Price of cars

[Plantlifeonmars]

What on earth has happened to the price of cars? I know everything has gone up but this is insane. I bought a brand new small car for about £10k in Feb 2020 which I needed for work but it wiped out my savings. The same make is now £18k. It's just a very basic small car (similar to Corsa). A slightly bigger car is £24k. That's a years take home pay. It's a house deposit price. Crazy. Way above inflation. Even second hand cars are crazy prices. How do people afford them anymore? It's worrying me as I currently have no scope to save anything so how will I afford a new/second hand car when I need to replace mine? I need a car for work and have to travel to different places, some of which wouldn't be possible on public transport e.g. I had to travel 70 miles to a meeting last week. It took me 2 hours there and 2 hours back due to traffic. Due to awful public transport in this area it would have taken over 4 hours on public transport (and the same back again) and would have involved a walk, a bus ride, a train, a bus and another walk all for an hour long meeting.

I don't need to replace my car yet but I will need to at some point but how on earth do people do it?

I bought a 1 year old car in 2016 for £5000 and my car 6 1/2 years later would sell for £6.5k.

I'm hoping it is going to last a while!

I drive an 08 plate Astra (will be 15 years old later this year) and expect to get at least another 2/3 years out of it

Not quite sure why you're worrying when you own a new car? We've just bought a used 2021 Kia hybrid £20k - took our a bank loan. Only option really!

Second hand prices are high too, dd has been offered more part ex than she paid 3 years ago! My car is worth more than I paid for it too

Get a Tesla

Used Tesla prices continue to tank in January as experts assess big impact of new price drop

cardealermagazine.co.uk/publish/used-tesla-prices-continue-to-tank-in-january-as-experts-assess-big-impact-of-new-price-drop/277749

It's batshit. I bought my car park reg 10.5 years ago for under 7k, a dealer wants 5/6k for a second hand one the same age as mine with similar mileage! A new one is around 17k now.

Pre reg, not park reg!

How do people do it? If they can't pay cash, it's finance/leasing. There are boatloads of couples paying £300 each a month to VW.

We've been looking for a used car for over a year now we need a 7 seater and are looking at spending up to £14k. We have savings to buy outright
Prices are crazy though and aren't coming down at all!
Our main car is 13 years old now and we bought it for about £4k 4 years ago which was an absolute bargain and was immaculate. We put it through its MOT last week and it passed with no issues so we're hanging fire for a bit longer

I was wondering this too - particulalry as its not far of no more petrol and diesel cars being made and electric are still expensive. I wonder if actually owning car will become rarer and people will just rent cars of different ages depending in their budget.

Well, this is my aim too. This is why I'm bit confused about post how long I think my car is going to last. I paid 2.5 grand to fix it, considering I want to keep it 5/6 more years, it's £500 per year, better than car finance given my current car is perfectly fine. It has all features etc. Never let us down. We knew this repair will come, it's not like one day we couldn't start the car and go to work- it's more like manufacturers fault (they fixed it from 2015 or 2016, ours is 2014) we knew we will have to fix. I think most cars could be kept 10 years or even more. We don't need new car every 3 years, it's a bit of waste isn't it.

Perfect storm. DH works in car industry, sounds like covid causing production issues, war blocking routes and well brexit, the microchips and parts for new vehicles have been non existent. we’ve waited over a year for a new car order through his work. He’s also got people waiting months and months for part to fix their cars.

This has then caused high demand for used/nearly new vehicles which has driven the price up.

Good news is from what he’s hearing with inflation and borrowing costs increasing, and the part flow starting to move they’re expecting prices to start coming back down cause demand is lowering again. Not sure how quickly or by how much though.

The scrappage grant of 2k to buy a ULEZ compliant car seems pretty pointless. Its not going to go very far

And that's if your car qualifies for it in the first place!

DH is now in the third year of waiting fir a new van he ordered in March 2020!

Because it's already over 3 years old and it will take me years to save. Loan not an option as I couldn't afford the repayments. I can put aside about £50 per month but that's not going to get me a loan. I know people think I'm daft worrying now but it's genuinely going to take years to save so I have to think about these things.

don't think a 15 year old car would be reliable

Of course it would be, if you maintain it appropriately. There are plenty of 07 reg cars on the road. Virtually every bit of a car can be replaced.

We've always found older cars more reliable. I got an approved used car that was 3 years old and had an issue with it within a year - because of the warranty criteria it had to be seen by the dealership, with a waiting list of 5 weeks to even be seen.

By contrast, our second car is 10 years old and was less than £4000; it's been much more reliable. I wish I'd stuck with doing it that way.

My car is 15 years old, it's getting pretty temperamental. In the last few years I've definitely paid more in repairs than it's actually worth

Completely agree OP. Even second hand car prices are shocking. I bought my car (66 plate, 14k miles) for £11k in 2019. I was considering selling it at the end of last year, and was told by my BIL (whose a mechanic) that I could easily get £9-10k for it. Looking through autotrader, I believe he's right.

DH drives a 58 reg Volkswagen and he’s planning on keeping it for another 2/3 years… no major problems with the car except his brake pads need changing. He drives about 15,000 miles a year & has about 110,000 miles on the clock.

I drove a Corsa until I recently changed (just wanted a new car as I was fed up with having two doors) which wasn’t much younger and I used to do about 12,000 miles a year and it has never failed its MOT. I think your car will be fine another 10-15 years.

Look at leasing instead for a few years could be one option
There are still some good deals out there which cost less than depreciation over 3-4 years (& although prices are crazy now they won't always be)

Stop worrying. You’ve got at LEAST a decade before you have to worry about needing a new car. My car is 17 years old and only just needing to be replaced. I’ve had it about 10 years and done over 100k miles in it, including weekly work trips from London to Manchester. Finish the repayments then keep paying the amount into a savings account for a future deposit?

We have a 2006 mazda - still going strong and we've never had to spend much on it. We got it when my eldest was born, and we're hoping it will keep going long enough for him to learn to drive in it!

Avoid purchasing a car if you can, as prices are about to drop substantially due to affordability (just like houses). New cars make no financial sense, especially if you finance them. Depreciation is a killer. With interest rates increasing, financing a depreciating asset is madness. It's quite hilarious that so many people with low net worth try to impress their neighbours with financed flashy cars when their pension pot is so low that they are likely spend 30 years in poverty during their retirement. The insanity of the masses.