Should I wait to buy a used car?

Wolff

I have an old 2001 Peugeot 206 hand-me-down. I was intending to buy my own car after a couple years of driving. I was looking to get one a few years old 2015ish onwards with moderate mileage in a nice blue colour. I'd been looking to spend about £5k.

However, as everyone knows the prices of used cars have shot up. My housemate bought his 2015 Toyota Yaris for 5k two years ago. Those cars now go for 6.5k+ despite having aged two years since then.

I was looking at the Skoda Fabia which have also shot up by a grand or two in the past few months alone it seems since I started looking.

My Peugeot is going into the garage every month or two now, and I'm so ready to get my own one. I'm just reluctant to spend so much money on it, especially since I could have got it for cheaper even a few months ago, and perhaps more so I'm concerned about buying a car now only for the prices to shoot back down in a few months.

Hence I'm looking for opinions from people who are perhaps a bit more familiar with the used car market than me.

Would it make sense to cut my losses and buy a used car now (with an expectation prices will continue to increase) or should I hold out until my Peugeot dies (with an expectation that prices will have fallen back to normal levels)?

tacpot12

My guess is that the current high prices will continue indefinitely, prices are not going to return to "normal levels"; there is now a new "normal". While prices have gone up, I don't think they will rise much further; not enough to make it worth buying a used car now if your current car is still going. 

Ectophile

My guess is that there will be a shortage of good used cars for a year or two, rippling down from the COVID effect on new car sales.  You can only have nearly new cars for sale if new cars were being sold a couple of years ago.

So if you're going to wait, you may have to wait for a couple of years.

I want to replace my 12 year-old car.  But I'm not prepared to pay over the odds to choose between the limited number of cars available.

twopenny

I've always had used cars. It takes some time and research to get a good buy.

I'm finding that currently there is little to none on the market offering value for money. People have largely been stuck at home and not using their cars. Now it's all about contacting family and getting out and about so selling and buying of cars is low on the list of what comes next.

I believe it will start to trickle in next late spring if things remain with us out and about.

Mine was registered 2000 and done 45,000mls with a complete service every year. I got it for £325 because they'd made a mess of mending a couple of scratches on the wheel arches. It took a couple of saturdays to clean it off and respray with a can of paint.

I've seen one similar but newer, 2014 and it was £2,000.

Keep watching your local dealers and anything that takes your fancy check on the MOT.gov site to see what the problems if any, are to see if it's worth the money.