Car Scrappage just announced [MERGED]

maninthestreet

Anyone who thought the £2,000 scrappage allowance was money for virtually nothing were kidding themselves.

Ling_Valentine

My view is that you should do your deal on a new car, get to a final price and then say "by the way, I have a car for scrappage", claiming the further £1,000 taxpayer and further £1,000 manufacturer subsidy.

If not, then the scheme is absolutely worthless. The scheme was designed by the Treasury/BERR to stimulate new vehicle demand. How can demand be stimulated if the subsidy is simply replacing discounts that are available anyway? If that is the case, then it is a nonsense.

However, my point is that by manufacturers offering £1,000 tax pounds in a deal, but offering no new contribution themselves, the taxpayer is being raped. It is one-sided. This is designed to benefit the whole industry, not increase profits for FIAT (for example) back in Italy.

Manufacturers are free to decide whether to join the scheme, or not. But, if they join in order to benefit, surely they have some cost?

Armengar

This is a tale to show you how stupid the scrappage scheme is. My 1999 T reg focus is going to be replaced. I cannot fit 3 child seats (following a 'twin' new arrival) and a double buggy in the car with the shopping (not without stuffing the footwells anyway). So we have decided on a ford SMax as we have always bought fords - for our sins - and the CMax was not quite large enough and for the price a modeo estate is about the same.

The focus is a good runner, a few dents and scratches - well used but reliable. It is only a 1.6 with 159g/km.

Now then. Ford have declared a scrappage of £2000 and a further discount of £2500 off the list price of an SMax basic petrol model (without any haggling yet) so it will be £14690. A quick check on brokers such as drivethedeal etc has given me a price of about £800 less. So I plan on going to the dealer and haggling freebee optional extras (that I actually want and roughly coming to the £800 difference) for the 14690 prefering to at least give the local guy a fair crack of the whip before going to an internet broker.

The kicker? The petrol model is 194 g/km and using my excel skills I have calculated my running costs over 4 years including tax, fuel, estimated running costs etc and worked out that the petrol is cheaper than the diesel for me to run. So I will be scrapping a car for a more polluting model. Does this brand me a bad person?

Armengar

There are still bottom lines Ling. If you have negotiated a hard price to £15000 (lets say 5% profit for the dealer) they arent going to suddenly drop another £1000 are they? The scheme isnt worthless as I have just explained in my other post. Ford are offering a total of £4500 off the price of a car I want. A look at the best brokers out there showed that this price was only £800 off a brokers price which is an excellent starting point. I might even be able to haggle with the brokers choice to "add a £1000 and drop £2000" thus using a scrappage car to my advantage.

reduceditem

Armengar wrote: »

The kicker? The petrol model is 194 g/km and using my excel skills I have calculated my running costs over 4 years including tax, fuel, estimated running costs etc and worked out that the petrol is cheaper than the diesel for me to run. So I will be scrapping a car for a more polluting model. Does this brand me a bad person?

No, you are not a bad person. But this is a terrible policy. The most pollution a car creates in it's life is when it is built and when it is scrapped. The goverment is encouraging consumerism, which is their perogative....but it is a disgrace that they dress this policy in green clothes. Ludicrous.

molerat

Anyone who thought this was anything other than just another Brown & Darling smoke and mirrors trick is obviously very naive.

Ling_Valentine

Well, the deal was: the taxpayer puts in £1000 and the manufacturer puts in £1000.

Except, the taxpayer is putting in £1000 and the manufacturer is putting in nothing new.

This scrappage £1000 is a subsidy from the manufacturer, not the dealer. Manufacturers decide whether to join, not dealers.

Hintza

I think most of us knew this would be the case and I can understand your point of view, but there are other factors to consider.

1. You are assuming they are currently making a profit (debatable)

2. The value of the £ has dropped by 25% against the Euro so the car should be 25% more expensive in the UK than a year ago, which it isn't.

Armengar

not true! Both the dealers and manufacturers contribute. The manufacturer processes the paperwork - this is not free. The dealer has the margins and needs to work within them.

As I said before, a dealer cannot simply "find" an extra £1000. You work in the motor industry and understand margins, most cars are sold with %20 margins without haggling (plus profit on finance), hard bargains are down to %5 maybe 3% if they take finance. There simply isnt room to find that extra £1000 for all people. List prices have also risen the past few months anyway so the scrappage scheme is masking a general rise.

Armengar

The irony was, I was considering a second hand zafira but on the balance I estimate an SMax would retain its value and depeciate at the same rate as a second hand 3 year zafira! (based on my second hand searches of motorpoint etc) The zafira was circa 160g/km too therefore evidence on scrappage helping me ignore the second hand market...