Congratulations! That’s the least I can say in recognition of your good taste and intelligence in choosing to buy this magazine. It means you realise that depreciation is the most expensive word in the English language and that buying a brand new car is incredibly stupid.
We all still live in rip-off Britain and if you don’t believe me, just take a look at car prices over here and somewhere else, like America. A colleague has just pointed out to me that the brand new Volkswagen Tiguan, a cute little off-roader which is built in Europe will cost $22,490 Stateside in standard trim with a 2.0 litre engine. In beautiful British pounds that’s £11,037 as I type. Yet a broadly similar specified model in Blighty will cost pretty much double that at £22,870. Gulp. And of course, VW have had to put the Tiguan on a boat and everything to get it there.
So now you can point and laugh at everyone who leaves a new car showroom, because not only have they been ripped off on the new price, depreciation then kicks in. Even the most desirable motors will lose pretty much half their real value over the next three to five years. You should know all this by studying the depreciation figures in this mag and you may also pick up on the fact that depreciation doesn’t gather speed, it goes all slow motion. And in certain special cases it may even stop all together.
Imagine for a moment my huge smugness when I stopped adjacent to a used car lot and spotted the identical P plated Saab on sale for the same price I paid over two years ago. Of course I had paid pretty much trade price and here was a dealer trying to get as much as possible on their forecourt. It was still remarkable as Saabs are not known for their ability to defy the gravitational pull of depreciation. Here’s the proof then that even you pay a few grand for an older car you stand a reasonable chance of getting a fair amount of that back.
So what’s the secret? Well it certainly helps if you look after the car and that doesn’t mean you have to treat it to health farm breaks, manicures and bunches of flowers. No, just deal with any maintenance issues as they arise and clean it occasionally. Provided your car is capable of getting a full year of MOT and that’s how you sell it, then you have instant buyer appeal. In fact when it comes to choosing a car buyer appeal is absolutely everything.
The obvious is to go for the sort of sports and convertible cars that are always in demand. There may seemingly be millions of MX5s in circulation, but the demand for clean and tidy ones seems almost never ending whatever the time of year. Badge is important, but reputation is far more important and it is all about having the right model for the right job. Land Rovers do what they say on the aluminium tin, especially the older loveable Defenders. They always reach a point at which they will never depreciate and provided proper servicing and repairs take place may even appreciate in the future. Getting your money back has never been easier.
Small hatches are what everyone wants, especially first time drivers. These are the hardest to buy and easiest to sell. A £1000 Fiesta will always be a £1000 Fiesta providing it is tidy and MOTable. At worst the loss can be measured in a few hundred pounds which over the course of a year or two doesn’t really matter.
You’ll struggle with car brands that no one is very familiar with (old Hyundai and Kias) and impractical vehicle formats such as saloons. Those cars need to be dirt cheap in the first place to make any sense. Big petrol engines are very bad news at the moment of course, but a boring car will struggle whereas something that is a little bit sexy, like a Jag, can be special case providing it is the right dark metallic colour and leathered up spec. And for goodness sake don’t be tempted by a used car with ‘issues.’ Unless that is, you know exactly what those issues are and can get them ‘costed’ by your friendly local garage. You then have to convince the buyer to reduce the price by that amount and not all of them are that co-operative.
So to recap, buy a clean practical vehicle for the least amount you dare, keep it neat and tidy and MOT-able and when you sell it will be a simple case of: “Congratulations, you have beaten the system.
Words: James Ruppert