Buy a used car now or wait?

Lemoncurd

We're going round in circles over whether to buy a new (used) car now or leave it a bit. I'd welcome a few other points of view or opinions on the merits of buying now or leaving it a bit.

We need a different car by January and decided to get one in December.
OH has been looking now and is keen to get one we have just seen, it seems to be very well priced compared with all the others we have looked at and looks in excellent condition. ...but it will be harder to get the money together now as it would mean taking money out of cash ISA's which we'd rather not do, the car also has a few less nice to have but non essential features that we had been looking for. We don't <need> the new car yet.

I'm convinced that as the new reg cars are coming out this week there will be more used cars on the market (we are looking at 07 or 57 reg cars) so we will have more choice and the prices might come down a bit in the next month or two. Is this still true of the market or have things changed since the new registration system was introduced?

Another factor in our decision is that we plan to sell our current car privately (dealers were offering about £1.5 - 2k less than the car price guides suggest for our car) and it is due an MOT and Tax at the end of Oct. Would it be easier to sell and get a good price after the MOT. What difference does remaining tax make to a sale? we could do the MOT at the beginning of Oct and then hope to sell before the tax runs out.

oldagetraveller

There will be a bigger choice soon with all those trade ins because of the registration change so I'd wait a while, even a couple of months.
You're not desperate so keep the ISAs and their tax advantage. You'll maybe get a bit less for the car you're selling but possibly save more than the loss in what you gain with a cheaper "new" car. The dealers will be more desperate to sell mid registration change too.

logana

The best time of year to buy a second-hand car is just before Xmas - mid December. Strangely enough no-one is thinking about buying cars then and dealers are very keen to shift stock. I would guess that this year will be worse than normal and if you are a cash buyer with no trade-in then you will get a good deal....

Get your current car MOT'd in October (you can MOT up to 1 month in advance of the due date and the 12 months is added to the expiry date - so if you do it at the right time you can have 13 months MOT so even if it takes a month to sell it will still have 12 months MOT) and then advertise it - 6 months tax will be fine but the new MOT will help to sell it.

Lemoncurd

logana wrote: »

The best time of year to buy a second-hand car is just before Xmas - mid December. Strangely enough no-one is thinking about buying cars then and dealers are very keen to shift stock. I would guess that this year will be worse than normal and if you are a cash buyer with no trade-in then you will get a good deal....

This certainly ties in with our past experience of trying to sell our last car in December!

in51der

Lemoncurd wrote: »

We're going round in circles over whether to buy a new (used) car now or leave it a bit. I'd welcome a few other points of view or opinions on the merits of buying now or leaving it a bit.

We need a different car by January and decided to get one in December.
OH has been looking now and is keen to get one we have just seen, it seems to be very well priced compared with all the others we have looked at and looks in excellent condition. ...but it will be harder to get the money together now as it would mean taking money out of cash ISA's which we'd rather not do, the car also has a few less nice to have but non essential features that we had been looking for. We don't <need> the new car yet.

I'm convinced that as the new reg cars are coming out this week there will be more used cars on the market (we are looking at 07 or 57 reg cars) so we will have more choice and the prices might come down a bit in the next month or two. Is this still true of the market or have things changed since the new registration system was introduced?

Another factor in our decision is that we plan to sell our current car privately (dealers were offering about £1.5 - 2k less than the car price guides suggest for our car) and it is due an MOT and Tax at the end of Oct. Would it be easier to sell and get a good price after the MOT. What difference does remaining tax make to a sale? we could do the MOT at the beginning of Oct and then hope to sell before the tax runs out.

I would suggest that the situation in the trade will not get any easier for dealers in the foreseeable future, however they need to keep trading and moving stock which will ultimately mean great potential deals for consumers, ordinarily I would suggest going for the used/nearly new option but there will be some great manufacturer driven offers through sept/oct, at the same time i always think that coming up to xmas is also a great time to buy with lots of pre-reg (cars registered to the dealer but with delivery miles on them) deals about, sometimes meaning savings of up to 30%.If you are not in a hurry I don’t think you will suffer by waiting if anything the deals will only get better as oct/nov/dec are traditionally the harder months in the business and even more so in the current economical climate.
With regards to your current car, as much as you can do to market your car effectively the better, so long mot, some tax, good history, tyres with at least 4mm are all good selling points, keep the car clean and have it polished if you always keep in mind when you are trying to sell it what would convince you to buy it. You are making the right decision selling privately because the situation in the trade is that dealers don’t really know what a car is worth when being traded in so through fear of making a mistake they value the car at its very lowest to avoid not being able to sell on hence why you are being offered £1500 less than guide prices. Good luck and i hope this helps