Buying a new car

Bawdy

Is now a good time to be buying a new car at the price offered by dealers or are prices likely to reduce in the near future as a result of excess stock in compounds during Corona virus lockdown?

AdrianC

Are they? All the factories are closed. When dealers re-open, there's a big backlog of cars waiting collection from PCPs/leases etc which people will want to replace.

BTW, we did this all last week, but they seem to have broken the forum indexing again.
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6141271/new-car-prices-after-lockdown

neilmcl

Let me dust off my crystal ball.

Kattekwaad

OP do you know if the price being offered by dealers is a good price or not taking in to account the prices before lockdown?

If you don't know the answer to that then you won't know whether it will be a good deal or not.

[Deleted User]

Best thing to do is call some dealers and see what discounts are available, or try CarWow.

Petriix

I've been keeping a bit of an eye on a certain segment of the EV market (which I appreciate is not necessarily congruent with the overall new car market). Manufacturers seem to have started building and shipping them again and dealers are getting in touch with people to arrange delivery of vehicles which have been in limbo for the past couple of months. Prices do not seem to be as low now as they were in March. Part of that is the reduction of the grant by £500 but also the 0% and dealer contribution PCP deals seem to have ended and not been replaced during lockdown.

I would expect some hefty discounts to start appearing over the next few weeks as dealers get back up and running and try to get the cash flowing again. There will have been a lot of cancelled orders as people reassess their finances, but there will also be a backlog of orders for dealers to clear before they might start pushing for new business. I expect that incentives and discounts will get better over the next few months as people tighten their purse-strings in the economic aftermath of the pandemic; many people have lost their jobs and the reality will take a while to ripple out.

Jonesya

If you believe prices are going to fall then now is probably a bad time to buy because it will take a few months at a minimum for manufacturers and dealers to get to the point where they start cutting prices.

They are not going to be in any rush to cut prices and will do so only when they must, which means cars piling up unsold at the dealers, at the auctions and car factories running short of orders. That will take some time. It's a slow moving market, not like oil or commodities where demand drops and prices plunge within a few days.

[Deleted User]

Some dealerships will be opening on the 1st so if you can wait until then you might find some bargains.

Then again apparently people have more disposable income now due to staying at home for so long, not commuting or going out, only shopping for essentials... So who knows, there will be winners like that and losers who lost their jobs.