Used car prices

[Onelasttime]

When I bought my Mazda 6 TS2 estate back in 2015 it was 6 years old, had approx. 55,000 miles on the clock, was in near-new condition and cost me £6.5k. That was from a Mazda dealer so probably £500-700 more than elsewhere, but it had full Mazda warranty for 12 months, full Mazda service history records and 12 months breakdown.

Sadly, this car has now gone to the big insurer write-off yard in the sky and I'm on the look out for a new used family motor. And this is where I'm struggling. To find a similar age and mileage car now, I'll need between £11-14k. I know I bought my car 8 years ago, but how have used cars nearly doubled in price since then? I get that Covid and supply issues hardened prices because of the lack of new cars coming through, but how much of that is in the prices I'm seeing now?

For my budget of about £9,500 I'm looking at cars 8-9 years old and with 60,000-80,000 miles on the clock. And then I'm struggling to find any within a reasonable traveling distance.

I've narrowed the choices down to Mazda 3 or Honda Civic. We need a hatchback small enough that my wife feels comfortable driving it, but big enough to carry four of us. It has to be reliable but also needs to have a bit of poke and driver interaction. The Mazda and Civic both seem to fit the bill. I wanted to avoid any VAG cars because of the faff of needing cambelts changed and turbo problems, but maybe I need to rethink? The Leon looks decent but again, prices are mad for 70,000 mile, 2014 examples.

Has anyone bought a used car lately? Is there any room to haggle still or is it a total seller's market? Does anyone have any insight if there's hope on the horizon for softer prices?

Luckily we have a battered old Jazz to get us through but I really need a proper motor by the summer. I've been looking for a month or so now, on and off, and some cars are still available with no reduction. Surely they want to get rid don't they?

And if anyone has any suggestions for where to look for used cars in London and surrounding I'd be grateful. I'm relying on Autotrader, eBay and Parkers.

[adrianw]

Haggling will never change, find out how much you can buy the car for elsewhere, tell the salesperson that’s your target, if he doesn’t offer what you want leave.

The car market has changed dramatically, people don’t seem to be interested in the headline price, just the monthly cost, cars seem to have doubled in price over the last few years, recently we bought our lease car, before going ahead we looked around at what we could get for the same money, we concluded that the price of everyday cars is nuts, they won’t fall until people stop buying them, there is no way that the lease companies are paying anything close to these prices, but the industry has managed to increase the perceived value of cars, so people think they are getting a deal.

[leo1790]

I've just scrapped my cmax for £400 (paid £700 for it over a year ago) and I can't get over how expensive 2nd hand cars are.
Paid £3k for '13 plate Berlingo multispace, 100k on the clock, decent condition, part history, 11 months mot. Broke my heart.
I hate buying cars but in my head £3k should get you something half decent, not a 10 year old Berlingo multispace.


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[ralphy]

IME, used car prices have certainly increased over the last few years, no doubt a signficant factor of the decline of new car sales since 2019. Demand for new diesel-engined cars has collapsed over the last decade so that has pushed up the value of used petrol-engined vehicles due to higher demand.

R

[Middo]

Haggling will never change, find out how much you can buy the car for elsewhere, tell the salesperson that’s your target, if he doesn’t offer what you want leave.

The car market has changed dramatically, people don’t seem to be interested in the headline price, just the monthly cost, cars seem to have doubled in price over the last few years, recently we bought our lease car, before going ahead we looked around at what we could get for the same money, we concluded that the price of everyday cars is nuts, they won’t fall until people stop buying them, there is no way that the lease companies are paying anything close to these prices, but the industry has managed to increase the perceived value of cars, so people think they are getting a deal.

This - It’s kind of like the mobile phone model. Not many people would stump up £1500 on top spec iPhone, however it’s fine when roped into a monthly contract that you just get used to paying.

Cars are all more complex, the days are gone of home repair for most people so the less hassle of all in fixed payment with a with motor on the drive is appealing.

Look at the younger generation theses days, fancy phone and car on the drive is the norm.

[Onelasttime]

So I'm not going mad. Jesus. I knew I should never have bothered to claim for the dented boot. What a waste of time, and it's costing me £6k to find a new car.

