Used car market is dead...?

[Contigo]

I'm by no means a trader but I like to flip a car or two a year for enjoyment/profit but I have found it is becoming much harder to sell cars in the last year than it has been in a very long time. I'm not sure why but it's frustrating as I do enjoy the whole car ownership and moving them on experience.

[POORCARDEALER]

July/august traditionally slowest two months of year for me

[a]

Aeroresh said:

Shore said:

I'm now in the market for a new car and I always buy second hand so I like the fact the market is dead because it means I can pick up good cars for a good price.

This weekend I'm possibly going to buy a 60 plate Fiesta Zetec S with all the toys including the full heated leather. It's a nice car and seem to have been looked after. Picking it up for £4000 which is good value. Would much rather buy that car than take a new one out on PCP or finance.

but its a 7 year old fiesta? Will probably be needing a new exhaust, shocks, bushes, wheel bearings and all the rest of it pretty shortly if you're lucky, hardly good value.

I've come to the same conclusion. I had an 8 year old Mondeo (good condition, good price, low miles) which cost me as much in 1 year as leasing a brand new one would have cost for 2 years.
It's not just the constant brake calipers, MOT costs, tyres (lease car comes with 4 premium tyres that should last the 2 years), clutches, DMFs, DPFs, etc... It's also the fact that new cars give better MPG and lower tax. After adding up all the costs, it was a no-brainer.

There are plenty of really good lease deals that mean the only downside is lack of flexibility - you're committed for 2 years of payments no matter what.

[anonymous-user]

Conversely my £1850 12 year old Mondeo has cost me one wheel bearing and two services in 18 months and nearly 20k miles.

That's the thing with older cars, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

[Integroo]

charltjr said:

Conversely my £1850 12 year old Mondeo has cost me one wheel bearing and two services in 18 months and nearly 20k miles.

That's the thing with older cars, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

It also depends what you want to drive. If you want to drive interesting or fast cars without a huge budget, the used market is the way to go. It seems the great lease and financing deals are all on the same old boring VAG products.

[J4CKO]

My update is that my Sons Astra cost me £300 in various useless attempts to get it running, we sold it for £700 as a non runner and he bought a 18 month old Fiesta ST.

My Merc did need a suspension pump, then for the MOT a tyre and the handbrake sorting, didnt have time to do it myself so £450 later i have a years MOT, suspension pump I did myself for £124 which is more reasonable, total spend so far this year is about £700.

Did try to sell the Merc but its hard going, you get interest but it is usually someone after something for nothing (How I got it if I am honest), if its not something super desirable, economical or under three grand, it is all the harder to sell cars privately, going to run the Merc another year.

Leasing and PCP deals arent as daft as some think they are, you are paying for it to not be your problem, just your transport, always under warranty, no suprise bills really and you dont have to sell it for peanuts when the wiring loom frays (eventual fault diagnosed by gleeful new owner of the Astra) its kind of saying you dont want the savings of an older car, but dont want the hassle, there are so many variables but overall, its just easier, but it does depends on whether you can really afford it.

[a]

charltjr said:

Conversely my £1850 12 year old Mondeo has cost me one wheel bearing and two services in 18 months and nearly 20k miles.

60+ MPG average? Pay anything for tax/MOT? Heated windscreen works perfectly? There are no issues that you've decided to "live with", rather than repair?

How much did it cost you to replace all six airbags now that they've expired?
(kidding)... I know they will still be working properly... but really you can't make a comparison between a <£2,000 12 year old car and a new one.

I know my lease car has never been poorly repaired after a crash. I don't need to budget for unexpected breakdowns. It didn't come to me with crappy cheap tyres that I had to replace (or take the risk of using). And it costs less annually than my previous 8 year old car...

[Integroo]

a said:

charltjr said:

Conversely my £1850 12 year old Mondeo has cost me one wheel bearing and two services in 18 months and nearly 20k miles.

60+ MPG average? Pay anything for tax/MOT? Heated windscreen works perfectly? There are no issues that you've decided to "live with", rather than repair?

How much did it cost you to replace all six airbags now that they've expired?
(kidding)... I know they will still be working properly... but really you can't make a comparison between a <£2,000 12 year old car and a new one.

I know my lease car has never been poorly repaired after a crash. I don't need to budget for unexpected breakdowns. It didn't come to me with crappy cheap tyres that I had to replace (or take the risk of using). And it costs less annually than my previous 8 year old car...

Yes but you're probably paying three to four grand a year for the privilege. Not a chance it costs that to run a twelve year old Mondeo.

