k.

 

 

 

 

 

[cbowditch]

As well as the micro chip shortage, new cars from 2022 will have Intelligent speed limiters fitted (which apparently can be disabled via the menus). I have no desire to buy a new car anymore, as they are all becoming iPads on wheels. And of course when their fuel changes from Petrol to electric new cars desirability will be further reduced. So demand for used cars is only going one way. Well, until Petrol stations start closing down and the price goes over £10/Litre anyway...

[sierraman]

Prices have gone up above general inflation but people’s expectations are still all to cock. A £1,500 car is probably going to last no more than 2-3 years tops. Very possible it could go longer but also very possible it could last even less. I’ve read so many posts where someone may be looking for a car that will run and run forever but have only £600 to spend. Regrettably if that’s your budget these days unless you drop on very lucky then you really ought to stay back on the farm, double it and you’ve some way towards a prospect that might last. 

Obviously if you handy with the spanners and can find a Rover or whatnot for scrap money, fix it up with a new gasket and get it going again then you might drop lucky but outside of here plenty just won’t do that. It’s a shame really that the general public aren’t as resourceful as the folk of Cuba etc in the seventies when they had no option but to convert a 1950’s Buick to a Lada engine as there simply weren’t any spares available. 

[lisbon_road]

I think high values are also influenced by the coming of electric cars.  People can't or won't buy an electric one, but spending out on an ICE car now which might be totally undesirable rather soon doesn't seem good planning.  I'm not saying this is a major factor, but may contribute to increased value of older cars which trickles down to the cheaper ones.  (Similar to gas central heating boilers and heat pumps.  Lots of people dithering on that one).

Perhaps also people have started to realise that they last longer, though Dick Longbridge was right to say that hasn't changed recently.

Plus I think the newer system of car registrations is completely lost on most people - which was the plan after all.  People on this forum might know how it works, but most people out there don't, so they don't look at a (say) 12 year old car and realise how old it is. 

Plus we're getting diminishing returns in terms of improvements.  They just aren't that much better than they used to be.  Again, perhaps that will change.  I quite like the idea of autonomous cars but half way house where the control switches between the driver and the car, no thanks.  I don't fancy that. 

 

[sierraman]

Nobody unless they’re mad and/or have loads of cash falling out of their pockets are dithering over whether to fit a gas boiler or a heat pump. A new boiler is couple of grand tops, a heat pump which is already shown to be fairly inefficient in terms of actually heating your radiators up is nearly £15,000. Most working class people aren’t undecided about that because they likely can not afford £15k on a heat pump. Buying a car isn’t that much different, yes you can get an electric car for £20k but it’d be uselessly small or an MG, for the moment for a useful one they’re very expensive, unless it’s a company car it makes no sense on cost grounds alone which for most working people is a very significant factor. We’re told that in a few years they’ll be the same price as a combustion engine powered car, if that’s the case then you’d likely find demand for an EV went through the roof making conventional cars less popular and thus less expensive secondhand. But then like mushrooms, we get fed shit and kept in the dark on such matters.

Maybe it’ll liken to the PC, years ago nobody of average income had one, perhaps a few of the middle class kids might have had an Acorn or whatever in the house then once they became financially achievable then the use and ownership of them rocketed to the point everyone had them then you couldn’t give the old typewriter away. 

[grogee]

On 1/16/2022 at 4:39 PM, dozeydustman said:

I’m currently looking at the prices of estate cars because as our only car the C2 is impractical. Up the road there’s an 850 estate for sale on a P plate. Guy selling it wants £2500 but it’s an absolute heap, has short MoT and has no record of servicing or work done to it. The engine sounded sad and stuttery. It’s battered, dented, pogweaseled and has rust in places and looks generally uncared for. I’ve never seen rust on a 90s Volvo. It is low miles (85k) but for the same price (and indeed lower) there are some really tidy examples about.

I predict there will be a lot of overpriced tat like this flooding the market.

Dunno where you are Dozey but I just posted a MK1 V70 in the eBay tat thread that didn't look half bad for £900

[dozeydustman]

3 minutes ago, grogee said:

Dunno where you are Dozey but I just posted a MK1 V70 in the eBay tat thread that didn't look half bad for £900

South coast/Chichester. I don’t go on the eBay tat thread much now, I have hardly any will power and even less money!

