Car Depreciation

Now33

I am contemplating buying a new car in the next couple of months (small family car) and wondered what the best models are for depreciation. I bought my current car (Peugeot 307) 4 years ago for £11.5k and now its worth trade in about £3.5k - so over the 4 years it cost me £8k - or £2k per year.

When I get a new car I will probably keep it again for about 4 years, and I am wondering what makes/models of cars have lower depreciation than others. Can anyone better £2k per year on a new car? Anyone like to share their experiences on this?

michaels

Answer - buy a second hand car

Compare a new car at 12k to a year old at 7k - 3 years later the new one is worth 4.5k the year old one 3.5k so you have saved 5k - nice

Plus you have not paid loan interest at 6% on 6k for 3 years so another £1080 saved - so maybe you have had to pay for 1 year of warranty 300 quid but it kind of still makes things cheaper. Get a private plate (from £250) if you can't bear people seeing you have bought second hand.

Riq

BMW 3 Series
New Mini
Audi A3


Why buy new? Buy second hand, a year old and you have saved yourself a sexy slice of depreciation.

rsvtoddy

The reason the German cars appear to decreciate less is the options bought when new can affect the calculations if conveniently forgotten! Just try and find a Mini without loads of option packs on it!

As said above buy a one year old car which will be cheaper and have had the teething problems sorted out!

HTH

jeannieblue

loads of cars out there around a year old. some ex lease cars in v good condition. Am - hopefully picking one up myself tomorrow, deposit paid, and if I like it and its ok, will get it. Saved 5k from not buying it new. And its only done just over 2,000 miles. Lots of good deals out there - may have to travel to get one, but thats not bad if get a good deal.

I'm looking forward to my trip tomorrow (ooer look at the time) I'm looking forward to my trip today! May travel on a bit further south after get car, if its ok, and have lunch by the sea!

Also, to be extra boring, if I'd bought new, I would've got a discount via my BIL, and am still saving 5k - in other words, saving alot more than 5k!:j

anewman

Buy at £500, no depreciation possible then.

jeannieblue

Very true - but I'm a bit of a posy cow:D

balsingh

jeannieblue wrote: »

Very true - but I'm a bit of a posy cow:D

in that case ... buy a USED convertible between Nov and Feb as they are cheap during the colder months, then sell just before summer (May/June) to minimise depreciation.

anewman

I personally think depreciation is a good thing being someone at the bottom of the car market. All you gullible people 14 years ago bought something you thought was fantastic at the time, you ticked all the extras boxes, you even ticked that extra mettalic paint box. Being so vein you got rid of it after a few years and bought another new one and were on the treadmill for life. Then someone else drove it. Eventually, 14 years later, I get that car for well under £1000. There are many hundreds of thousand of good cars at the under £1000 price bracket, and what's better is most people are snobby about cars so ignore one's in this price bracket, making a bigger selection of bargains available to me.

There's no real reason anyone should be worried about depreciation. If you can afford to buy a new car and want to flaunt it, you're basically not going to care about the depreciation. You spent money you had and you enjoyed the car and what spending a bit of money got you, end of. The way I see it is buy what you can afford to lose. There's enough different cars around with prices to suit almost everyone, so there's never a reason to struggle to afford a car IMO.

But then again I'd actually prefer everyone remained ignorant of all the cheap cars

I can't think of any other product you can purchase that will go from the purchase price of say £10,000 to being worth under £1,000 in 15 years or so (appart from the uber expensive specialist computer systems, but hardly anyone buys them). And you only have to add on inflation to make that difference much worse. I also can't think of any other thing that people so commonly buy where you have an option to pay much much less if you want (with houses you have no choice).

daveyjp

Riq wrote: »

BMW 3 Series
New Mini
Audi A3


Why buy new? Buy second hand, a year old and you have saved yourself a sexy slice of depreciation.

In terms of money an A3 will cost abour £3,000 per year depreciation. Forget percentage dropped after three years. Look at the cash equivalent.

Audi new £20,000, after three years only 50% depreciation, this is still £10,000 or £3,333 per year.

Aygo new £7,000, after 3 years 50% depreciation, £3,500 or less than £1200 per year.

iolanthe07

All this is very true, but you can't beat the smell of a new car, the knowledge that no one has abused it, scrimped on servicing, had sex on the back seat, smoked or thrown up in it. I'll take a new car every time, to hell with the cost.