[a]

Integroo said:

Yes but you're probably paying three to four grand a year for the privilege. Not a chance it costs that to run a twelve year old Mondeo.

Using combined official figures (for comparison, real figures will be much lower I know)... 12 year old base spec diesel Mondeo is 50.4mpg... New one is 78.5mpg.

Annual mileage of 10k means you'll pay around £800 extra in the 2005 car over 2 years.
2005 car will in all likelihood need 4 new tyres - £200.
Two MOTs - £100
Tax - £300
Depreciation - £500ish

Assuming ZERO maintenance costs (I have had 6 Mondeos and know how unlikely this is, but for the sake of argument...) - the 2005 car has £1,900 in costs that a brand new lease car will not.

But being realistic, from my experience it will be £1,000 on average for maintenance with a 12 year old Mondeo. charltjr is very lucky indeed to have had nothing other than a wheel bearing go wrong.

It's not as clear-cut as you'd think. Especially if you want a newer used car where depreciation is still £1k+ per year...

[mattwhite709]

Trying to sell my mk1 insignia 2.0 Turbo, 78k, fsh all vauxhall apart from the last. 11 months mot, sat nav, parking sensors, auto lights, cruise control, climate control, 19" alloys.

Had it for sale for £5k on a free listings website, an auction website and on a classifieds website. Only had 1 guy low ball me at the start and absolutley no other contact. I am wondering if the used car market is dead because Its been up for sale 1 month now.

[Integroo]

a said:

Integroo said:

Yes but you're probably paying three to four grand a year for the privilege. Not a chance it costs that to run a twelve year old Mondeo.

Using combined official figures (for comparison, real figures will be much lower I know)... 12 year old base spec diesel Mondeo is 50.4mpg... New one is 78.5mpg.

Annual mileage of 10k means you'll pay around £800 extra in the 2005 car over 2 years.
2005 car will in all likelihood need 4 new tyres - £200.
Two MOTs - £100
Tax - £300
Depreciation - £500ish

Assuming ZERO maintenance costs (I have had 6 Mondeos and know how unlikely this is, but for the sake of argument...) - the 2005 car has £1,900 in costs that a brand new lease car will not.

But being realistic, from my experience it will be £1,000 on average for maintenance with a 12 year old Mondeo. charltjr is very lucky indeed to have had nothing other than a wheel bearing go wrong.

It's not as clear-cut as you'd think. Especially if you want a newer used car where depreciation is still £1k+ per year...

1k seems remarkably high to shed a mondeo.

I'm also not fundamentally against leasing, but it is almost certainly more expensive.

I drive a 2014 Civic that I bought at over half list price with a manufacturing warranty and service plan. It equally won't go wrong for the first 2.5 years at least and unlikely after that, is modern, etc etc and is definitely cheaper over four years than leasing a new Civic

[tomic]

Integroo said:

a said:

Integroo said:

Yes but you're probably paying three to four grand a year for the privilege. Not a chance it costs that to run a twelve year old Mondeo.

Using combined official figures (for comparison, real figures will be much lower I know)... 12 year old base spec diesel Mondeo is 50.4mpg... New one is 78.5mpg.

Annual mileage of 10k means you'll pay around £800 extra in the 2005 car over 2 years.
2005 car will in all likelihood need 4 new tyres - £200.
Two MOTs - £100
Tax - £300
Depreciation - £500ish

Assuming ZERO maintenance costs (I have had 6 Mondeos and know how unlikely this is, but for the sake of argument...) - the 2005 car has £1,900 in costs that a brand new lease car will not.

But being realistic, from my experience it will be £1,000 on average for maintenance with a 12 year old Mondeo. charltjr is very lucky indeed to have had nothing other than a wheel bearing go wrong.

It's not as clear-cut as you'd think. Especially if you want a newer used car where depreciation is still £1k+ per year...

1k seems remarkably high to shed a mondeo.

I'm also not fundamentally against leasing, but it is almost certainly more expensive.

I drive a 2014 Civic that I bought at over half list price with a manufacturing warranty and service plan. It equally won't go wrong for the first 2.5 years at least and unlikely after that, is modern, etc etc and is definitely cheaper over four years than leasing a new Civic

I don't think a Diesel Mondeo is a good example of a shed. You've got a high likelihood of Fuel System and Clutch/DMF issues. Surely you're better off with a Japanese Petrol, especially if you're only doing 10k miles a year.

[Blown2CV]

horsest on the £1k base running costs for a mondeo.

