Will used car prices ever come down?

sheslookinhot

There are as many used cars on the market now than there was pre-Covid. Most car showrooms / car lots are as full today as pre 2020. Used car prices will come down.

Grumpy_chap

force_ten1 said:

the used car prices will never come down to what they were pre Covid 

the new car prices have risen by around 26% and are going to keep going up due to inflation. and used cars will remain high to reflect the higher price of the new cars   

from march 2020 the lease car market ground to a halt and for nearly six months hardly any lease cars were registered. and then numbers were very low for the next six months. the 2020 lease cars would be coming back off lease this month but they aren't out there and that applies right up to march 2024. so the big hole in the numbers of 2020 lease cars is going to skew the market for at least another year 

What is the controlling factor for used car prices?

The number of car sold three years ago, as per that analysis?  It has some logic as set out, but it may not be wholly correct.

OR, the number of new cars sold currently?  If the number of new cars sold increases, the supply of used cars increases and the price of used cars falls.  The low supply form three years ago might mean that the used cars being released are a year older than had the supply of new cars not been halted three years ago, but still the number of cars are released to the market.

diystarter7

sheslookinhot said:

There are as many used cars on the market now than there was pre-Covid. Most car showrooms / car lots are as full today as pre 2020. Used car prices will come down.

Hi

I've noted that too.
Importantly, cars rrp at more than 40k, you pay additional road tax
https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-tax-rate-tables

This will also impact resale values

A buyers market for most used cars esepcially the more expensive EV's

Thnaks

movilogo

Price depends on supply and demand.

After the pandemic, the supply of new cars were severely restricted. This pushed prices up. But then many consumers refused to pay those high prices (unless forced like cars written off etc.). This led to fewer cars coming to market due to p/x. So the volume of transactions went down. Dealers wanted to keep revenue at same level, so they wanted to recover the money from fewer sales, pushing individual car prices further up. 

There will be a time when buyers will refuse to pay inflated price and supply of stock will improving due to manufacturers ramping up production.

At this stage the prices should come down. If you look at AutoTrader, you will see that lots of 1-2 year old cars are lying over 6+ months on dealers' forecourt. Typically if you check the AutoTrader URL for any cars, the format is YYYYMMDD.

For example, a random listing

autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202212102422721

means this car was listed on 2022-Dec-10

Grumpy_chap

movilogo said:

For example, a random listing

autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202212102422721

means this car was listed on 2022-Dec-10

That car does not deserve to sell - the trader does not even know whether they are selling a RAV 4 as per the headline and photo or a CH-R as per the descriptive text 

jimjames

Herzlos said:

force_ten1 said:

the used car prices will never come down to what they were pre Covid 

the new car prices have risen by around 26% and are going to keep going up due to inflation. and used cars will remain high to reflect the higher price of the new cars   

from march 2020 the lease car market ground to a halt and for nearly six months hardly any lease cars were registered. and then numbers were very low for the next six months. the 2020 lease cars would be coming back off lease this month but they aren't out there and that applies right up to march 2024. so the big hole in the numbers of 2020 lease cars is going to skew the market for at least another year 

Couple that with the people who aren't changing cars out of choice; the ones that always change at x years but for financial reasons are holding onto it for longer, and that'll skew the age/availability of cars on the market.

I think there's also an element of people realising that older cars are still pretty good vehicles combined with the cost of living issues that paying for PCP makes no sense when they can get a decent car that's a few years old but still got good spec

Johnmcl7

I have a 2011 Mazda that started received MOT advisories for corrosion on the sub frame and the mechanic thought I'd get another couple of years out of it before I'd need to scrap it but that was five years ago and it's just past its MOT with the same advisories so looking fine.  It has needed some work in between to repair corrosion on the brake lines but it hasn't been particularly expensive.

I almost replaced it back in February 2020 as I looked at an 18 month old car with 10,000 miles for £17,500, similar ones are around £25,000 at the moment.  I'm planning to keep running it and if it is needing bigger repair work I'll weight that against the cost of replacing the car at the time.