[SiC]

23 minutes ago, sierraman said:

Most working class people aren’t undecided about that because they likely can not afford £15k on a heat pump. Buying a car isn’t that much different

You realise, right, that most people in the UK aren't actually "working class"? As in those that are lower than average income.

Numbers from OECD. A little old but it's unlikely to have changed radically.

 

Many can't afford cash to buy a car but many can pass affordability on some sort of finance to buy a car. This is why there are so many new cars coming in.

[sierraman]

The affordability checks on a car finance at a garage at fairly scant. Couple of bills to check you are really Mr Donald Duck and away you go. 

[Matty]

2 hours ago, SiC said:

You realise, right, that most people in the UK aren't actually "working class"? As in those that are lower than average income.

Numbers from OECD. A little old but it's unlikely to have changed radically.

 

Many can't afford cash to buy a car but many can pass affordability on some sort of finance to buy a car. This is why there are so many new cars coming in.

Got to disagree with you there Si. Went to a high school, live in the North West and work as a heavy engineering fitter. Definatly not middle class by anyone's definition. I'm also not skint. You don't have to be skint to be working class.

[PrinceRupert]

2 minutes ago, Matty said:

Got to disagree with you there Si. Went to a high school, live in the North West and work as a heavy engineering fitter. Definatly not middle class by anyone's definition. I'm also not skint. You don't have to be skint to be working class.

Agreed. Class doesn't have all that much to do with income imho (and being skint or not is as much to do with outgoings as income).  

[SiC]

7 minutes ago, Matty said:

Got to disagree with you there Si. Went to a high school, live in the North West and work as a heavy engineering fitter. Definatly not middle class by anyone's definition. I'm also not skint. You don't have to be skint to be working class.

Its why I used quotes as I know the definition of classes is more complex nowadays. Just Sierraman seems to invariably define working class simply as lower income. 

[sierraman]

9 hours ago, SiC said:

Its why I used quotes as I know the definition of classes is more complex nowadays. Just Sierraman seems to invariably define working class simply as lower income. 

Not necessarily, let’s assume Mr average earns 40k doing whatever and his wife 15k part time, assuming they’d got two kids as per average then chances are they’d be blowing the vast majority of the income on a house at say £200-£250k house (if they’d any sense anyway). People might live differently where you live but this is my observation for what it’s worth. 

[New POD]

Income class verses cultural class ? Discuss.  

 

[Leyland Worldmaster]

I see references to the 'Class System'. 

Interesting. In my view, it is an outdated and anachronistic way of dividing people into groups that must never mix. 

Yet, for some time, it has been possible to borrow the money to buy one's self into 'class' - the 'dreams' and 'aspirations' sold to us in our everyday lives. 

 

This may explain the large numbers of SUV type things with premium badges on cheap shitty tyres and a lack of VED and Insurance... 

I have fuck all time for all of that, having learned my lesson over twenty years ago; no 'Designer Label' will paper over the cracks of insecurity. 

Anyhoo; I like it here as there is a pleasing lack of pretentious people at AS. 

Apologies for the rant. 

 

 

[Shirley Knott]

Social class is determined, as far as I'm aware by profession rather than salary which doesn't really come into it.

An example would be a civil servant in an office role earning 16k a year would technically be middle class (White collar 'professional' role) whilst a builder (Blue collar) who earns 35k a year would be considered working class. 

Sauce- A level Sociology 20 years ago (May the lords of AS forgive me if I am wrong)

Meanwhile- Yes, second hand cars now by and large cost more than they did in the past even taking into account inflation.

[Dick Longbridge]

Interesting this has turned into a debate on class. 

I reckon the ultimate proof of class is the live footage streaming to the cctv operator of the street outside the local nightclub at 2am on a Friday night...

[Madman Of The People]

On 1/15/2022 at 3:26 AM, bangernomics said:

Never move to Spain or France if you think cars here are overpriced for old shite.

 

Or the USA.  The prices we pay for cars is obscene!

I did a search on US Autotrader for 2013 Honda Civics within 50 miles of the palatial Casa del Madman and found prices ranging from $7,995 for what I suspect is a rebuilt wreck to $18,800 for one you could actually drive without taking your life into your hands.