I keep wondering whether to cash in one of the watches to help us get a better motor, but then I'm loathe to spend even more on a car that I think is already overpriced, and will no doubt get dinged and scratched in the first week anyway.

We're stuffed then - bangernomics is a thing of the past

[lewie]

Something like this?
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-det...ssion=&fromsra

https://www.gumtree.com/p/mazda/mazd...ors/1456514593

[Passenger]

This - It’s kind of like the mobile phone model. Not many people would stump up £1500 on top spec iPhone, however it’s fine when roped into a monthly contract that you just get used to paying.

Cars are all more complex, the days are gone of home repair for most people so the less hassle of all in fixed payment with a with motor on the drive is appealing.

Look at the younger generation theses days, fancy phone and car on the drive is the norm.

Younger gen, fancy phone AND car on the drive, presumably still in the family home then!

[Christian]

I’ve been trying to put off buying a car for the last couple of years hoping that the market for used cars gets better. Back in 2019 I bought an 18-month old Fiesta with 20k miles on the clock for £7000 from Ford. Dread to think what I’d get for the same price now.

[swisstony]

Naively thought £4k would get the daughter a basic reliable runaround (based on the trade in value we got for a Suzuki Swift 3 years ago..)
Now having to look at £6k for a 10 year old car* with about 50k miles .....

*Using the TZ UK recommended small car list: Up!, Mii, Citigo, Yaris, Aygo, Fabia, i20, Polo, Ignis, Jazz, Civic

[TaketheCannoli]

It has gone crazy and has made my decision to keep mine for me. I bought it 2.5 years ago with 42k on the clock and five years old for £7K. The same dealer has the equivalent car in today (same engine and five years old) but with 58K on it for £12,500!

Mine's running great with no issues, I quite enjoy it and it still only has 66K on it.

[number2]

Younger gen, fancy phone AND car on the drive, presumably still in the family home then!skull:

I have tenants like that...

[Peter franks]

So I'm not going mad. Jesus. I knew I should never have bothered to claim for the dented boot. What a waste of time, and it's costing me £6k to find a new car.

I keep wondering whether to cash in one of the watches to help us get a better motor, but then I'm loathe to spend even more on a car that I think is already overpriced, and will no doubt get dinged and scratched in the first week anyway.

We're stuffed then - bangernomics is a thing of the past

Why didn't you buy it back?
My mazda 6 2011 has just been written off for a ridiculously small amount of damage.
They paid me out on and let me buy it back for salvage value of £800
For me it was a no brainer as to find a suitable replacement would have cost a lot more than they paid out on the car.

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[Passenger]

I have tenants like that...

As the average FTB age edges towards 40.

[RickChard]

The world of used car prices has gone crazy. The days of buying a well-priced 'banger' are long gone. I'm trying to get a basic car to throw bikes in and do tip runs, but I can't find anything under 10k!

[unclealec]

There you go mate; £3.5k. Fit loads of bikes and junk in there.



Anything else I can help you with?

[jjjamie]

I bought a used car last year and felt supremely ripped off. No choice.

I had a similar shopping list to you, I ended up going to Mex Cars in West London, they had a good selection for relatively decent price, I negotiated down by 5-10%.

As to when prices will soften, I suspect that's crystal ball territory - although I am not really an expert in the area.

[Onelasttime]

Something like this?
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-det...ssion=&fromsra

https://www.gumtree.com/p/mazda/mazd...ors/1456514593

Only a couple of grand over budget, but thanks.

That Gumtree ad is exactly my point. It's 5 years old, 53,000 miles and a perfect match for what I want, but it's also double the price I paid for an equivalent car 8 years ago. Well, not an exact equivalent because cars have improved over that time, but still way more than I was expecting.

[Onelasttime]

Why didn't you buy it back?
My mazda 6 2011 has just been written off for a ridiculously small amount of damage.
They paid me out on and let me buy it back for salvage value of £800
For me it was a no brainer as to find a suitable replacement would have cost a lot more than they paid out on the car.