I ran a 6 year old one into the ground from 50k miles to 150k miles and 5 years and it cost me around £500 on a couple of occasions when it let me down with known faults and then other years it cost servicing and that's it. On average £350 a year - just not in nice even amounts.

[havoc]

Possibly not representative, but I ran my second DC2 Integra as a daily for 6 years, from 7y.o. to 13y.o.

Non-routine maintenance* costs were almost zero until the last year or so of my ownership, when it needed:-
- new rear bearings (few hundred quid)
- new clutch (~£500 fitted)
- rust on rear arches sorting out (sold as was, quoted ~£700-1,000 to fix properly)

Otherwise the only ongoing items were:-
- rocker cover gasket soon after purchase (fitted myself, peanuts)
- 1x discs and 2x pads (again, not a lot - 282mm OEM Brembos were ~£50 each and full set of DS2500s was £100-150)
- a/c regas
- plugs


So vs a nearly-new car it needed ~£2k of work across 6 years. Depreciation (I sold at the bottom of the market ) was <£1k a year.


* i.e. every car needs servicing / tyres / MOT.

[a]

Blown2CV said:

horsest on the £1k base running costs for a mondeo.

I ran a 6 year old one into the ground

If anyone said that lease care are always cheaper, they were wrong. I definitely didn't say that.

Your needs were different from mine. I didn't want to run a car into the ground - I wanted something that would allow me/baby/dogs/wife to cover 10k miles per year in comfort and safety, and I knew how much money I had available and how long I wanted it to last.

I got an 8 year old Mondeo Tit-X Sport 2.2 estate with 50k miles and fsh. Over 8 months, it cost:
£50 on an aftermarket MAF sensor
£150 on a genuine MAF sensor (aftermarket one was crap)
£400 on decent tyres (the "Sunny" tyres it came with were new, but literally disintegrated after a few thousand miles!)
£350 on an exhaust
£280 for all wheels to be refurbed as they were leaking air
£130 on a leaky brake caliper
£100 on a hire car while it was in for repairs, because wife was 9 months pregnant and we couldn't be without a car
£100 for breakdown/recovery cover
£190 tax
£300 when a wheel arch started rusting due to a poor previous repair I didn't know about
£300 when the paint on a different panel started bubbling/peeling due to another poor scratch repair
£600 in lost value/depreciation
£100 for an audio upgrade as bluetooth streaming is essential for me

There were a few other things like a gummed up intake/EGR which I fixed myself and "only" cost time, and other things like central locking with a mind of its own that I simply ignored.

Oh and it only averaged 38mpg.

And the clutch/DMF was "iffy" when I sold it. You don't want to know what a clutch/DMF costs for a 2.2 Mondeo

So that's £3,050 on costs that my lease car will not incur, plus ~£400 per year difference in fuel.

I didn't get the cheapest lease car I could as I don't like low-spec cars... but I now have a car with a value of ~£24k for an amortised cost of £3,098 per year. The 8 year old Mondeo was £3,050 over 8 months. Maybe I had fixed everything and nothing would have gone wrong the following year... You never know... But I doubt it.

[Integroo]

a said:

Blown2CV said:

horsest on the £1k base running costs for a mondeo.

I ran a 6 year old one into the ground

If anyone said that lease care are always cheaper, they were wrong. I definitely didn't say that.

Your needs were different from mine. I didn't want to run a car into the ground - I wanted something that would allow me/baby/dogs/wife to cover 10k miles per year in comfort and safety, and I knew how much money I had available and how long I wanted it to last.

I got an 8 year old Mondeo Tit-X Sport 2.2 estate with 50k miles and fsh. Over 8 months, it cost:
£50 on an aftermarket MAF sensor
£150 on a genuine MAF sensor (aftermarket one was crap)
£400 on decent tyres (the "Sunny" tyres it came with were new, but literally disintegrated after a few thousand miles!)
£350 on an exhaust
£280 for all wheels to be refurbed as they were leaking air
£130 on a leaky brake caliper
£100 on a hire car while it was in for repairs, because wife was 9 months pregnant and we couldn't be without a car
£100 for breakdown/recovery cover
£190 tax
£300 when a wheel arch started rusting due to a poor previous repair I didn't know about
£300 when the paint on a different panel started bubbling/peeling due to another poor scratch repair
£600 in lost value/depreciation
£100 for an audio upgrade as bluetooth streaming is essential for me

There were a few other things like a gummed up intake/EGR which I fixed myself and "only" cost time, and other things like central locking with a mind of its own that I simply ignored.

