Buying a brand new car - unknown territory

atrixblue.-MFR-.

i would certainly look at the kia, used approved ones are about £3-4k cheaper with low miles and retain the7 year warranty, the cee'd comes in a few forms and the ones fitted with stop start technology have £45 a year road tax and produce good MPG.

failing that look at toyota, honda and nissan, mitsubishi, fords.

property.advert

As I think you are doing, you have to add in all the costs, not just the purchase price.

So apart from buying it you have fuel, service, tax and insurance. Also look at tyres. I remember someone remarking that the tyres on a Metro were around £60 each (donkeys years ago) when others of a similar size were £25 or so.

Chuck it all in a spreadsheet so that you can enter multiple cars and purchase costs. Add in any financing charges and the likely residual value and you get the true cost of running the vehicle over any particular time period (set spreadsheet for 1 to 10 years for instance).

But you do have to factor in items like comfort, safety, security etc. and only you know how much these matter. What a spreadsheet allows you to do is to see an accurate cost of driving a nicer car versus a cheaper variant. Until you do the maths, you only know that it will cost more but you cannot decide whether it is worth it because you don't actually know how much more it would cost.

arrowsmith

I'd for a Kia Picanto or Hyundai i10, both are excellent. The C1, 107 Aygo are okay but far from the most reliable vehicle Toyota ever built.

Test drive the cars you like the look of and once you've chosen look on auto trader. Do a search for the whole country and see who's doing good prices, take a look at their web site, usually cheaper dealers will have a couple of sites. One manufacturer branded one and another made by themselves, which will show the keen prices.

Brokers are good but don't always have the cheapest prices, keen dealers usually do.

I'd not be worried about depreciation when comparing brand to brand, they'll all be worthless after 10 years. To minimise the overll depreciation, pay as little in the first place for any car. The cars that lose the least in percentage terms (VW, BMW), actually lose the most in cash terms (although the motoring press fail to mention this in car reviews).

Wig

Before you commit yourself........ and once you have looked at the What car expected rates - I haven't seen those figures so my first question would be do they give figures based on a finance deal or a cash deal or both?

But I digress,....... and you have been to start your haggling process and so you know roughly what sort of a deal you're going to get and you say "I'll think about it" and you get up and walk away...

Then come back here and ask for some auction prices for the same car..... that is 1 or 2 years old

The following 2 examples are virtually brand new

'61 Aygo 1.0 VVT-I ICE, manual, Registration date Oct 2011, 2500 miles, Price new £10,050,
You're looking at £7000 bid price + commision (you'll have to phone BCA to ask how much commision is but I think it will be about £500)
This particular car has a few scratches, which could help to lower the sale price.

There is also this one
TOYOTA IQ 1.0 VVT-I 2 Hatchback WHITE PEARL, 3 doors,
Manual Transmission, Petrol, 1547 miles, Warranted, VAT Type: Marginal
MT61 DXO , Registration Date 29/11/2011,
New: £ 11,420
Ret: £ 9,450
Cln: £ 8,200 So you'd be looking at a bid of about £8,200 plus £500 commission

Equally you should also look to see what is available on auto trader for example....this is a '60 the auction one is a '61 for less money
http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201204444167405/

macman

The WC Target prices are based on either cash or finance. It should make no difference if you hold your ground.
Always agree the discounted cash price before you even mention finance or trade in values. If you don't, the finance or trade in price will be manipulated to recover a large chunk of the discount.
if you don't like haggling (though it's great to watch car salesman squirm), use a broker, where you will get a firm price below the WC target price.