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I thought about it, phoned a couple of insurers and they just wouldn't insure Cat N so I gave up. Plus, the price I got for it was actually pretty good considering the state of it and what I could have got privately or as trade in.

[Peck]

Yep, I needed a second hand car last year and quickly realised there was little room for negotiation. So I just found a decent example of the car I fancied and coughed up and forgot it. I’m lucky that a good friend of mine owns a great independent garage and I’ll just run it for as long as I can with him looking after it.

I use to love buying old bangers as a kid and tinkering with them and running them for a few months until they fell apart. Nigh on impossible these days (although not exclusively - the lad across the road from me runs a pretty old Clio and I heard the exhaust blowing yesterday which made me smile and bought back a few memories!)

[lewie]

8 years is a long time to draw comparisons in especially in the current market
I’m afraid that’s just the way the second hand car market is right now and I don’t think things will change
I’ve got a ‘15 fiesta and thought about something new - I paid £4500 I think 2.5 years ago- I’m pretty sure I’d easy
get that now for it but without paying another say £8k I’d not really be getting anything better

[deepreddave]

I think cars have been cheap here by comparison to other countries but I totally get the sentiment. I think I'll want to trade down soon as we're doing so few miles pa that I fancy something older/more interesting but aware that's not the prospect it was pre COVID.

I recall reading prices were possibly starting to soften so things might revert longer term...

[RobM]

Haggling will never change, find out how much you can buy the car for elsewhere, tell the salesperson that’s your target, if he doesn’t offer what you want leave.

The car market has changed dramatically, people don’t seem to be interested in the headline price, just the monthly cost, cars seem to have doubled in price over the last few years, recently we bought our lease car, before going ahead we looked around at what we could get for the same money, we concluded that the price of everyday cars is nuts, they won’t fall until people stop buying them, there is no way that the lease companies are paying anything close to these prices, but the industry has managed to increase the perceived value of cars, so people think they are getting a deal.

It is starting too, or at least, the outcome of trying is changing. Companies like Cazoo and their competition have fixed prices, Mercedes have instructed all their dealerships to sell at fixed prices, others are rumoured to be following as the 'direct to consumer' model becomes the norm.

I've always done what you said and have been prepared to walk away (often you don't get off the forecourt before the price drops), but it is becoming rarer, even if it's not totally dead yet.

[adigra]

Take your pick of reasons for this: Covid, Brexit, War in Ukraine, chip shortage, overall parts shortage, energy and raw material costs, labour costs, transport costs, EU and UK regulations making small cars uneconomical for manufacturers, electrification costing a lot and electric cars being much costlier, diesel going completely out of favour, looming ICE ban. Add to that increases in insurance premiums, combined with huge wait times for build slots and a lot of stock being directed towards bigger markets, etc., etc. all meaning used, reasonably priced, petrol family cars are in massive demand even as scrap/for parts.

There was talk of prices softening when various leases come to an end post Covid, but I think the only "bargains" to be had are in the large car sectors. If you want a 10 year old Bentley Flying Spur you're in luck!

[bloater]

As others have said looking for my daughter who has £3k to spend, what I can get for that is not what I want, now looking at £6-8k

Mind you just had a quote for the wife to replace her lease car and a like for like model has gone up over £100 per month over the three years we have had the current one.

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[Bigstam]

I recently bought a Mini Clubman after watching the market for 4 months. It felt like the Market was in stalemate, sellers expecting good money but sitting for sale for months at a time. When one came up at the “right” price they were gone in a day.

I am now in the market for another car and the same thing is happening, plenty of cars have been on my watch list for 12 plus weeks. Might be different in the sub 10k market though.

Ross

[adrianw]

Mind you just had a quote for the wife to replace her lease car and a like for like model has gone up over £100 per month over the three years we have had the current one.

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Surely that has more to do with interest rates than the cost of the cars

[hogthrob]

What is this forum coming to? MX-5.



I found this: Number of new car registrations (source: SMMT). Doesn't explain to me why pre-2020 cars have increased in price.