Oh and it only averaged 38mpg.

And the clutch/DMF was "iffy" when I sold it. You don't want to know what a clutch/DMF costs for a 2.2 Mondeo

So that's £3,050 on costs that my lease car will not incur, plus ~£400 per year difference in fuel.

I didn't get the cheapest lease car I could as I don't like low-spec cars... but I now have a car with a value of ~£24k for an amortised cost of £3,098 per year. The 8 year old Mondeo was £3,050 over 8 months. Maybe I had fixed everything and nothing would have gone wrong the following year... You never know... But I doubt it.

It certainly isn't normal to spend over three grand keeping a used car on the road for eight months. Anecdotes are but anecdotes.

If leasing works for you, great. It just isn't cheaper than running an old car (unless you buy a bad car). My last car was fifteen years old and cost about three hundred quid to get through its MOT, and that was the only thing I paid in over a years driving (though at the end it did need some wheel bearings replaced which would have cost another couple of hundred quid, and two front tyres for 100).

[J4CKO]

My Merc has cost, compared to a lease, i.e. the bits I wouldtn have to pay for if I had a lease car, not including insurance and fuel,


2 * MOT £70
Handbrake repair £220 (had to get garage to do it)
5 tyres 550
Suspension pump £124 (Fitted myself)
Suspension bits £200
Engine bits £50 (Oil leak, fixed myself, would be much more expensive, say £300 at a garage)
Wheel refurb - £30 worth of rattles cans and masking tape
Wheel centres £15
Stereo upgrade -£100 (sold the old one for more than the new one cost)
Service £90
Tax £1040
Depreciation, Paid seven, worth five to six I reckon, lets say 5 (what WBAC will pay)

2 years, have cost £4239, thats with me doing the majority of the spannering.

So, £2,119 a year, £176 a month, admittedly its a pretty expensive car to run, it hasn't given much in the way of serious agro but has involved time on my behalf to do the various jobs, take it for MOT's etc, I think it would be nearer to maybe £230 a month if I hadnt done anything myself.

Can certainly see how, for the additional effort and the potential liability of it stting the bed spectacularly how a lease is compelling, say a Golf GTI for an amortized £260 a month, no skinned knuckles, no worrying about noises, no MOT messing, nice new car, no worrying about flogging it.

However, man maths is at work here, I could flog the big daft Merc and use out Citroen C1 if the money bothered me that much, £1.75 a month to tax, simple and bits are cheap, depreciation largely done.

Suppose you have to compare apples with apples, though tempting to flog the Merc and lease that GTI for three years if I am paying near enough that much anyway.

I think we forget the depreciation aspect on our own cars, I have managed some like my 350Z that I owned for 2 years and sold for what I bought for, but not this one and it only comes into focus when you are in the heat of battle and have decided on a new car, then you just have to get on with it and accept the PX offer or put up with all the folk after a bargain.

[a]

Integroo said:

My last car was fifteen years old

As above, how much did it cost you to replace the expired airbags?

It's silly to compare 15 year old cars with brand new ones. For people shopping at the upper end of the used car market (5 years and newer) and looking for reliability/modernity/economics over pure driving pleasure, lease cars often make more sense.

[Integroo]

a said:

Integroo said:

My last car was fifteen years old

As above, how much did it cost you to replace the expired airbags?

It's silly to compare 15 year old cars with brand new ones. For people shopping at the upper end of the used car market (5 years and newer) and looking for reliability/modernity/economics over pure driving pleasure, lease cars often make more sense.

My most recent car is two years old, bought used, comes with a warranty and service plan, and is much cheaper over four years than leasing, despite being reliable and modern. I mean yes, it isn't as nice as driving a brand new car, but it is likely to cost me half as much over that period. Including my financing costs, and taking into account residual value, it works out to around £138pcm - and if I kept it for longer, it would be considerably less. I'd be £250 new.

Edited by Integroo on Friday 21st July 15:32

[TheD]

My wife runs a Citroen Xsara VTS that is on a 51 plate. I bought it second hand 13 years ago. It costs me on average £250 a year on maintenance. Tax is high and petrol around 33mpg.

I have a Nissan terrano that I've had for 5 years now and it costs the same as the Citroen to run. Both don't do many miles to be fair but they are in good nick.

I also have a van for the dog and rubbish and it is a 51 plate. Runs like a dream and cost £500 5 years ago.

I was looking at getting the wife a nice leased car for around £200 a month but it just didn't add up and she likes the Citroen