Anyone want to trade?

 

[Barry Cade]

3 minutes ago, Madman Of The People said:

 

Or the USA.  The prices we pay for cars is obscene!

I did a search on US Autotrader for 2013 Honda Civics within 50 miles of the palatial Casa del Madman and found prices ranging from $7,995 for what I suspect is a rebuilt wreck to $18,800 for one you could actually drive without taking your life into your hands.

Anyone want to trade?

 

I have heard you can get 120 month finance on used cars though... 😕

[Spurious]

7 hours ago, Shirley Knott said:

Social class is determined, as far as I'm aware by profession rather than salary which doesn't really come into it.

An example would be a civil servant in an office role earning 16k a year would technically be middle class (White collar 'professional' role) whilst a builder (Blue collar) who earns 35k a year would be considered working class. 

Sauce- A level Sociology 20 years ago (May the lords of AS forgive me if I am wrong)

Meanwhile- Yes, second hand cars now by and large cost more than they did in the past even taking into account inflation.

I've a professional registration, I'm a health care professional and probably the textbook middle class based on household income. 

However, if I'd have listened to my Grandad and became an Electrician, I'd probably be on a fair few pounds more than I am now. Quite a lot. And have more control of work-life.  Despite being seen as a more blue collar job. Probably too late to retrain now... 

Anyway, the price of cars. 

It's probably as others have pointed out, it's seemed like cars were bloody cheap here. Having a browse of used cars in Poland, yes, they're about 30% cheaper for a 5-7yo car but then again the average wage there is about €1000 a month and here it's £2000 per month. So it's relatively still more expensive in Poland vs UK. 

 

[Shirley Knott]

45 minutes ago, Spurious said:

I've a professional registration, I'm a health care professional and probably the textbook middle class based on household income. 

 

 

You're 'middle class' (At least from a sociological  standpoint) but that's not based on your household earnings, it's decided by the nature of your profession

45 minutes ago, Spurious said:

 

However, if I'd have listened to my Grandad and became an Electrician, I'd probably be on a fair few pounds more than I am now. Quite a lot. And have more control of work-life.  Despite being seen as a more blue collar job. Probably too late to retrain now... 

 

 

I can completely relate.

I work in compliance for a large UK bank. If I'd have stuck out my apprenticeship as a diesel fitter I'd be earning a lot more now!

Also- it's a good point you raise re the Polish comparison and used car prices vs disposable income. 

[somewhatfoolish]

The post-war boom of relaxed credit law plus unprecedented prosperity bred a new class; what I have just decided to dub the Micawber class, of indeterminate income but an uncontrollable urge to expand their consumption to match whatever the income is, attracted to shite HP deals/store cards/liar loans with rubbish credit checks  like flies on shit. The Micawbers were added to the poor buggers at the bottom of the pile who pre-social security were always prone to misfortune due to low job security, shit pay and lack of access to reasonable finance which once drove them to use loan sharks, or these days perhaps the likes of Brighthouse. I think the (recently coined?) collective term is precariat. I'm not a Micawber but I recognise that their mayfly attitude to spending drives a large chunk of the economy.

[Stroller133]

On 1/17/2022 at 7:39 PM, SiC said:

You realise, right, that most people in the UK aren't actually "working class"? As in those that are lower than average income.

Numbers from OECD. A little old but it's unlikely to have changed radically.

I'm not sure what you think that graph shows, but it doesnt prove we are all (or most of us are) middle class?

For starters it based on median, and by definition 50% of people are below this level and 50% above. How wealthy we are or our perceived social class will depend on the income of the median earner. I'll concede if the median (assume its individual) income was £80k a year then as a nation we may be relatively wealthy as that chart would show that 91% of us would earn over £40k ie greater than 50% of median.

I suspect the reality is far from the above scenario. I'd guess individual median earnings in 2016 was around £25k per year. 
The groupings of that chart are a bit misleading - your point seemed to be the majority earn around or above the average earnings and the chart backs this up at 58%. However this group of people have an income range of 125% of the median, whereas the 2 lower sections have ranges of 50% and 25%.

As it's a median figure we can work out that 20% have a income of 75-100% of median.  Therefore there are similar but slightly more people who have an income of 50-75% than 75-100%. 
 

Sorry for thread drift!