2022 1,614,063
2021 1,647,181
2020 1,632,064
2019 2,311,140
2018 2,367,147
2017 2,540,617
2016 2,692,786
2015 2,633,503
2014 2,476,435
2013 2,264,737
2012 2,044,609
2011 1,941,253

[Dave+63]

The pre 2020 sales were demand limited whilst the post 2020 were supply limited. So the last three years have seen a shortfall in supply of new cars of over 25%. People have therefore been keeping cars which would otherwise move into the used market thus causing a shortage of availability of used cars. Hence the increase in prices.

It’s just a natural consequence.

[Mick P]

Strange subject this. The UK used to suffer one of the highest levels of car value depreciation in the world. You would buy a brand new car in the certain knowledge that it would lose a quarter of its value within six months. People moaned their socks off about it in typical Brit moaning fashion. I actually always bought cars that were about 6 months old and on average paid about £8K below list price.

Today depreciation is now zero and people are moaning in true Brit fashion about that.

It's the same when house prices go up, the moaners moan, and when prices go down, the moaners moan.

We need to work out a formula that calculates how the rises should vary that will make everyone happy.

[mmgg1988]

Slightly different part of the market but my parents were looking at a Peugeot e-208 which amazingly for a tiny car, are about £32k new with a 6 month lead time.

However, looking around, there were several 2022 models with <5k miles for less than £23k and they ended up getting a 1 year old one with 2.5k miles for around £11.5k less than the equivalent new one so new car depreciation still exists in some sectors!

[Dave+63]

EVs seem to be taking a hit on the second hand market at the moment. Last time I looked at the EQC, they were at least £60k; I looked at one at my local MB dealership last week at £43k with an additional £3k deposit contribution, so £40k overall. It’s two and a half years old with 36,000 miles on the clock and was around £75k new with no discounts.

I was tempted but SWMBO didn’t like the colour!

[Scepticalist]

I think cars have been cheap here by comparison to other countries but I totally get the sentiment. .

This is really more to the point. Go try buying a near new car in Europe. Generally they are much pricer than UK has been historically. It seems to have gone full circle - in the 80s people used to buy RHD drive cars from Belgium/Netherlands because they were cheaper than UK dealers.

[JeremyO]

We bought our VW Up in 2017, new from VW dealer for £8250, Price now, were we to sell is over £5k. Thus it has cost us £500 pa in depreciation.

Bought my Golf 7 at the same time, through CarWow for £16k. Traded it in in March for £11.8k, cost us £700 pa in depreciation. Dealer had it on their website within two days at a smidge under £14.5k. When I looked again two days later it was gone.

I guess that’s just the way the market is at the moment.

[Kingstepper]

I think cars have been cheap here by comparison to other countries but I totally get the sentiment. I think I'll want to trade down soon as we're doing so few miles pa that I fancy something older/more interesting but aware that's not the prospect it was pre COVID.

I recall reading prices were possibly starting to soften so things might revert longer term...

I remember when you could save money buying and importing a UK spec car on the continent (think Holland was popular) even after tax, duty and various fees.

[hogthrob]

The pre 2020 sales were demand limited whilst the post 2020 were supply limited. So the last three years have seen a shortfall in supply of new cars of over 25%. People have therefore been keeping cars which would otherwise move into the used market thus causing a shortage of availability of used cars. Hence the increase in prices.

It’s just a natural consequence.

Oh I see. That explains it, thanks.

[kace]

We bought a 2014 peugeot 107 for £5k in 2017, now its 9 years old and we buy any car are quoting £3.5k for it. Which can't be far off what they'd have paid in 2017.

[NikGixer750]

I got the wife a 2nd hand car recently, the main thing I noticed is garages don't budge on the prices. I must have called 10+ garages all around the same price and I was ready to buy and not one offered even £1 discount, and most of the cars I watched sold within days.

[jaytip]

all meaning used, reasonably priced, petrol family cars are in massive demand even as scrap/for parts.

And yet, I offered a 2006 petrol Civic on here with full service history and in great condition for £1500 and it didn’t even get one response.

[unclealec]

And yet, I offered a 2006 petrol Civic on here with full service history and in great condition for £1500 and it didn’t even get one response.

Good point. A few rungs down the ladder, bangernomics is alive and well. Bargain basement (£500 - 1000ish) vehicles are still selling well but at practically giveaway prices. My 2-litre Mondeo estate (sub-100k miles with full service record) went for £1000.

[Dave+63]

And yet, I offered a 2006 petrol Civic on here with full service history and in great condition for £1500 and it didn’t even get one response.

To be fair though, this is a tiny marketplace in the scheme of things.

[Gareth-W]

EVs seem to be taking a hit on the second hand market at the moment. Last time I looked at the EQC, they were at least £60k; I looked at one at my local MB dealership last week at £43k with an additional £3k deposit contribution, so £40k overall. It’s two and a half years old with 36,000 miles on the clock and was around £75k new with no discounts.

I was tempted but SWMBO didn’t like the colour!

The Dec '22 to Jan '23 book drop for the MB EQC400 was over £6,000 Dave..........steer well clear!

[Dave+63]

The Dec '22 to Jan '23 book drop for the MB EQC400 was over £6,000 Dave..........steer well clear!

We’ve had the GLC from new in late 2018. It’s now done about 73,000 miles and will probably just keep running it until it dies.

I’ve also recently picked up a 2009 CLS350 just for a bit of fun.

[noTAGlove]

Anecdotals and other evidence on YouTube, that the higher end prestige and performance used car prices are now going in reverse.

https://youtu.be/VH0GAz8ceJU

https://youtu.be/Ogtqoto8cAs

[jonasy]

Is it not also because cars have not really followed other inflation the last 20-30 years? Another factor is the EV market now normalising prices 20k above what was normal for a family car just a few years ago.

I remember back in the 90s the latest Volvo estate was around 230k SEK here in Sweden, 5 years ago when dad shopped around you could pick a decent V90 on a campaign for 310k SEK. In 2007 he bought a 5 year old XC70 for 200k, last year I bought a similar spec’d 5 year old 3-series GT for 200k. In the meantime the housing market has gone ballistic and until recently almost 0 rates.

And I second the used market in the UK has historically been at a discount compared to the rest of EU. Think “kid in candy store” when I moved to the UK and all the cars I liked were now at 30-50% discount :D

Tldr; normalisation of the car market.

[dougair]

I bought my 2011 Octavia 1.4tsi nearly 8 years ago with 60k on the clock for £6990. An equivalent car in similar spec now (approx 4 years old and 60k miles) seems around double £13-14k!

[Dave+63]

I’ve recently started looking at second EVs rather than new ones and I’m amazed at how cheap some of the prestige brands EVs are at three or four years old. For example, three year old EQC at around £35k (£70k+ new), similar pricing on model X or Audi Etron.

The Jaguar ipace is the real bargain though, there’s quite a few in the £25k region, even one as low as £24k.

I’ve even seen a Polestar2 under £30k along with two year old Mach Es.

[xellos99]

Still drive the £2500 car i bought 10 years ago, never breaks down and passes every MOT very easily.

Used cars have gone up so stupidly that i could probably get most of my money back for it if i sold it now.

[Stuno1]

I’ve recently started looking at second EVs rather than new ones and I’m amazed at how cheap some of the prestige brands EVs are at three or four years old. For example, three year old EQC at around £35k (£70k+ new), similar pricing on model X or Audi Etron.

The Jaguar ipace is the real bargain though, there’s quite a few in the £25k region, even one as low as £24k.

I’ve even seen a Polestar2 under £30k along with two year old Mach Es.

With the EU giving the ok for combustion engine production indefinitely as long as it is using carbon neutral fuels a new race has begun! I hope we eventually see such fuels at the pumps. I imagine this will impact electric car pricing at some stage. There are even rumours of merc re introducing the v8 to the c63.

[Michael 38]

I bought my 2011 Octavia 1.4tsi nearly 8 years ago with 60k on the clock for £6990. An equivalent car in similar spec now (approx 4 years old and 60k miles) seems around double £13-14k!

The price of similar age and mileage Volvo xc 60s seems to gone up 5k since I bought mine 2 years ago